With the art market showing signs of slowing, London is looking to attract a new generation of art buyers and showcase young emerging artists in the process.
According to statistics, global art sales will decrease by 4% annually in 2023 Art Basel 2024 and UBS Art Market ReportAfter two years of growth, it fell to $65 billion.
It has led industry professionals – such as Elio D’Anna, co-founder and CEO of the House of Fine Arts (HOFA) gallery in London’s Mayfair – to turn their attention to younger collectors and young artist.
“Five years ago… we were targeting more buyers between 35 and 45 years old, almost 50/50 male and female. But now we’re seeing more buyers between 25 and 35 years old,” he told CNBC Said in “The Art of Appreciation”.
The rise in young collectors comes at a time when artificial intelligence and how it can be harnessed to create works remains a hot topic in the art world.
That’s certainly D’Anna’s focus. HOFA represents artist Sougwen Chung, who uses robots designed by Chung to co-create works. Chung, using the pronoun “they,” refers to the machine as the Drawing Operating Unit (DOUG).
“I am now mainly engaged in robotic performance and cultural relic work, which means converting numbers such as data, motion data, spatial data, etc. into real tangible works that the audience can experience,” Zhong told CNBC.
Chung, a former researcher at the MIT Media Lab, said they trained the robot using 20 years of data from their own drawings. “It’s really, really interesting because we can see my own stylistic input, my own decision-making… transfer and translate into a machine system,” they said.
Artist Sougwen Chung and one of their artworks, created using the DOUG robot they designed.
CNBC
In October, London’s Phillips auction house sold one of Chung’s works, “Spectral,” for $35,000 in an auction called “Spectral.”space,” a collaboration with HOFA.
phillips saw a Increase in young collectors Buy works by living artists. For Henry Highley, its head of European private sales, Spaces embodies “the fascinating intersection of technology and art.”
“Philips does recognize the importance and significance of artificial intelligence art in…the broader art market,” Haley told CNBC. “We really want to have something new and fresh.”
“Change of Generations”
At Frieze London, the city’s famous art fair that attracts wealthy collectors and celebrities, works by young artists were displayed in gallery booths in a special “focus” area near the entrance.
“Sections like Focus, which represent young artists, are taking this generational shift seriously and considering the types of artists that younger collectors are also interested in supporting,” said Eva Langret, director of Frieze London. told CNBC’s Tania Bryer at the October event.
According to the Art Market 2024 report, finding new buyers is a top priority for dealers, with many describing some clients as “aging” or with collections full.
The United States and Europe were described as “‘essentially saturated’ and in some areas particularly lacking in the next generation of collectors,” the report said. In 2023, the United States will be the world’s largest art market, and China will surpass the United Kingdom to rank second.
Artist Charlotte Edey with some of her work on display at London’s Frieze art fair.
CNBC
At Frieze, multidisciplinary artist Charlotte Edey’s installation is on display as part of “Focus” at the Ginny On Frederick gallery booth. Her work consists of a series of drawings and tapestries, mounted in wooden frames.
Edey described the show as “different levels of exposure” and told CNBC that her work draws on “images of interior spaces of houses, domestic spaces and how that can be used…as a tool to explore more emotional ized, or body-like mental structures.
Curator Cedric Fauq said the “Focus” section provides unique opportunities for emerging artists. “Focus enables artists to push their practice, try new things, and showcase their experiments to the world,” he told CNBC.
Langret said Frieze hopes to attract Gen Z and Millennial buyers through its Frieze Viewing Rooms website. “The younger generation is really happy to buy works online and to discover products offered by art fairs online,” she said.
It’s not just art fairs looking to attract younger audiences. Contemporary art gallery Moco Museum has branches in Amsterdam and Barcelona and opened a London branch in August. Its co-founder Kim Logchies-Prins said the younger audience is the focus. “They want to be popular, and I planned it with them in mind,” she said.
“We always exhibit great names. So, you’ll always see your (Andy) Warhol, your (Jean-Michel) Basquiat, your (Jeff) Koons , and then some emerging artists.
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