Live Auction Art published the market share figures for Contemporary art pictured above. You can see that Sotheby's pulled off a strong set of sales to finish dead even with Christie's in Contemporary art (though a few stray Rockefeller lots would have given Christie's a negligible few points of market share. Phillips continues to gain its position in the market even if their market share remains far behind the big two.
The top of the Contemporary art market is still down. According to historical numbers gathered by our friends at Pi-eX, the Evening sale totals for Contemporary art for the Spring sales in New York were back below the level of 2013. Over the last six sales cycles, the totals shot above historical levels in 2014 and 2015 before pulling back to their lowest total in 2016 since the 2011 sales cycle. There was a brief rally in 2017 back to that 2013 level. Last week, we saw the numbers pull back slightly.
We'll have a more detailed analysis of the composition of those sales—which on first reaction are quite positive for their depth of value and breadth of new names—when we publish our Contemporary market report next week. In the meantime, let's look at what Pi-eX's numbers can tell us.
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