Doom and gloom in the world of art

Excerpts from an article at artnet:

"The art world is in a precarious state as it heads into the second half of 2025. Not a week goes by, it seems, without a major gallery closing: Blum, Venus Over Manhattan, and Kasmin are other prominent summer casualties. Smaller galleries are exiting and downsizing discreetly. Each case is different, but many voice the same laments: Overheads are killing businesses. Sales are down. It’s no longer fun. Primary pricing is untenable. Major collectors have stopped buying art or significantly reduced their spending. The next generation isn’t there to take over from the old guard. The art world has become bloated, and there isn’t an easy way to cure the malaise.

“I don’t believe for one second that it’s cyclical,” Belgian collector and art market commentator Alain Servais told me. “It’s structural. The infrastructure is too big. There are too many advisors, too many galleries, too many artists, too many fairs. Everything will need to downsize. In my blunt opinion, blood will flow in the streets before the art market finds a new balance.”...

Another revealing indicator: Soho Art Materials, a popular art-supplies company in New York that works with artists and galleries, traces the sector’s decline to the summer of 2022. The firm’s sales began falling gradually and then in June 2023 dropped 20 percent from the previous month, according to Jonathan Siegel, a co-owner. The company was stretching 700 to 1,000 canvases annually for three years, starting in 2020; it now does about 200 a year, he said.

“The industry is in a free fall,” Siegel said. “Galleries are closing left and right. They have overextended. Everyone thought the light would never stop shining. The ramifications of the past two years have been dramatic. It’s been a disaster, basically.”

In the U.K., firms must file financial disclosures, which reveal razor-thin profit margins for galleries big and small, as falling turnover collides with stubbornly high fixed costs...

I have covered the art market since 2006, and I have never heard people as down as they have been this summer. Suddenly, they are openly talking doom and gloom, instead of fighting against that narrative..."