Artsy publishes Art Market Trends 2025 report on pricing and transparency in the art market

Artsy, a major online platform for buying, selling and learning about art, has released the report Art Market Trends 2025, based on more than 1,600 responses from collectors and gallerists in 60 countries. The main findings:

🖋 52% of collectors doubt that art prices are justified. Prices for art are often perceived as arbitrary or speculative. More than half of collectors question whether the market's pricing is adequate.

🖋 69% of collectors have at least once declined to buy because of a lack of transparency in the art market. Murky pricing and provenance have become a serious barrier to purchase, especially for younger collectors.

🖋 Only 44% of galleries publish prices for all their works. Although 62% of galleries acknowledge that transparency matters to their clients, most still act in the "old school" manner: the price is disclosed only on request. The reason is the traditional fear of losing flexibility in negotiations and of diminishing the value of a work by displaying it openly. Artsy itself sells art with visible prices roughly six times more often.

🖋 30% of collectors became more selective in 2024. Economic factors (stagnating growth, geopolitics, high interest rates) are affecting buyers' behaviour. Collectors buy on impulse less often, compare more and put off their decisions. Only 7% of those surveyed bought more in 2024 than in 2023.

🖋 59% of collectors bought art online in 2024. The digitalisation of the art market continues: collectors, the young especially, are growing accustomed to buying online and increasingly discover artists through social media. About 43% of galleries said that in the near future they plan to focus more on online sales.