International art market 2021: What a fireworks display!

E.in Picasso for 90 million dollars at the top of the international auction system, followed by a Basquiat for 81 million and a Botticelli for 80 million: Admittedly, these are not as big as the 2017 Leonardo attributed and incredible 400 million expensive “Salvator Mundi” (that most expensive picture of all time) or the 160 million that achieved a version of Pablo Picasso’s “Les femmes d’Alger” in 2015. But we look back on 2021, the second of the corona pandemic. In view of this, the global high-price market is more robust and much more innovative than the paintings by old acquaintances in the top spots alone would suggest.

The big auction houses have reported record sales in unison. For Sotheby’s and Phillips, it was the best results in the company’s history. Sotheby’s had a whopping $ 7.3 billion in annual revenues, 71 percent more than last year, 26 percent more than 2019. At Christie’s it was $ 7.1 billion, a result that is 54 percent higher than in 2020 and 22 Percent above that of 2019. Phillips also exceeded the pre-pandemic level with revenues of $ 1.2 billion – by a whopping 32 percent. The houses do not want to explain this solely with the pent-up demand of bidders who could not or did not want to invest in the first phase of the Covid crisis. The magic word is digitization. This not only increased the share of online auctions quickly and effectively and thus satisfied the demand in uncertain investment times, but also with new offers such as non-fungible tokens (NFT) and the acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of payment for large new and above all affluent customer groups Reached art and luxury goods.

People such as the 31-year-old Chinese tech billionaire Justin Sun, who bought Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture “Le Nez” at Sotheby’s in New York for $ 62 million in November. Sun is the founder of the cryptocurrency platform TRON. In March he was just beaten in the bidding competition for the most discussed top lot of the year: The NFT for Beeple’s digital collage “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” was awarded to 33-year-old Indian “Metaverse King” and digital art collector at Christie’s in New York Vignesh Sundaresan slammed for 60.25 million dollars – who, by the way, himself says that investments in such tokens, i.e. certificates of ownership for digital or other works stored on the blockchain encrypted, are highly speculative. Sun, in turn, for the trophy of the first NFT to sell for such a large amount, turned around and instead bought a nude by Picasso and three self-portraits by Warhol at Christie’s. Cross-over between the genres and the hybridization of the market as virtual and physical, digital and analog, in short: trading and collecting art of all kinds in the metaverse – high hopes are now directed towards this.

Despite such developments that force even traditionalists to deal with blockchain technology, some old truths remain eternally valid. For example, that “divorce”, “death” or “debt” bring the most beautiful collections under the hammer. Last year, the war of the roses between real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his wife Linda forced the record auction of their collection at Sotheby’s, from which four works made it into the top ten works of art of the year: the Giacometti, a Rothko, a Pollock and a Twombly. The counterpart at Christie’s was the auction of the collection of the oil tycoon Edwin Cox, who died in 2020 and whose passion was impressionism and post-impressionism. Vincent van Gogh’s picture of huts between olive trees rose to sixth place.

And then there was the handsome young man whom Sandro Botticelli captured in oil around 1480. A solitaire, surrounded by modernity and contemporaries, it points to the future: In January, a “man of sorrows” by the Renaissance artist will be called, valued at over 40 million dollars. His appearance is the first highlight in 2022 for an economic sector that has really not run out of fireworks.