Super Super Insights #3
Richard Serra Videy Drawing XIX, 1991
Market: Looking back / Looking forward
As we welcomed 2024, the Christmas break was a time to reflect on a busy and tumultuous year. With wars still raging in Ukraine and Gaza, the economic outlook seemed bleak and the new year earmarked for a recession across the globe and financial markets shrinking. That being said, many things are still in a state of flux, not to mention the effect of the upcoming presidential election taking place this year, which will have a monumental impact on the future of the above geo-political crises’, but also buyers confidence in the art market.
We started the year by mounting the inaugural exhibition Magnus Frederik Clausen, Débora Delmar, Laurent Dupont in our now permanent Berlin space on Brunnenstr. 22 – in many ways, this was some time coming. After 2 years of nomadic exhibitions in Cologne, Berlin, Munich; it was time to put some roots down and build a program of 5 exhibitions per year (in one location). We couldn’t be more excited about opening our first gallery.
Super Super Markt, Brunnenstr. 22, Berlin
Before we start, make sure to note down the dates of these unmissable art fairs in the first half of this year. Also, the monumental 60th Venice Biennale: Foreigners Everywhere (April 20 – November 24, 2024) is coming up, which we will of course be visiting on the weekend of May 21. If you haven’t booked your slot yet, get in touch with us here! There are just a few spaces left…
As with the two previous editions of our Super Super Insights, we’ll be looking at rising stars to take note of and how to take advantage of this year, in gaining access to the most in demand artists at a crucially early stage. On top of that, you’ll find some key findings on the recent March 7 auctions that offer a glimpse into the market's temperature for 2024.
We both want to thank you again for being a part of our Premium community, and we can’t wait for a full year of inspiration, learnings and many new discoveries with you ❤️
Primary: Better together
Consolidations: Two US auction houses merge, forming a major player in the market for American art
With the art-world's attention drawn to Los Angeles for the Frieze LA fair, maybe Hollywood is getting us flustered or the notion of a ‘Hollywood Huddle’: “We believe the media industry is inching closer to the tipping point for another wave of consolidation”, Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich wrote in a recent note.
Whilst Warner Bros, Discovery and Paramount seem destined to consolidate in 2024, we’re seeing similar business tactics taking place in the art world. Major auction houses merging in the US: Freeman’s I Hindman.
Condo London: January 2024
Condo happened! Conceived in 2016, Condo is a collaborative effort between 50 galleries across 23 exhibition spaces in London. After a 4 year hiatus (and a global pandemic), Condo came back with a renewed sense of support and consolidation between older / younger galleries (Maureen Paley, London & Sweetwater, Berlin; Erlich Steinberg, LA & Herald St., London; Galerie Neu, Berlin & Emalin, London), where a residency at each London gallery showcased emerging artists in hot destinations around the capital.
Condo London: Sadie Coles, London hosting KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, January 20 – February 17, 2024
Bottom line, did it translate into sales and strong foot fall? Traffic, absolutely – our various discussions with participants suggest that it was effective for sales under GBP 10k, but very much a home grown audience, and participating galleries were likely to take risks in showing more experimental art, taking into account low participation fees of only €900 per gallery. Considerably less than current art fairs. It’s really a chance for the younger galleries to get exposure in a key market like London, so this new exchange between different galleries from different territories is set to continue, with the Mexico City edition running concurrently with the art week and main fairs (ZonaMaco and Material) in February 2025.
Whitney Biennial: March 2024
Featuring 71 artists in a group show titled Even Better Than the Real Thing, this cohort is shaping the conversation about contemporary art in the US today – since it’s introduction in 1932, the Whitney Biennial has always been a major date in the art calendar and this year it contends with the OG Biennale in Venice, opening a month later. The Whitney Biennial is a defining moment in the art-world calendar, where emerging artists are given huge exposure to make a name for themselves, in front of critics, curators, galleries, defining the next stages in their careers. Here are some names we’ve chosen to look out for from the list of 71:
2024 forecast in the Primary sector
At the end of last year, influential art advisor and podcast host Josh Baer of The Baer Faxt stated: “Everyone has acknowledged an art market correction, but let us be the first to predict an upcoming bull market.”
Baer expects this surge of sales in 2024 will be more in terms of volume rather than price. In part, helped by generational shifts in capital, growing wealth inequality and new buyers entering the market. He went on to talk about what a difference it would make for 200.000 – 300.000 collectors in the market actively buying works and building notable collections.
In the book ‘How to Collect Art’, author Magnus Resch talks about how buying contemporary art is still something a wider mainstream audience is getting used to doing. Of the 80.000 people who walk through the doors of the Miami Beach Convention Centre for Art Basel in the first week of December, only 2.000 end up buying. Resch believes that there are still around 20.000 people who have the disposable income to actually buy art at the far – so why all the window-shopping? One thing he suggests is education and transparency in dealers showing prices. There’s still a long way to go. Critics could also point to the audience itself and the culture in which the Art Basel Miami Beach is still more of a lifestyle and party one than other editions of the fair’s franchise.
Anders Petterson, founder and chief executive of ArtTactic stated, “The top end of the art market will see a gradual shift and a new generation should step in. But it will be interesting to see to what extent this younger generation shares the same interests as the old guard”.
As writer Scott Reyburn noted in ArtTactic’s 2023 report, the lower end of the market remained “very active, with an 18% increase in the number of artworks sold below $50k” last year. This point, to us at least, is super interesting. Not least because this suggests strength in a market of emerging artists (one that we champion9, but also that there is demand and interest for people to purchase works by the next generation of art stars.
One can often get caught up in headlines stating sales of big ticket items at auction that really don’t reflect the bigger picture and health of the art market. It’s important to see the sales in categories under $100k and $50k, to understand that there is a business happening in the emerging categories, where you’ll certainly find good opportunities to gain access earlier on in supporting artist’s careers.
UBS Art Market Report: Sales Channels Used by High Net Worth Collectors for Purchasing 2022/2023
Secondary: Guaranteed to play it safe
One line that raised our eyebrows: Christie’s statement on its end-of-year results highlights a “65% rise in new Gen Z buyers (driven by handbags, watches and edition prints)” and Millennials making up 34% of all new buyers.
ArtTactic’s research shows that auction sales of prints and limited editions (a sector favoured by younger art buyers) generated $103.2m last year, across the top 3 auction houses – Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips – at an increase of 18.3% in 2022. “Instantly recognisable images by established names can be bought at affordable price points,” says Art Tactic’s Petterson:
Spring Auctions Overview – London
As the Spring auctions unravelled, it was perhaps understandable that there was a certain amount of precaution from the houses – as with the November sales in New York, employees are dreading that this set of results could spoil the start of the auction season for 2024, setting a depressing mood of negativity amongst the art-world. While a ‘white-glove’ sale (every lot sold) can indicate strength, we’ve seen a lot of low-estimates for works by notable names, helping to entice auction goers.
We expected auctions that were heavily guaranteed (pre-agreed terms of sale prices), with a mix of direct guarantees and mostly those backed by third parties. This spoke more in terms of consignor’s hesitancy with the strength of the buyer’s market. Here is a run-down of the results from the Big Three in London:
Christie’s
The evening sales at Christie’s made mostly within-estimate results – so no surprises there: An interesting view noted by the Art Newspaper’s Kabir Jhala was that art of the surreal auctions were up 18.5% by value on their March 2023 versions. The auction fell on the centenary of the Surreal Manifesto by André Breton. These recurring surrealistic-themed works peaked our interest, as works by many young artists dealing with motifs of ‘the surreal’ were included in Christie’s and other day sale auctions. Notably, the market seemed to be white hot for the surreal landscapes by the late Italian artist SALVO, also heavily featured across the houses this season.
SALVO Il giorno fu pieno di lampi la sera verranno le stelle (The day was full of lightning in the evening stars will come out), 1991, Christie's, Estimate: GBP 60.000 - 120.000, Sold for GBP 693.000
But let’s not forget the strength of female artists over international women’s day on Friday, March 8: The success of works by female artists signalled their continued appeal to global collectors. Strong prices were achieved by Agnes Martin’s Loving Love (2000), a lyrical work from her late career, which realised GBP 2.823.000, and by Cecily Brown’s early painting Can Can (1998), which made GBP 2.218.000. Following the November 2023 sale of A Thistle Throb at Christie’s for $1.683.500 – more than triple its low estimate – Jadé Fadojutimi’s monumental 2021 canvas The Woven Warped Garden of Ponder set a new auction record for the artist, achieving GBP 1.552.500 after six minutes of bidding.
Another young female artist that we’ve looked at, aside from Fadojutimi: Allison Katz’s mysterious Snowglobe (2018) achieved GBP 277.200. A new auction record for the Canadian artist, who recently closed her first solo show titled Westwood Ho! at Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles.
Allison Katz Snowglove, 2018, Christie's, Estimate: GBP 40.000 - 60.000, Sold for GBP 277.200
Sotheby’s
The auction house made GBP 82m before fees and set records for Etel Adnan and Takako Yamaguchi, whilst the Modern and Contemporary sections made 40% less than last year’s auction at the same time. Melanie Gerlis in the FT noted that the house withdrew 10 lots out of 70 at the evening auction: We wonder whether this is a record?!
Star performers were Victor Man’s The Chandler (2013), which was recently featured in the artist's solo show at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, soaring above its GBP 60-80k estimate, selling for GBP 320.000. We exhibited a work by the Romanian artist Untitled (from The White Shadow of His Talent) (2011) alongside Jean-Marie Appriou’s sculpture The Orphans of the Sun (Blind) (2018) in our office space over Berlin’s Gallery Weekend last year.
Victor Man The Chandler, 2013, Sotheby's, Estimate: GBP 60.000 - 80.000, Sold for GBP 320.000
Phillips
Philips is without a doubt (out of the ‘Big Three’) auction houses, the one that debuts emerging artists under the hammer. Expect works from the last 5 years with an air of ‘wet paint’ to feature in the first 14 lots of the day sales at Phillips. It’s what they’re known for. No more so than the New Now, New York sale on March 12. For results click here. In London, for the spring sale however, the 27-lot sale brought in GBP 10.9m excl. auction house fees, after three works were pulled and another three were bought in / failed to sell – most notably, a Kippenberger crucified frog Zuerst die Füße (Feet First) (1991), and a self-portrait by Adrian Ghenie.
Martin Kippenberger Zuerst die Füße (Feet First), 1991, Phillips, Estimate: GBP 500.000 - 700.000
After expecting to bring in GBP 11.7-16.4m, one could say this was a largely disappointing set of auction results for Phillips, despite several new auction records over the course of the afternoon. The attention Phillips seem to want to direct journalists to is the sale of an 1982 Portrait of Princess Diana by Andy Warhol that sold for just north of GBP 1m, but this didn’t really get our juices flowing like the series finale of The Crown on Netflix.
With all these so-called records at auction for young artists, one has to question whether a large proportion of this is down to Phillips’ knack for showcasing emerging artists for the first time and how this allows for a high probability of new records. Jesse Mockrin, Alia Ahmad, Jonathan Gardner – all ulta-contemporary artists with works executed in recent years coming to auction. Surely a lot of speculative decisions by winners and underbidders, but overall across the evening and day sale, there was nothing that really captured our attention here.
Parting shot
So, overall a tepid set of results for the 3 auction houses, but as they very much hit the mid-estimates, and with some lots being removed right before the sales began to save more blushes, we can assume these are acceptable but nothing remarkable. In part, expected, but also no stellar sales to hide or make up for the slightly lacklustre results of the past seasons.
It’s yet to be seen whether the houses are saving up some special lots for the May auctions in New York (during the New York art fair season). With collectors holding out for sunnier times, it will be hard for the auction houses to consign any notable lots for Q2 in 2024. That being said, we should add some additional silver lining: These moments allow for plenty of negotiation with the houses (post-auction) for any unsold lots. There is also a lot to be said for their private sale departments currently being particularly busy, negotiating on behalf of clients who are not willing to consign a work of theirs to sale, but to privately leave it in the hands of the auction houses facilitating sales. Let us know what you might be looking for and we can get on the phone!