Looking Ahead: 2022 Art Market Predictions

What the start of 2022 can tell us about the upcoming year

The art market saw some major changes in 2021. No one could have predicted the skyrocketing rise of NFTs, the ever-increasing collector interest in young contemporary artists, auction sales surpassing their 2018 peak, and other market trends that we’ve seen over the past twelve months.

Now that we’re into 2022 with January behind us, multiple major events have already taken place that may offer a glimpse of what is yet to come. Read on for a full breakdown and to see what these events may indicate concerning incoming trends for the year ahead.

Art Fairs 

TEFAF New York. Source: TEFAF.

Art fairs have perhaps suffered the most throughout the pandemic. With fairs being re-scheduled and cancelled for the third year in a row, there is little confidence in the strength of the fair sector.

We left 2021 with the news of TEFAF Maastricht postponing the fair that was originally meant to take place in March amidst the Delta and Omicron variant fears. New dates were announced in the middle of January for 25-30 June. This will mark a hectic summer period for art fairs with Art Basel in Switzerland taking place 16-19 of June, with TEFAF Maastricht following, and wrapped up by Masterpiece in London from 30 June – 6 July. Many other fairs are in a similar position, with major fairs such as Art Basel Hong Kong, London Art Fair and India Art Fair continuously postponing dates and minor fairs facing cancellations, with 1-54 Art Fair in Marrakech being one of the first to make an announcement.

Due to continuous COVID-19 uncertainties, there is no clear prediction for when art fairs will be able to resume their operations as normal. Some experts suggest that the market will have to adapt to this new normal altogether, with dates completely reshuffled and major fairs and auction sales rescheduled to align with the ‘safer’ seasons[1]. 

Auction Sales 

Botticelli, Man of Sorrows, c. 1500-1510. Courtesy of Sotheby’s. Source: The Art Newspaper.

The year opened with Old Masters auctions and yet another Botticelli highlight almost exactly a year after the previous one. The Man of Sorrows sold at Sotheby’s for $45 million (with premium), marking the second-highest price paid for Botticelli painting at auction, yet also considerably lower than last year’s record of $92 million paid for Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel. Although some consider this year’s sale to have ‘underperformed,’ according to the latest ArtTactic Market overview, the Old Masters market has remained steady throughout the pandemic, so there is no cause for concern within that sector.

All other major sales are yet to happen this year. Looking ahead to March, Modern and Contemporary evening auctions are due to take place with lots from young contemporary artists booming from 2021, alongside a highlight lot by Rene Magritte, Lucian Freud, Franz Marc, multiple paintings by Monet, and many more. There is a lot to look forward to! 

NFTs 

NFTs that were stolen from Larry Lawliet. Source: The Block.

One of the unmissable key art market highlights of 2021 was the rise of NFTs. From putting Beeple in the top three of the most expensive living artists at the time of sale to seeing all major art institutions dip their toes into the mysterious world of the Metaverse, the list of NFT events last year is as striking as the phenomenon itself. However, the wave of excitement has settled as 2021 closed with a drop in ‘alternative asset’ interest, which includes NFTs[1].

There are still many NFT projects that have come out of the 2021 boom which provides hope for the sector, including Particle, Feral File and Sotheby’s Metaverse to name just a few. Looking ahead, many promising NFT projects are in the pipeline and we are closely monitoring Refik Anadol’s DATALAND and Pak’s new projects, among others.  

However, one of the concerns that have become evident in the last month is the issue of security within the NFT space. The tales told about the highly advanced security of blockchain technology have started to disintegrate after collectors began suffering from cyber-crime. Some instances occurred as early as August 2021, but the more NFTs were stolen, the more concern among collectors started to rise.

This article brought together instances of many NFT collectors who took to Twitter once their crypto-wallets were hacked and showcased responses from both sides of the NFT-opinion spectrum.

Two of the latest major events were a loss of $2.7 million and $2.2 million in Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs by collectors Larry Lawliet and Todd Kramer respectively. The events and the technical intricacies of how they occurred are documented here and here.

So, what can we make of all this? Traditional art market collectors will now be even more sceptical towards NFTs as a type of alternative asset, whereas those who were previously solely interested in NFTs could now broaden their art market reach by getting into the more traditional, safer and insurable market assets, thus leaving traditional art in its comfortable market position.

Public Sectors

Lastly, the public art sector has seen some interesting developments which look promising for the year to come. The end of 2021 has seen great development in this sector for Russia, with the GES-2 House of Culture opening in Moscow after a year delay due to the pandemic (shown above). A grand arts centre set up in a former power plant somewhat resembling Tate Modern, it is the first art centre of its kind in Russia and is set to be admission-free, unlike other art institutions. The centre has seen great interest from visitors, having been fully booked for most of the holiday period and weekends – a very promising start of a potential revival for the Russian public sector of art. 

This month started with the news of the Biden administration reversing Trump-era restrictions on federal art commissions in the US - a major step forward towards diversifying the nature of public art across the country and giving more creative freedom to artists rather than the government, which has been flirting with ideas of censorship amidst Trump-era criticisms. We are yet to see the fruits of this announcement, but this support from the Biden administration certainly gives hope to the US public arts sector and its artists. 

The UK is also keeping up, with several public art projects scheduled to be presented this year. This article explores some that have already been unveiled and offers a hopeful glimpse of what is yet to come.

[1] Georgina Adam, The Art Newspaper Podcast, 14th of January 2022.

[2] ArtTactic, Global Art Market outlook 2022.

Anya Nikolaeva

Art Markets & Business Co-Editor, MADE IN BED