26/06/2025

LYFE THURSDAY | JUNE 26, 2025

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Art market banking on new generation o Buyers, sellers hold back out of caution

T HE global art market is not immune to current economic and geopolitical tensions, and is counting on a new generation of collectors to revitalise the momentum. Some big transactions were concluded last week during Art Basel, the world’s top contemporary art fair, notably by London’s Annely Juda Fine Art gallery, which sold a David Hockney painting for between US$13 million (RM55.1 million) and US$17 million, without disclosing the exact price. The David Zwirner gallery sold a sculpture by Ruth Asawa for US$9.5 million and a Gerhard Richter painting for US$6.8 million. However, prices did not reach the heights achieved in 2022, when the art market was in full swing. Back then, a sculpture by French-American artist Louise Bourgeois was purchased for US$40 million. “The market is certainly softer,” Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz said, though major sales still happen at such fairs “despite, somehow, all that is going on in the world”. Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS and the research and consulting firm Arts Economics prepared a report for the fair. According to their estimates, the art market slowed in 2023, then fell by 12% globally last year to US$57.5 billion, with the decline particularly affecting works valued at more than US$10 million. “In the next six to 12 months, I do not see any changes on the horizon,” said Hans Laenen, an art market specialist at insurer AXA XL. In a time of economic and geopolitical uncertainties, “investors

The global art market is counting on a new generation of collectors to revitalise its flagging momentum. – PIC COURTESY OF ART BASEL

The four-day Art Basel fair, which closed on Sunday, featured more than 280 galleries presenting works by around 4,000 artists. It is a must for collectors, who can buy everything from Pablo Picasso paintings to very recent works. The Thaddaeus Ropac galleries notably offered a portrait of Pope Leo XIV by the Chinese-French artist Yan Pei-Ming. It also highlights young artists, such as Joyce Joumaa, 27, who jointly won the 2025 Baloise Art Prize for her work focusing on the energy crisis in Lebanon. – AFP without ever having seen it in real life. The final step is “decontextualisation”. Content curators remove personal references to reach a wider audience. They replace personal references with universal cultural references, transforming a private photo into a viral meme that speaks to everyone. This mechanism goes far beyond the animal world, Arsel pointed out. Whether with mouthwatering photos of food or cute pictures of children, the principle is the same. “This paper has societal implications in the sense that it explains something that we do very often and usually without question,” the researcher said. In other words, our little daily exchanges hide a social mechanism that is more complex than it appears. Every viral cat video reveals our fundamental need to connect and express our emotions. It proves that even when we are immersed in the digital world, we remain deeply social beings – beings who happen to use corgi memes to communicate. – ETX Studio

making “very radical” choices, he said. UBS expects that trend to increase. According to its projections, an unprecedented wealth transfer will take place over the next 20 to 25 years with the general ageing of the population. Globally, around US$83 trillion in assets will change hands, it said, meaning “there is a whole new generation of collectors coming to the market with different buying patterns”, said Eric Landolt, global co-head of the family advisory, art and collecting department at UBS.

collector behaviour.

are turning very strongly to gold”, he said. In the art sector, behaviour is “more conservative” among buyers and sellers, who prefer to wait before putting works on the market in the current climate, he continued. “The number of transactions is increasing”, but in “lower price segments”, he noted. According to the insurance firm Hiscox, the number of lots sold for less than US$50,000 increased by 20% in auction houses last year, while very highly priced works saw a sharp drop, indicating a change in

New generation According to Jean Gazancon, chief executive of art insurer Arte Generali, a younger generation of collectors is entering the market. “We are insuring more and more 30-somethings for collections of 300,000, 500,000 or a million euros,” he noted. “These are successful start uppers, investment bankers, lawyers or sometimes people who have inherited”, and they begin their collections “very young”, sometimes

Sending cat GIFs helps build, strengthen social connections THE photos of clumsy kittens and chubby pandas that flood our news feeds are often dismissed as mere digital distractions. However, a Canadian study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research , revealed that sharing animal content online goes far beyond simple entertainment. It forges genuine digital affective networks and strengthens our social relationships. Researchers at Concordia circulation of animal photos has become a social phenomenon. It has gone well beyond animals advertising animal products,” said study coauthor Zeynep Arsel, a professor in the Marketing Department at the John Molson School of Business, quoted in a statement.

In other words, gone are the days when Fido was only good for selling dog food. Today, a cute animal can generate likes, shares and “awwws” – an emotional currency far more valuable than euros. To understand this mechanism, the researchers analysed user behaviour on Instagram in detail. They interviewed content creators, animal page managers and their followers, while drawing on their own digital behavior toward their four-legged friends. This survey reveals a three-step process that transforms an animal into a social media star. Path to viral hit The first step is “indexicalisation”, which involves transforming your pet into personal content. A cute hashtag, a little costume or an affectionate

University may have solved the mystery of our addiction to animal content on the internet. According to them, sharing these photos and videos creates what they call “digital affective encounters”, moments when your heart melts in front of your screen. More surprisingly, these seemingly innocuous gestures function as markers of affection in our social relationships. It is a bit like penguins offering pebbles as small tokens of affection to potential mates. Except that in this case, the pebble is a GIF of a kitten falling into a box. The scale of this digital trend is surprising. “The creation, consumption and

Sharing animal content online goes beyond simple entertainment. – PEXELSPIC

it takes on new meanings. Friends add their own references, creating a common language that only the group understands. This step forges a parasocial relationship between the viewer and the animal. For example, you might become genuinely attached to your neighbour’s cat

caption is enough to imbue the image with emotion. This personalisation breathes life into the owner-pet relationship in its digital representation. Sharing this content with loved ones is effectively a form of“pebbling”. Step two is “re-indexicalisation”. As the content circulates on social media,