While Contemporary Art is something that can be difficult to explain to many people, one thing that is not hard to tell is that it is no longer art that is just found in underground lairs or unusual places in the city. It is now in mainstream galleries and even sold at auctions. Many Contemporary Performances are happening around the world, and you can even view some on Vimeo. Or you can watch some Contemporary Films there too.
Art at Auctions
20 years ago was a different time for the art world. A lot has changed and the art world has grown with more artists coming into the fold. Or people looking to express themselves in unique and unusual ways. Looking at the Contemporary Art Market it went from 5, 400 artists up to over 32, 000 with more coming. Not only is there a jump in the number of Contemporary Performance artists, but there is also a huge leap in the amount of created pieces.
So much so that many auction houses took notice and displayed these works to get sold. Although the older the work, in painted form, the better. Either way, the lots went from 12, 000 to 123, 000. Plus, these types of auctions went from 39 to 64 countries. This means that the number of auction houses that take part in the Contemporary Art Market almost doubled. Not to mention the increase in Contemporary Art Galleries in recent years.
On To The Percentages
Auctions are all about numbers, and percentages so let’s take a look at some. Well, let’s look at more numbers. Contemporary Art is said to account for about 15 percent of the global fine art turnover at auction. This is said to be its primary growth which has increased by 2, 100 percent over the past 20 years. This is way up from 3 percent two decades ago.
It is also strongly suggested that over 60 percent of auctions are looking for Contemporary Art paintings to sell. This would make sense since these and other items that you can keep forever such as prints, sculptures, clothes, etc, unlike a performance. A film you can also keep, but they are not yet as sought after as paintings. Either way, Contemporary artworks have increased their value to about 22, 7 billion US dollars, since 2000. And another interesting number to point out is that 68 percent of the global auction turnover is created by the USA and China. The latter fairly recently got into the Contemporary Art Market game hoping to most likely get a profit.
All this information and so much more can be found in the “Artprice Report – 20 Years of Contemporary Art Auction History, 2000-2020” where they also have a list of 1000 contemporary artists as ranked by their auction revenue.
But What Can This Mean for Artists
With Contemporary Art becoming more accessible to the general public it can make some artists uncomfortable. They could think that they would “sell out” and lose their artistic flare.
The truth is that art can be a business, and it always has been. Artists need to live, pay bills, buy food, buy art supplies, and the direction that the world is going can help out artists a lot. Much like how there arecasinos that accept deposits by SMS, artists need to figure out a way to make an income. The more people that are exposed to these types of works, the more they will see if they like or connect with it or not. They will not know till they try and they will not try if they did not know that these types of artworks even existed.
This does not mean that any artist is “selling out”. Instead, they are expanding their art to more and different people. Therefore, it means that more people can be introduced to the Contemporary Art world, and maybe even some of them can become artists themselves, with a chance to express themselves even if they have a strong casino or non-painting influence.