Preview for Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report (2015) Available Exclusively Through (AFP) Agence France Presse on 2 February 2016

PARIS, January 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

In its last half-year report, Artprice forecast that the Global Art Market would stabilise in 2015 against the backdrop of an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, thereby confirming its privileged position as an authentic financial safe haven, generating real capital gains.

In the West, total auction turnover from art maintained its 2014 level (with no change) at more than $11.2 billion, compared with it $4.6 billion ten years earlier (2005).

So even without China, the art market has more than doubled its value in 10 years!

This increase is particularly evident at the high-end of the market. Whereas an auction bid above $100 million was quite exceptional a decade ago (one in 2004), in 2015, there were two results above $140 million and an impressive and growing number of works fetched more than $10 million.

Artistic masterpieces are today one of the best financial investments money can buy as they resist all economic fluctuations. In effect, the perpetual value growth rate of works bought above the $100,000 threshold is 12-15%.

The main cause for the stabilisation of the Art Market is the growth in the commerce of art on all continents of the world. In the West, more than 360,000 works changed hands during 2015. This is 40% more than in 2005 and 3% better than last year.

Meanwhile, after two consecutive years of growth, China suffered a well managed slowdown. Between 2008 and 2010, while the world economy was shaken by the financial crisis, the Chinese art auction market quadrupled in value, from $844 million to more than $3.7 billion!

Since then China's annual art auction totals have oscillated around $4 billion, with the 2015 total being close to that of 2010. However, even that total has surprised pessimists. For the record... in 2000, China's secondary art market amounted to just $170 million.

On the whole, Artprice sees the 2015 figures as proof of the strength and solidity of the art market. New York, London and Hong Kong have shown particular resilience.

Our 14th Global Art Market Annual Report has been compiled by combining the statistical firepower of Artprice, world leader in Art Market information (headed and founded by thierry Ehrmann) and its powerful Chinese institutional partner Artron (and its subsidiary AMMA) headed by Wan Jie. The Report allows a  lucid and clear reading of the art market on all sides of the globe.

By pooling their resources, the two entities generate global art market analysis with an unprecedented level of accuracy and pertinence.  Amongst other features, the Report highlights the mechanisms of a ferociously intense global competition, particularly between the USA and China.

In 21 chapters, the report deciphers the Global Art Market and includes Artprice's famous ranking of the world's top 500 artists (by auction turnover), the top 100 auction results, a country-by-country analysis and a comparison of the activity in the market's major capital cities. It also analyses the figures for the different artistic periods and media, and contains a number of exclusive Artprice indices. As in previous years, the Report will be available free of charge in 7 languages (PDF format).

The growth of the art market since 2000 has been greatly facilitated by ease of access to Art Market information and by a remarkable increase in Internet sales with 95% of market players being connected. But it has also benefited from a degree of "financialisation", a massive increase in the population of art consumers (from 500,000 after the WWII to 70 million in 2015), their younger age and, of course, the market's expansion to the entire Greater Asia region, the Pacific rim, India, South Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Another major contributor is the burgeoning museum industry (700 new museums per year) which has become a significant economic reality throughout the world in the 21st century. Between 2000 and 2015, more museums opened than through the entire nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and this has naturally led to a massive increase in the demand for museum quality artworks.

The art market is now mature and liquid on all continents, offering returns of 12% to 15% per year for works exceeding $100,000 in value and proving that the art market constitutes a safe haven in times of financial and economic turmoil.

In addition it should not be forgotten that Art represents a vital element in the global competition for "soft power", particularly for countries like the United States, China and, on a different scale, Qatar.

The combined effect of all these factors is constantly inflating the values of artworks. After stagnating at a high range of $10 million in 1980s and then crossing the $100 million bar in the 2000s, on 5 February 2015, the New York Times reported that a Qatari buyer paid in excess of  $300 million for a painting by Paul Gauguin. Artprice believes that these same forces will inevitably lead to the crossing of the one billion dollar threshold, and probably much sooner than anyone is expecting...

The Artprice Global Index has once again shown positive growth in a large number of categories.

http://www.artprice.com (c) 1987-2015 thierry Ehrmann

About Artprice: 

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Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 604,000 artists. Artprice Images(R) gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 118 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians.

Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 4,500 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 3,600,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art.

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The 2014 Art Market Report contains the famous Artprice ranking of the world's 500 most sought-after artists, the top 100 auction results, market breakdowns by country and by city, by period and by medium, Artprice indices and 21 chapters that provide an uncompromising analysis of the Art Market. It is available free of charge in PDF format at http://imgpublic.artprice.com/pdf/rama2014_en.pdf

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