Global art sales set a fresh record last year, driven by acquisitions from new museums, while China maintained its place at the top of the market, data firm Artprice said yesterday.
Works worth US$15.2 billion sold at auction during the year, an increase of 26 percent over 2013, Artprice said in its annual report, produced with China’s Artron.
A record number of 1,679 sales worth US$1 million or more were recorded over the year, four times more than a decade ago, it added.
Artprice founder and chief executive Thierry Ehrmann described the figures as “an amazing result, an increase of 300 percent in a decade.”
He added that the boom was not being driven by speculators, with 37 percent of lots going unsold in the West and 54 percent in China.
Last year also saw 125 artworks sell for US$10 million or more, not including commission, against 18 in 2005.
“Greater China,” grouping Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, remained the market leader, accounting for US$5.6 billion in sales, closely followed by the US.
However, in a sign that a slowdown in Beijing’s economy and an anticorruption drive that has curtailed luxury spending might have taken their toll, sales in China were down 5 percent compared to 2013.
Last year was an exceptionally strong year in the US, with US$4.8 billion being spent at US auctions, an increase of 21 percent from the previous year.
British auction houses also put in a solid performance to secure third place with US$2.8 billion in sales, up 35 percent from 2013.
“Demand is constant and aggressive on every continent... notably from museums,” Ehrmann said.
“More museums were created between 2000 and 2005 than during the entire 19th and 20th centuries,” added Wang Jie, president of Artprice.com and Artron group.
The phenomenal expansion saw a new museum opening every day somewhere in the world, led by growth in Asia, he said.
“A museum needs a minimum of 3,000 to 4,000 quality works to be credible... [and] is not meant to get rid of its acquisitions,” he added.
Even though top-valued lots represented just a small proportion of the total market, they were key to the US and Britain maintaining their top positions.
Of the 125 sales worth US$10 million or more, 83 were conducted in the US. These sales represent just 1 percent of lots, but 75 percent of US sales volume.
One of the most spectacular auction results of the year saw Black Fire 1, a 1961 work by US abstract expressionist Barnett Newman, sell for US$84 million in New York in May last year.
It had a presale estimate of US$39 million.
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