The 2024 Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting offers a fascinating glimpse into the ever-evolving world of high-net-worth collectors. Covering 14 major global markets, the report sheds light on art buyers’ behaviours and spending patterns throughout 2023 and the first half of 2024. Despite economic uncertainties and a challenging art market, these collectors remained undeterred, continuing to invest in art and antiques. The report uncovers vital trends that reveal resilience and shifts in how the world’s wealthiest engage with the art world.
Indicators from the public auction sector in the first half of 2024 revealed slower sales than in the same period in 2023, with totals at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, and Bonhams down by 26%, and below their level before the pandemic in 2019. There was some mixed performance between these significant auction houses, and those away from the highest end of the market fared slightly better.
Despite the slowdown in sales in 2023, global imports of art and antiques continued to grow for the third consecutive year, with values advancing by 6% to $33 billion, as major importing regions such as Hong Kong maintained high demand. Exports stalled in 2023, dropping by 1% to $32 billion, with slowing year-on-year values in the major hubs of the US and the UK, which continued into the first quarter of 2024.
Up to 2023, despite the challenging context, the research on high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) showed resilient and increasing spending. However, this trend changed in 2023, with a drop in average expenditure of 32% to $363,905. This average was influenced by reduced spending at the highest levels, with the median expenditure of HNWIs falling less significantly, from $50,165 in 2022 to $50,000 in 2023. The median spending for the first half of 2024 (at $25,555), if indicative of the level for the second half of the year, could reflect a stable annual level of spending.
While younger HNWIs had some of the most significant increases in average spending overall up to 2022, this was reversed in 2023, and the key driver of the decline was the 50% decrease in spending by millennial respondents to $395,000. With low growth of 3% year-on-year, Gen X respondents had the highest average expenditure in 2023 ($578,000), and their lead continued in the first half of 2024, with levels over a third higher than millennials and double that of Boomers and Gen Z.
HNWIs from Mainland China spent the most on art and antiques in 2023 and the first half of 2024, with a median of $97,000, more than double that of any other region. This suggests that the solid return for spending post-lockdown has been sustained despite worries of a slowdown in the market.
Many HNWIs were open to exploring new artists, and they played a critical role in supporting artists’ careers at early and later stages. Just over half (52%) of expenditure by HNWIs in 2023 and 2024 was on works by new and emerging artists (from 44% in the previous survey); 21% was on mid-career artists’ works (down by 6%), and 26% was on those by established, top-tier artists (down by 2% on 2023 and 5% on 2022). Most spending on top-tier artists’ works was on those by living artists (17%), while deceased artists‘ works accounted for 9%.
The share of works by female artists in the collections of HNWIs rose to a ratio of 44% versus male artists’ works in 2024, its highest level in seven years, up from 33% in 2018. The share of spending on female artists‘ works was also 44% versus 56% on those by male artists. HNWIs who had spent over $10 million on art and antiques so far in 2024 had devoted a considerably larger share to female artists (52%), and those spending between $1 million and $10 million were 50:50 (versus 44% on female artists in the lower segments).
The most used channel for purchasing art was a gallery or dealer, with 95% of respondents buying either at a gallery, online, through social media, or at an art fair. In the first half of 2024, 41% had bought at an art fair, up from 39% in 2023. Auctions were the second most widely used sales channel, with 67% buying at auction in 2024.
The importance of a multichannel approach for dealers was evident. In addition to purchasing in person at galleries, 72% of HNWIs had bought through a dealer’s website or OVR without viewing the work in person first, 61% used email or phone, and 43% bought from them on Instagram. HNWIs spent the most through dealers, which accounted for 60% of their total spending in the first half of 2024. This was divided into spending associated with gallery visits (28%), online (through a dealer’s website or online platform) (25%), art fairs (18%), email or phone (18%), and Instagram (11%).
HNWIs showed a solid willingness to purchase from new galleries in 2023 and 2024, with 88% of those buying from dealers engaging with at least one new gallery. The number of galleries HNWIs purchased from was higher than in previous years, averaging 18 in 2023 and 17 in 2024, up from just 13 in 2019. This sample of HNWIs also had a significantly larger home bias, with a majority of 70% of the galleries they purchased from being local in 2024 versus 50% in 2022.
While billionaire wealth continued to grow in early 2024, for some HNWIs participating in the art market, there were indications of a reduction in their allocations to art within their wealth portfolios. Surveys of HNWIs conducted by Arts Economics and UBS over the last nine years showed a peak allocation to art of 24% in 2022, falling to 19% in 2023 and again to 15% in 2024. The wealthiest respondents ($50 million-plus) remained at the higher end of the spectrum, allocating an above-average 25% of wealth to their collections.
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