Christie's sold in the first half 18% ↑
“Best performance in 7 years”
“Only NFT works that can survive are sold”

Sayart.net 

Jason Yim, yimjongho1969@gmail.com 

Millennials in their 30s and 40s are emerging as major customers in the global art market. Also, the works of 21st century artists are the mainstays of works sold at high prices at Christie's. Experts analyzed that the art market is getting younger.

On July 15, Christie announced. “Christie’s total sales for the first half of the year were $4.1 billion, up 18% from the first half of last year. This is the best performance in the last 7 years.”

This sales figure is the sum of offline auctions, online auctions, and private sales held by Christie's in the United States, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.

The world's most expensive work in the first half of this year came from Christie's. It is 'Shot Sage, Blue Marilyn', a portrait of Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe produced by Andy Warhol. This work sold for $195.04 million (including commission) at an auction held at Christie's in New York in May. This sale price exceeded the highest price for a 20th-century work of art.

30% of Christie's first-half buyers are new customers. Among new customers, the proportion of millennials was 34%, up 3p from the first half of last year (31%). Millennials generally refer to the younger generation born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s.

In addition, various auction records were set on the Christie's 21st century platform.

48 female artists broke their auction highs, including Sarah Hughes' 'Spins from Switzerland' sold for $2.94 million, setting her own highest price.

Artist ‘Ernie Barnes' 'The Sugar Shack' sold for $15.2 million, 76 times the estimated price. 35 artists of other country also recorded the highest price for their work at auction.

The total sales of non-fungible tokens (NFT) work in the first half of the year was $4.75 million, which was only 5% of the first half of last year ($93.2 million). In this regard, Christie said, "Recently, the NFT market has been put to the test due to the volatility of cryptocurrencies. For this reason, collectors who purchase NFTs are mainly buying masterpieces that are likely to survive in the future.“