17/04/2026
MY VIEW ON....
Nobody is buying art - but we can change this
The art market is up 4% this year. That’s the headline. But zoom out, and nothing has changed. The market is still roughly where it was ten years ago. A decade of expansion - more fairs, more artists, more global wealth - and no real growth. At the same time, the number of buyers is falling. For smaller galleries, it dropped by as much as 40% last year.
So what’s going on? Because interest in art has never been higher. Museums are full. Art fairs attract tens of thousands of visitors. A new generation is more culturally engaged than ever - just not in the way the art market expects. They collect sneakers, watches, design, memorabilia. They move across categories and understand objects as identity. And they have the money. A massive wealth transfer is underway. But they don’t buy art. At least not in the way the market needs them to.
The problem is not demand. It’s conversion. The gallery system is built to filter buyers, not to capture them. Prices are opaque. Discounts are hidden. Waitlists are fake. For a generation used to instant price comparison, this isn’t sophistication - it’s friction. Access is no better. Galleries still operate on unwritten rules. The system assumes new buyers will adapt. They don’t. They stay on the sidelines.
This is striking because 83% of collectors under 35 say investment matters to them. They are rational. They compare art to other asset classes. And when they do, art loses. Other collectible market - sneakers, watches, cars - offer transparency, liquidity, and seamless access. Platforms like StockX or Chrono24 convert interest into transactions. The art market does the opposite. It creates uncertainty where others create confidence.
That’s why the next generation isn’t rejecting collecting. They’re redirecting it. They buy what is legible, liquid, and easy to access. And they don’t think in categories. For them, art sits next to watches, handbags, cars, and design. The data confirms it. Around 90% of collectors are active in art - but at the same time, 70–80% buy jewelry and watches, around 70% engage with design objects, over 50% buy other collectibles (sneakers, cards, etc).
As always, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have understood this - and they’re moving fast. Ten years ago, their revenue was around $1 billion. Today, it’s closer to $7 billion. Leaders like Tad Smith and Guillaume Cerutti saw early that growth wouldn’t come from art alone. Nearly 40% of Sotheby’s sales now come from luxury - everything from watches to $10 million Birkin bags. They understood something simple: it’s the same clients buying across categories.
The gallery world, meanwhile, still behaves as if it’s separate. With a 4 year delay, Art Basel finally introduced an NFT and digital art section. But that’s only a partial response. If collectors already move seamlessly across art, fashion, and design, why doesn’t the gallery market reflect that? Why not integrate categories - bags, sneakers, collectibles - into the fair and gallery model?
Because the gallery market still defines itself by what it sells. The next generation defines itself by how it collects. At the top, nothing changes. Record prices continue. The best artists sell. But below that, the market is thinning out. Fewer buyers. Less momentum. More fragility. The gallery market doesn’t have a supply problem. It has a conversion problem. And until it learns how to turn interest into actual buyers, growth will remain exactly what it has been for the past decade: flat.
Magnus Resch
