A market changing its skin and looking towards more sustainable sales
There is a significant decrease in works above ten million and an increase in those below $50,000
3' min read
3' min read
Art does not end with market graphs. It does not coincide with percentage fluctuations or records being broken in the auction room. Art survives economic cycles because it belongs to a broader dimension: that of culture, collective memory and shared experience. Precisely for this reason, the cooling down that the market is going through today should not be read as an irreversible decline, but as a phase transition.
Artnet's Mid-Year Intelligence Report 2025 records an 8.8% drop in fine art auction sales in the first half of the year, with the average price per lot falling by 6.5%, to its lowest level in the last decade. The collapse in transactions above ten million dollars was dramatic: -43.4%, with only 27 lots sold, an all-time low. It is the epilogue of a season in which the ultra-contemporary segment had exploded, now down 31.3%.
This is not an isolated episode. Already the Global Art Market Report 2025 by Art Basel and Ubs had highlighted a structural cooling of the top end: works above ten million were down 39% in 2024, after a -27% drop in 2023. Yet, while the spotlight shone on the collapse of stellar sales, elsewhere new dynamics were emerging: according to "The Art Newspaper", sales of works below $50,000 grew by 20%. Collectors have not abandoned the field; they have simply chosen more sustainable ground.
The market, therefore, is not in agony: it is changing its skin. The first to retreat are the speculators, burnt out by a model that turned young artists into fast-consuming assets. In contrast, more solid segments are growing: Old Masters (+24.4%) and the $1-10 million bracket (+13.8%), which now seems to be the new centre of gravity. Not the end of the market, but the end of a euphoric cycle.
Robert Jensen guessed it (2023, 'Journal of Cultural Economics'): the art market goes through cycles of expansion, contraction and realignment. But what makes the current transition unique is the extreme financialisation. Not surprisingly, the "Financial Times" reported the first margin calls on loans secured by works: when values fall, collateral falters, and art reveals how much it has been treated like a stock.
