Clare McAndrew: China’s Art Slowdown «Slightly Inevitable»
The value of art sales in China plunged in 2024 after a post-lockdown spike a year before. Continued moderation is «slightly inevitable», according to Arts Economics founder Clare McAndrew, as part of the market’s growing maturity.
By sales value, China’s art market, which includes the mainland and Hong Kong, fell 31 percent to $8.4 billion and slipped from second to third place globally with a market share of 15 percent, according to the ninth edition of «The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2025».
After becoming one of the fastest growing art markets in the early 2010s, the report notes that China slowed down considerably around 2015 with three years of decreasing values to reach a low of $9.9 billion in 2020. 2021 saw a rebound, 2022 stalled due to zero-Covid lockdowns and 2023 rebounded again by 9 percent to $12.2 billion from pent-up supply and demand.
Macro Factors
Could the drop in 2024 be temporary? Maybe not, according to Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics and author of the report. She cites macro factors such as a lower supply of high-value artworks in the auction market as well as reduced spending due to economic challenges domestically.
«China's very interesting because it was such a runaway market for so long. I remember in the global financial crisis, it was the kind of thing that just got us out of there really quickly. And it really boomed up to 2012 and then things kind of quieted down again,» McAndrew recalled in a virtual session attended by finews.asia.
«Some of the slowdown was slightly inevitable. It couldn't have sustained that very rapid growth and it's been kind of behaving a little bit more like a normal market since then.»
Maturing Market
McAndrew notes that while China’s art market is maturing, citing anecdotes of it becoming less speculative, there is still more room for development.
«The gallery sector in China is really interesting. That's one that still, I think, hasn't kind of come into its own. People still kind of buy at auctions a lot. So I think it still has a lot of development,» she said.
