Christie's targets younger buyers as H1 art sales hit $3.5bn

Art market rebounds as cryptocurrency collectors, millennials and Asian clients snap up everything from NFTs to blue-chip artworks

A man looks at digital paintings by US artist Beeple at crypto art exhibition Virtual Niche: Have You Ever Seen Memes in the Mirror?, one of the world's first physical museum shows of blockchain art in Beijing in March. AFPShow less

Auction house Christie's is betting on cryptocurrency payments and digital artworks as it targets younger international collectors, adapts to changing tastes and tapping into a growing market of tech-savvy art buyers.

Cryptocurrency collectors, millennials and clients in Asia are snapping up everything from blue-chip art to digital works that drove sales in the first half of 2021, Christie's said in a statement, following a difficult year when the Covid-19 pandemic shook the art world.

Christie's art sales hit $3.5 billion in the first six months of the year, up 13 per cent on the the same period in 2019 before the pandemic struck, the auction house said.

The art house's newly introduced category of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) yielded $93.2 million in sales this year to date, more than double any of its competitors, Christie's said. An NFT is a unique, digital certificate that is stored on a blockchain and provides certain ownership rights in an asset, typically a digital one, such as a digital work of art.

"It's a serious market, you can't say 'I don't like it', you have to deal with it," Dirk Boll, Christie's president for Europe, Middle East and Africa region, said in an interview on Wednesday.

Christie's was the first international auction house to sell an NFT of a purely digital work of art, hosting the online sale of US artist Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69 million in March, which set the record for the most expensive work sold online. For that auction, Christie's recorded 400 registrants and had a total of 33 active bidders.

"By introducing the NFT market to the global auction stage, Christie’s has also opened the door for an entirely new base and generation of artists and clients," Guillaume Cerutti, chief executive of Christie's, said in the statement. "As we continue to lead, innovate and commit to our role in a more responsible art market, we are incredibly proud to promote diverse talent, not only among our leadership but in the artists whose work we celebrate through our sales.”

The NFT market has attracted a new, younger audience to Christies.com, the auction house said. Some 73 per cent of those who register to bid for NFT art are new to Christie’s. These collectors are aged on average at 38 years old, 13 years younger than the average age for clients in other sales. Several of them have also crossed over to purchase works by blue-chip, or established, artists.

About 85 per cent of NFT art sales were paid for by cryptocurrency, according to Christie's.

Demand for NFT art comes from two groups, Mr Boll said. The dominant group is the cryptocurrency collectors who are tech-savvy, invest in crypto and are interested in technology such as blockchain security. The other group is classic art collectors who are interested in works that "reflect the ideas of tomorrow", he said, noting there is an overlap of the two groups.

There is also strong demand from Asian and US west coast clientele for the NFT works, he added.

In its total art sales overall in the first half of 2021, Christie's saw record participation from Asian buyers who contributed 39 per cent of the value of its auction sales worldwide.

Around 30 per cent of all buyers in the first half of the year are new to Christie’s. Of the new buyers, 31 per cent are millennials and 32 per cent are women, it said.

Online sales recorded "extraordinary growth", up 178 per cent to $222.7m in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year.

Over the past six months, more women have presided over live sales from Christie’s rostrum than ever before with 76 per cent of its marquee evening sales this year featuring female auctioneers. Its current auctioneer gender balance is nearly 50/50 per cent.

Looking ahead, Mr Boll said the outlook for global art sales is positive with a "great pipeline" of major consignments in the next eight months, highlighting the power of art during the difficult times of the pandemic.

"We are glad the markets have bounced back and we are flourishing, I'm really relieved, it could have turned out differently," he said.