‘Christie’s broke multiple records for Indian artists’

New Delhi: Indian art is having its moment in the sun. British auction house Christie’s said while announcing its year-end results, that in an auction this September in New York, it sold 96% of all lots for the Modern and contemporary south Asian art and 60% of its buyers were from India. It also had a white-glove sale in March which was dominated by Indian artists.

The auction house broke multiple records for artists including Zarina Hashmi and Ranjani Shettar. It is now seeing high activity out of India even though it has not had a sale here in some years. It does though, have a permanent presence in India.

“The way we approach India is the same we approach other important regions or countries where we may not have sales. But it is no longer the market it was 5-10 years ago. It is a strong hub for us to transact in and we manage to drive engagement with buyers here. The strategy we have is to bring South Asian art to global platforms and that has been showing great results,” Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of the iconic auction house, told Mint.

At a global level, Christie’s said at the end of 2023, the year looked like a bit of a paradox as the business declined 25% vis-a-vis 2022. The total for art and luxury sales (including projected numbers for December) reached $6.2 billion of which $5 billion came from auctions and the remaining $1.2 billion from private sales. But this number is still 7% higher than 2019’s pre-covid levels.

The auction house had a sell-through rate of 84% for all lots at auction. Strong underlying dynamics including new buyer spending, APAC bidder development and millennial and Gen Z participation drove the market.

“We have seen a continuing influx of new collectors, especially coming from Asia, something that has been achieved against market’s contraction within the more challenging macro-economic and geopolitical landscape,” he added. Luxury collecting as a category has also grown strongly for them. The company has observed that younger collectors out of Asia who generally began buying handbags and other collectables in 2020 and 2021, have since started going for top lots of art too.

Its regional buying from Asia has been very resilient, led by mainland China. New buyers coming from mainland China are up 30% and 2024 will be important in the Asian context. Asian buyers made up 28% of all buyers.

Unlike other parts of the world, throughout 2023, it saw a growth in Asia. Fifty-four per cent of the new buyers in value are coming from Asia. At a global level, 66% of all its new buyers year-to-date were seen in online-only sales. There was a 33% growth in new bidders and buyers from the Americas, too. The art auction house projects that it will approach 2024 with cautious optimism though, seeing the global economic conditions.

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