Abstract
The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and the restrictions imposed by the social distance and the enforced confinement, are having an impact on the art markets globally. The aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of an external shock in the primary art market, using three countries as a case study: Portugal, Spain, and Brazil. These geographies have in common being at the margins in the art market’s main art hubs. It is intended to analyze how agents are responding to the new context, according to the data gathered within the gallery sector. The methods applied in the research are a combination of surveys carried out by the authors, field-based observation, along with an academic literature review, complemented by international and national reports analysis. The study’s main findings allow us to characterize the art market as a very resilient sector that energetically responded to the crisis, able to adapt and overcome challenges imposed by the new pandemic situation. Contemporary art galleries expanded digital activities, kept participating in art fairs hybrid models, continued to focus on internationalization, and pointed to the strengthening of public policies towards the sector and partnerships as key strategies to overcome the crisis.
Highlights
The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and the restrictions imposed by the social distance and the enforced confinement, are having an impact on the art markets globally
International reports, surveys conducted by academics and organizations, academic articles and newspapers articles claim for an overwhelming impact on the art markets and on the cultural sector in a wide-angle view, predicting the sector is among the hardest hit by the pandemic (Comité Professionnel des Galeries d’Art 2020; Art Dealers Association of America 2020; Banks 2020; Gerlis 2020; Comunian and England 2020; Michalska and Brady 2020; Neves 2020; Anonymous 2021a)
The secondary sources were discussed between the authors and confronted with primary data gathered through field research
Summary
The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and the restrictions imposed by the social distance and the enforced confinement, are having an impact on the art markets globally. International reports, surveys conducted by academics and organizations, academic articles and newspapers articles claim for an overwhelming impact on the art markets and on the cultural sector in a wide-angle view, predicting the sector is among the hardest hit by the pandemic The art market depends heavily on an intense global calendar of events, especially art fairs and gallery exhibitions. Conferences, projects, exhibitions, art fairs and auctions in-presence turned into online. Citizens were confined following sanitary measures; entire cities interrupted their activities, and it is still hard to predict when they will be fully reestablished
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