Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
With all of the disorienting and often dismaying events of 2024 finally behind us, it’s time to look towards the new year. Even though 2025 will be without a Whitney Biennial or a Venice Biennale, the year isn’t likely to be any quieter than last. As Senior Editor Alex Greenberger wrote in his preview of the year, 2025 is beset with new biennials on multiple continents and high-profile museum openings. And that’s without getting into how the prospective policies of the incoming Trump administration, which might affect an already tenuous economy and slowly recovering art market. If the market woes of 2024 continue, expect 2025 to winnow the field of art fairs, auction houses, and galleries. Lest we forget, the art world has expanded greatly in the last decade. This year will likely decide how much of that new infrastructure the market can actually support.
Below, we asked a roster of art world insiders to give us their view of what’s coming in 2025, both in the US and abroad.
Alex Glauber, art adviser and president of the Association of Professional Art Advisors: The outlook for 2025 is largely optimistic, but tinged with increasing ambivalence. Republican administrations typically have a binary effect on the art world. While the policies have historically done little to foster or support cultural development, the greatest beneficiary of their fiscal policies tend to be wealthy individuals who are the lifeblood of the market. With greater clarity and confidence on where the market stands at the end of 2024, there should be increased demand and participation among collectors in 2025. The ambivalence stems from a slew of policy variables such as interest rates, tariffs, and taxes that are all the more unpredictable given the mercurial nature of the next president.
Gabriela Palmieri, founder of Palmieri Fine Art and former Sotheby’s chairman of Contemporary art, Americas: There’s a comfort and a security that come with great trophies, regardless of if they are Old Masters, Picassos, or Basquiats. But when you look closely at the overall breadth of works that came to auction in 2024, you get the impression that there are some markets that are going to be revisited in 2025. Don’t call it a comeback, but perhaps it wouldn’t be shocking for the market to realize how relatively inexpensive great examples by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Ellsworth Kelly feel in addition to other great Minimalist and conceptual artists. Maybe we’ll see Christopher Wool’s market come back in a meaningful way, because there is a major delta between auction results and private sales. Collectors, I believe, will keep a tighter focus on what interests them. Due to the amount of auctions, fairs, and overall market speculation, the savviest collectors have had to adapt and say, “I’m not going to look at ten lots, l’m going to look at two.” I believe the smartest collectors, however, will realize the conversation is due for a change. It’s no longer going to just be about who else bought a work, or for how much, but hopefully there will be a deeper conversation about the art itself.
Phillip Hoffman, CEO and founder of the Fine Art Group: As we move into 2025, the art market’s most dominant trend is an increased emphasis on private transactions, both for buyers and sellers. In the wake of a sluggish auction market that may take another 12 to 18 months to fully rebound, private sales will continue to emerge as a preferred channel. The continued appeal of private sales in 2025 is that discretion will be increasingly valued in today’s highly scrutinized auction market. Additionally, the highest-caliber works will primarily be found in these private channels, presenting access to exclusive opportunities unavailable elsewhere. This trend is particularly evident among those establishing museums and foundations in newer markets, where private sales are favored for their flexibility, with the ability to transact on a timeline that suits both parties. Until auctions regain their footing, the private market will be central to the pace and tone of the industry.
I am positive for the year ahead, bolstered by developments in the art market globally. In particular, we’ve seen regional developments in the Middle East, with a slew of major investments, new museums, and real estate outposts announced in 2024. Looking ahead, we anticipate increased engagement from this region, with a growing collector base participating in the global blue chip art market.
David Shapiro, New York-based art appraiser and advisor: I see four trends from 2024 that may have an outsized impact on 2025. Firstly, the present strength in the equities market could cut both ways. Investors’ increased purchasing power could promote a turn away from the tentative market of 2023 and 2024, even with high interest rates. On the other hand, the strong performance of traditional investment vehicles could cause trepidation among some prospective buyers who had been more eager to collect art when equities markets were not performing well.
Secondly, the total of the three highest auction lots in the second half of 2024 was over double the total of three highest auction lots in the first half of 2024. Supply permitting, we should expect to see the continuation of this more expansive high end of the market. Christie’s record-shattering sale of René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954) for $121.6 million, which was more than $25 million above an already confident estimate with a guarantee, suggests that we can expect to see competition and consequently strong prices in 2025 when truly significant works are offered for sale.
Thirdly, in 2024, extraordinary prices were paid for major non-art objects, shattering all-time records for fossils, movie memorabilia, and sports memorabilia. In 2025, we should continue to see a cross-sector approach to collecting at the highest levels.
And, lastly, Sotheby’s recent reversal of their dramatically overhauled fee structure, to be effected in February 2025 less than a year after implementation, will make the house more competitive again, particularly for day sale consignments. It should also, in turn, promote healthy competition on the part of the other major auction houses to secure consignments that they might have won more easily when Sotheby’s non-negotiable terms were so unfavorable to sellers in the latter part of 2024.
Arushi Kapoor, Los Angeles and Miami-based art adviser and founder, the Agency Art House: In 2025, I anticipate an overall upward trend in the art market from a sales and pricing perspective. The growing interest from new collectors, particularly from the technology and finance sectors, will drive significant momentum as they begin investing in art as an asset. These clients are likely to focus on building curated collections featuring blue-chip artists, with works on paper and domestic-sized works offering an accessible entry point for acquiring prominent names.
I foresee the prints market returning to pre-2019, pre-Covid levels—sustaining sales, though without the dramatic price surges of recent years. I also think we won’t be seeing dramatic price surges in the emerging artists’ markets.
With the continued growth of the South Asian economy, particularly in India, I think we can expect accelerated demand for works by masters in the South Asian diaspora and an emergence of new collectors with a growing interest in building international art collections.
Laura Lester, Chicago-based art adviser: Since Covid, there’s been a lot of investment and a sort of frenzy of buying, obviously, in ultra-contemporary. I’ve really seen that pull back. But I think everyone’s feeling good about their money, for better or for worse, and I think 2025 is going to be a good, healthy year in the art market, but just a little bit more safe.
Even starting in Miami in December, you saw a lot of attraction to more stable markets, great examples by historical artists—or at least artists who have been canonized for more than 20 years. You saw people looking for the best example they could possibly buy that was representative of a body of work. So, collectors are not just grabbing inventory or speculatively gobbling up young artists. They’re being really thoughtful and choosy about purchases and going for examples that feel safer and more established.
Daphne King-Yao, director of Hong Kong’s Alisan Fine Arts: I’m quite hopeful for what’s going on in Asia. In Hong Kong, Christie’s just opened its new headquarters in the Henderson, and it’s huge. The auction houses are still expanding here, and everyone’s still optimistic. There’s still collectors here. People are still buying. They’re just more cautious … What you read in the press in the US is different from what is happening in reality.
In this type of market, people are much more cautious, but if serious collectors and dealers see something that’s good, they’re still going to go for it. The things that aren’t good, those are the ones that you’re going to see a softening or maybe they don’t get sold. Good pieces are still going to get sold. That’s normal in this type of market.
Liza Essers, owner and director of South Africa’s Goodman Gallery: 2025 promises to be an exciting year for 20th century and contemporary artists from the African continent, as international institutions continue to recognize their significant contributions. These artists’ voices are integral to the canon and the evolving discourse around global modernism(s). The market is finally catching up as we’ve seen sales of early works by William Kentridge and pioneering 20th century figures like Gerard Sekoto selling up to $1 million at auction.
In 2025, the art world will see work by African 20th century masters in prestigious exhibitions worldwide, including the recently opened “Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica” at the Art Institute of Chicago and the upcoming “‘Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the “Nigerian Modernism” show at Tate Modern in London. Sustained dialogue and greater openness between the global North and South remain crucial, both within the art market and in the re-examination of art history.
Arianne Piper, London-based art adviser and dealer: In 2025, the art market will embrace a broader and more inclusive range of voices, with a continued focus on women and artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Following the influence of the 2024 Venice Biennale, museums are continuing to catch up. Major exhibitions next year will spotlight these expanded narratives, featuring women artists who were previously overlooked in the Western art historical canon. Highlights include the largest-ever European presentation of works by Emily Kam Kngwarray [Anmatyerr, Australia] at Tate Modern, and significant recognition for Sara Flores [Shipibo-Conibo, Peru], who recently joined White Cube … Additionally, a retrospective for Ivatan and Filipino American artist Pacita Abad will remain on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2025.
This resurgence coincides with a significant transformation in the editions market, which is gaining momentum at all levels and is set to continue flourishing in the coming year. High-end works, such as Hockney’s iPads, are drawing considerable attention, while more accessible editions are making art ownership a reality for a wider audience. This growing market is becoming an increasingly popular entry point for new collectors.
Finally, after nearly a decade of figuration dominating the art scene, abstraction is once again taking center stage. This trend is already gaining traction and is expected to accelerate further in 2025, redefining the landscape of contemporary art.
