Xu Zhen, ‘Under Heaven‘, 2016, oil on canvas and aluminium, 130 × 180 × 14.5cm. Image from Art Basel Hong Kong.

For the 20th consecutive year, Artprice provides a holistic overview of global art market trends in 2017 with its annual Global Art Market report, in partnership with Chinese art group Artron.

The annual report details several mainstay indexes, including its Top 500 ranking of artists, calculated by annual auction turnover, as well as the market’s Top 100 auction results. It also includes a new Artprice100® index,  which covers the Top 100 artists in all three major factions: Old Masters, Modern and Contemporary. This year’s report notes a dominance of Chinese art in the global landscape.

Key findings indicative of this trend are seen in the global Top 500 index, in which the Top 10 includes 4 Chinese artists, 3 Europeans and 3 Americans. Chinese artists also represent 32.4% of the total number compared to 16.4% of American artists. China remains the world’s top marketplace with US$5.1 billion in turnover, constituting 34.2% of global total over the United States of America, which ranks second with US$4.9 billion.

Artprice cites the growing role of the worldwide web in the art market, especially the establishment of online extensions of auction houses, as a key reason why it continues to grow despite global economic crises in other financial markets. It stated a 98% presence of auction houses online, out of 6,300 listed, a significant rise from the 3% reported in 2005.

Artprice notes that ease of access to art market information, which is a function it provides, is a key factor to the growth of the art market. It reports that 98% of the market’s participants are connected to online electronic sales, and notes the effect of globalisation which has expanded the population of art consumers from 500,000 in the 1950s to 90 million in 2017.

More information at en.prnasia.com.