3 Art-World Experts on How the Art Market Will Change in 2021


The art market has gone through 10 years’ worth of innovation and evolution in the past 10 months. In many ways, the events of 2020—from the pandemic to global protest movements against systemic racism—added urgency to changes that were already happening at a glacial pace. As the rest of the world changed, so too did the art market, from auction houses, fairs, and galleries ramping up their online offerings, to collectors getting a lot more comfortable buying works based on high-resolution photos and videos. While some of these changes are temporary—be-masked auction house specialists stationed between plexiglass barriers will not be the norm forever—most are here to stay.To get more art in the news 2021, you can visit shine news official website.
We asked three art-world figures to address how their businesses—an auction house, a gallery, and an art fair—have adjusted this year and how they expect to keep adapting in 2021. Edward Dolman, the CEO of Phillips, helped transition the auction house toward a digital-first strategy with great success; on December 7th, Phillips had its biggest sale ever in New York, bringing in a total of $134.5 million and selling the fourth-most expensive auction lot of 2020, a landscape painting by David Hockney
. Jenkins Johnson Gallery founder and principal Karen Jenkins-Johnson has seen her space maintain its status as a bicoastal powerhouse for presenting new and historic works by artists of color while consistently putting together standout presentations at fairs, both in person and virtually, throughout the year. And in his capacity as Art Dubai’s artistic director, Pablo del Val has been instrumental in guiding the fair from the abrupt cancellation of its 2020 edition to unveiling a sleek virtual exhibition platform and planning the first major in-person art fair slated to take place in the new year.
Even before the pandemic, we were seeing year-on-year growth in online sales and international bidding by phone; in other words, collectors were making the choice to bid in a more accessible, flexible, and convenient way. With the events of this year, our plans for digital innovation were accelerated as auctions were quickly forced to pivot online. The changes required an openness from the collecting community to embrace these new technologies, and the market responded confidently to a steady stream of dynamic online-only sales, hybrid sales, and live virtual sales across all categories. Of course, there’s nothing quite like seeing a great work of art in person and we absolutely remain committed to our brick-and-mortar locations, this year going so far as to open a new outpost in Southampton. However, we are also keenly attuned to the reality of digital life and well aware that many of these advancements have proven to be extremely welcome and are here to stay.
With many art fairs having been put on pause, we’ve seen galleries, curators, and artists working much more closely with auction houses and I do see that as a longer-lasting trend.
Perhaps the furious pace of fairs and auctions will be adjusted a bit. The big giga-weeks were always so physically demanding on everyone’s resources—from staff, to collectors, and of course to journalists.