London Contemporary Charts: June Shows Consolidation of Market at the Top

In recent years, many commentators have observed the migration of the Contemporary Art market toward becoming a Masterpiece market where the base of sales for lower-quality works narrows and market volume gravitates toward A+ works. The recent Contemporary sales in London illustrate this trend dramatically.

Evening sale totals have recovered since the “blow-off top” of the previous Contemporary art boom in June of 2008 and surpassed those highs.

However, Day sale totals faltered this year even as they failed to keep up with the Evening sale’s pace of increase.

To see this dynamic better, we can look at the interplay between the total sale volume during the June Contemporary sales the portion of that sale comes from the Evening sales.

During the 2008 top, the Evening Sales accounted for 76% of all Contemporary art sold. After the financial crisis, that ratio fell to 71% before climbing steadily to 87% in this last round of sales.