Red-Chip vs. Non-Frictional Art: What’s Selling and to Who

Several articles this year have already mourned the end of the figurative frenzy that dominated the frothy pandemic-era art market. Dubbed “Figuration Fatigue” by Artnet, the backlash targets a wave of paintings marked by saturated palettes, polished surfaces and emotionally neutral depictions of the human form—works designed more for commercial virality than enduring significance. These once-ubiquitous images, optimized for feeds and fairs, no longer seem to command the same attention or prices. But, as with any art-world trend, this shift should be contextualized rather than reduced to a single generalization.

This decline also coincided with a broader slowdown in the market for so-called ultra-contemporary artists—those under 40 or born after 1974—whose freshly painted works were often flipped at auction within a year of their gallery debuts. According to the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report, the ultra-contemporary segment, once a locus of explosive growth, fell from approximately $2.9 billion in 2021 to just $1.1 billion in 2024—a nearly 60 percent decline.

An oversaturation took hold: too many artists gained traction too quickly, with prices rising just as fast—often justified by artificial scarcity, engineered through waiting lists that restricted access on the primary market yet unsupported by institutional recognition. Limiting access to one artist can create demand, but only if scarcity exists across the board. Instead, a surge of artists with similar aesthetics emerged all at once, flooding the market. And once prices climbed into the five-digit range, there simply weren’t enough committed collectors to sustain momentum in what had become a hijacked, speculation-driven landscape.

“I think the market has become saturated, but that’s largely because of the sheer volume,” Brett Gorvy told Observer in a recent phone conversation. “When you have a boom—like we saw with ultra-contemporary art—there’s only so much room. At a certain point, how many paintings by a single artist can the market really absorb?” He also noted that the market had strayed from traditional collecting behavior, where works were bought with the intention of being held—sometimes for decades, sometimes for a lifetime. “What emerged was a mindset where people expected that as soon as they bought something, it would immediately be worth more—and that they could resell it in two years.” That speculative mentality became central to the ultra-contemporary space: the belief in art as investment. But, as Marc Spiegler recently wrote in The Business of Fashion, that logic no longer holds—or perhaps never truly did.

At the same time, the boom in figuration coincided with movements like “Me Too” and “Black Lives Matter,” which pushed the art world to reckon—at least in part—with its imbalance in gender and racial representation.

At one point, as Barry Schwabsky recently noted in Art in America, it seemed that among top auction lots and galleries’ best-selling artists, three out of every five emerging names were painting portraits of Black figures. The rest often focused on the female body, identity and later broader diasporic narratives. But as repetition set in, even these once-urgent acts of reclamation began to feel commodified. And as the sense of social urgency faded—or perhaps became eclipsed by a constant backdrop of political, economic, environmental and emotional crisis on a global scale—attention shifted away from individual identity narratives toward more universal storytelling: works that address the contemporary human condition or re-anchor a soulless era to the power of the oneiric, spiritual or mythological and the rediscovery of ancestral truths.

That’s why I prefer not to speak of the death of figuration—still very much present, albeit with fewer headline names—but rather the decline of what I call “non-frictional” painting.

We live in an increasingly frictionless world, where nearly every aspect of life has been streamlined, optimized and templated by digital tools. From apps to A.I., most of our daily decisions are smoothed over by algorithms built to reduce hesitation and remove resistance. And yet, it is precisely friction—those moments of tension, doubt and effort—that fosters growth, transformation and meaning. In art, as in life, it’s the extra step, the unresolved edge, the interpretive demand that lingers.

Removing barriers can enhance speed and convenience, but it can also obscure both thought and soul, dulling creativity and critical thinking. This holds true for art as well. When there’s no friction—no resistance, no challenge—art often loses its grounding, its urgency and its ability to speak meaningfully. In a system optimized entirely around past behavior, we stop encountering unfamiliar ideas or communities. Taste stagnates. Knowledge narrows. And with that, the excitement of discovery fades.

Yet artists are still making work that leaves a lasting mark—art that, through intricate symbolism or the universality of its visual language, resists the mindless scroll and lodges itself in memory. These are often the works that institutions and curators recognize and elevate long before—and sometimes regardless of—market validation.

As friction and conflict escalate in the physical world, the allure of seamless digital escape begins to feel like a mirage. Instead, it’s often the more complex, demanding works that compel us to confront the hard truths of our time—or offer a way back to something deeper and older, something essential about what it means to be human.

As economic commentator Kyla Scanlon recently noted in an Instagram video interview for the New York Times Opinion, frictionless often aligns with meaningless. When everything becomes too easy, it becomes difficult to find meaning at all. Michael Meade points out that humans often feel a desperate need for meaning in times of uncertainty—for the pursuit of a more soulful life and a reconnection with deeper truths. We are drawn to what transcends fleeting headlines and distorted narratives, to what taps into a broader order—something beyond manipulation, beyond spectacle. In this context, art can reassert its role not as a luxury or investment vehicle, but as a human necessity. It becomes a language for the soul, a vessel for ambiguity and a compass in moments of disorientation. Through symbols, stories and aesthetic experience, art helps us hold on to what is essential—restoring a sense of inner coherence when external systems collapse or are replaced by algorithmically optimized alter egos.

As my colleague Annie Armstrong aptly wrote on Artnet, so-called “red-chip art” remains very much alive, fueled by a growing fan base that often operates and circulates outside the official channels of the traditional art world. These works are tailored for a digital-native, commercially friendly context—whether physical (as paintings or cartoon-like collectibles) or digital (as NFTs or crypto art). They tend to share a cartoonish visual language, graffiti and street-art influences or digital and crypto-infused aesthetics. In general, they are loud, bright and sensory-saturated—designed to capture attention and engineered primarily for hype, screens and feeds.

Mr. Brainwash, Alec Monopoly, WhIsBe, Matt Gondek, Jerkface, Mad Dog Jones and FEWOCiOUS are just a few names fully embedded in the red-chip aesthetic. Even some blue-chip artists like Takashi Murakami, Daniel Arsham and KAWS have successfully navigated both worlds—aligning seamlessly with the tastes of red-chip collectors despite having debuted within traditional art circles and already secured institutional backing.

I’m sure that if Andy Warhol were still alive, he’d be more than happy to participate in this trend—if not lead it—perhaps seeing in red-chip art a natural evolution of his own radically democratic vision of “Pop art” for mass appeal. Red-chip art continues the fundamental collapse that Pop art first initiated, i.e., the erasure of boundaries between high and low culture, between celebrity and surface and between art and commerce. What once felt subversive in Warhol’s hands now plays out as a default setting: not a critique of consumer culture, but its most algorithm-optimized expression. The mechanisms are different, but the logic is similar: maximum recognizability, minimal friction.

Red-chip art already embodies the commodified, frictionless qualities favored by digital marketplaces. It thrives in algorithm-driven environments where discoverability is optimized and visibility is everything. In this ecosystem, artistic production is not only created but also curated for digital virality—reels, swipeable Instagram grids, short-form video aesthetics on TikTok or Instagram Stories. Here, the work is often secondary to the circulation that makes it viral.

These are the types of works promoted through Instagram reels from unknown Miami galleries presenting pseudo-Condo paintings—cartoon mashups paired, perhaps, with Rolexes and candy-colored mini Hermès bags, probably fake. It’s an algorithm-optimized chimera of a lifestyle, one that finds its audience by mirroring social media–coded preferences. And yet, this art still carries a symbolic aura—even as it’s ultimately reduced to questionably valuable luxury objects, serving more to signal status than provoke thought.

Perhaps most importantly, this kind of art is far more accessible, both financially and in terms of barriers to entry. As a result, it tends to attract the “young money” of digitally native, affluent millennials, tech entrepreneurs, crypto enthusiasts and even celebrities. What draws them in is its immediacy, shareability and the promise of speculative upside. Even when these artists are genuinely appreciated, their work often circulates solely within the red-chip ecosystem. What’s hot today may be passé tomorrow—its visibility shaped by group chats, influencer posts or market hype—while remaining largely disavowed by institutions and critics. In this way, the red-chip market mirrors the same speculative volatility that has come to define the ultracontemporary sector.

Still, perhaps these two parallel markets have something to learn from each other. Red-chip art reflects a frictionless, fast-moving, democratized, media-savvy art economy, and it may be the traditional art world that more urgently needs to adapt—to lower its barriers, embrace new forms of storytelling and engage with a generation of tech-born wealth. Not by abandoning content or meaning but by refusing to retreat into exclusivity as a marker of legitimacy.

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