In honor of SP Arte opening this week, the Financial Times looks at the growing market in Brazil:

A measure of the growth of interest in art in Brazil is the dynamism of the market. More than two-thirds of the country’s galleries were created after 2000, a quarter of them since 2010, according to a study last year by the Latitude Project, a collaboration between the Brazilian Association of Contemporary Art and the government’s Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, or Apex. “Today, you have an educated market of people who will buy art not just to have something to put on the wall to agree with the sofa,” says designer and collector José Marton. “You have collectors who really are collectors, who collect genuine artworks.”

The Latitude study found that average ­gallery sales grew 22.5 per cent in 2012. Private Brazilian collectors snapped up 71 per cent of works sold in Brazil in 2012 compared to 11.5 per cent for foreign individual collectors. Brazilian corporate collections bought a further 6 per cent and Brazilian institutions just 4.25 per cent.

Another indication of the growing buyer enthusiasm in the market is price. According to the Latitude study, 60 per cent of galleries surveyed reported that they increased prices by 15 per cent in 2012. The average price in the primary market across the galleries surveyed was R$22,000 ($9,400).

Brazil: the new collectors (FT.com)