In October 2018, Christie's in New York auction house sold a painting created by an artificial intelligence computer, "Portrait of Edmund Bellamy", for about 3 million yuan, which put artificial intelligence art on the auction floor for the first time. Subsequently, more AI artworks appeared in auctions, which beneficially promoted the market process of AI art. The art market often refers to 2019 as the "Year of Trend Art" because Sotheby's sold the famous trend artist KAWS's work "The Kaws ALBUM" for HK$116 million in the spring auction of that year, and in the autumn auction, Sotheby's auction sold the painting "The Hidden Knife Behind the Back" by Japanese trend artist Yoshitomo Nara for HK$196 million. The huge news effect brought by the high-priced auction put the trend art that has been surging in the spotlight, which led to the market for the works of trendy artists such as KAWS and Nara Yoshitomo.
AI "Portrait of Edmund Bellamy"
2021 will also be known as the "Year of NFT Art", because on March 11, 2021, Jasic was able to sell a Beeple's NFT digital artwork "Every Day: The First 5,000 Days" for about 450 million yuan online auction, which triggered the continued heat of the global NFT market. Historically, there have been many examples of similar auction transactions influencing and driving the art market, indicating that some important transaction results of auction houses have a strong role in marking and guiding the art market, and auctions can often become the key points in time to induce the launch of some new art markets.
KAWS《THE KAWSALBUM》
Yoshitomo Nara, "Hidden Knife Behind The Back"
The impact of auctions on the art market comes mainly from the following reasons. As the main way of secondary market of works of art, auction can play a role in re-entering the market circulation of works of art that have been traded for the first time in the primary market; as a bidding method of buyer's pricing, auction can more accurately revalue works of art, and the price of works of art in the previous primary market is more inclined to the subjective pricing of sellers; as a market regulator, auctions can further meet the supply and demand relationship of the art market; at the same time, as a kind of business activities that must be held publicly, the auction process and price are open and transparent. Combined with its large number and variety of hypermarket trading effects, it has more market influence than the less transparent and less coverage of the primary art market, especially when the news media and industry professionals pay close attention to certain auction results.
A good auction not only promotes the rise of a new market, but can often affect the market price of some artists' works. The reason is that auction houses are more willing to operate those high-quality and high-priced art masterpieces, and the high-priced transactions of artists' fine works and representative works will inevitably lead to an increase in the prices of other works of related artists; conversely, the low-priced sales of auctions will also reduce the price of artists' works.
Of course, not all auction house deals have a role in guiding the art market. Only those large, well-known brand auction houses have the strength to drive the market. For example, some important transactions of the two major overseas international auction houses obviously have a certain pulling effect on the market for some new art varieties and some artists' works. Several large-scale well-known auction houses in the mainland can also affect the price of many artists' works through the auction of some fine works. The transactions of those small and medium-sized auction houses and local auction houses have a very limited impact on the art market.
Focusing on the internal of the auction industry, many transactions of overseas international auction houses have obvious driving effects on mainland auction houses; the transactions of large auction houses in the mainland can also play a certain role in the transactions of small and medium-sized auction houses; this is especially evident in the development of new art varieties and the field of contemporary art. The opposite is not the case, that is, the transactions of small auction houses are often not valued by large auction houses. This arrogance to small influence also lies in who holds the "right to speak" of various art species. For example, in Chinese painting and calligraphy, especially ancient calligraphy and painting, contemporary calligraphy and painting, and rare books, the transaction price of large mainland auction houses is even more guiding than that of overseas auction houses.
Taking advantage of the market influence of such large auction houses, many art agencies such as galleries will also send their own artists' works packaged by their agents to well-known auction houses, especially those overseas auction houses. Once a work is priced well at one of these well-known auction houses, other relatively smaller auction houses will also have a follow-up effect, that is, follow up with the auction of the relevant artist's work, or follow up with the upward adjustment of the valuation of the artist's work.