Rivals to the dominant art market hubs of New York, London and Hong Kong are gaining ground. According to the latest Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report, the “other” regions outside of the US, UK and China have grown their share from 17% of business in 2015 to 24% in 2025.
A big driver behind the shift is the increase in nationally protective regulation, including Brexit and tariffs, which have become political levers in the new world order. The report finds that such barriers to trade have stifled the business of art, particularly in contemporary works, which benefit from free circulation, while inflation has been another unwanted side effect of protectionist policies.
There are signs, though, that moves to deglobalise, albeit a disconnecting dynamic, can offer a refreshing lottery of regional winners and losers. South Korea and Switzerland were among countries that grew their markets last year, while in 2024, an otherwise glum year for the art market, Japan and Australia were on the up.
A multi-polar world creates opportunity. History shows most of today’s thriving art markets started out with a flourishing of local culture, hard to achieve when participants have their sights set on global centres.
Shifts to deepen national and local markets are already underway; witness the growing number of art galleries doubling up in their home towns and the recent energy around culture in places including Bangkok, Warsaw, Margate and Qatar.
The dynamic heralds an ecologically more sustainable industry, which extends beyond caring for the planet and chimes with a societal reaction against limitless choice. Jumping on planes to get to the latest art fair or exhibition might have become the art market’s modus operandi but is costly, both financially and emotionally, while also arguably detrimental to the wider art ecosystem.
Is the US losing its grip?
In the US, where most of the world’s wealth resides by far, the art market is still set to cruise. Its share sat very comfortably at 44% of the pie last year (it is the UK and China where market share has dropped), only a nudge below a peak 45% in 2022. Yet even the US market is skewed by the concentration in New York. As the artist Josh Kline puts it in his much-referenced essay for the latest edition of October, “while New York’s art dealers may regularly visit Basel or Hong Kong, the majority are not making routine trips to Pittsburgh or Portland or even Chicago”.
Indeed, for the US, increased regionalisation can happen happily within its own borders, boosted by incoming tariff fees, and in cities with the heft of Los Angeles, Houston or “even” Chicago. This should, in turn, ease the incessant inflation of living and working costs that, as Kline notes, afflicts the art world’s hub cities, notably New York.
There is, though, a broader conversation, prompted by the war in Iran, of whether the military action centred in the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz could prove the moment that the US superpower, after decades of peace and prosperity, loses its geopolitical grip.
In such a scenario, smaller, more emerging countries might get a bump of enthusiasm but, experts say, would likely suffer in the longer term without overseas investment. Reduced immigration, a byproduct of protectionism, might be wanted from some corners but, in my view, would diminish innovation, curiosity and imagination, vital ingredients for the creative industries, among others. In such circumstances, the simplicity of more regionally focused trade begins to look more like the only option in a sea of chaos.
The hope, as ever, is for an outcome that combines the best of both worlds, a rejuvenation rather than a rebellion, enabling regional talent to flourish while the bedrock of international trade can continue, in a less dominant way.
The next generation of wealth looks more evenly distributed around the world and with greater gender parity, which, optimists say, could lead to more balanced support of the art ecosystem. Smaller cities, where renting a studio space might still be affordable to artists, could come into their own. Technology, if harnessed well, could fill the gaps of reduced travel schedules, helping the planet and improving the industry’s many inefficiencies.
As we go into another bumper auction season in New York, the art market needs to consider a move away from its reliance on such multi-million-dollar sales. These cast an unrealistic light on the rest of the scene and speak less to the next generation of wealth anyway. The system below is struggling, many say unsustainably, for galleries, curators, artists and institutions, without which there is no system at all. There will undoubtedly be some pain. The logical conclusion, already playing out, is that values will come down, meaning some businesses will close or, at best, change tack with lessons learned. But a polycentric global order could prove the best outcome.
