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A visitor enjoys a striking exhibit by Niyi Olagunji shown by Tafeta Gallery during the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House in London on Oct. 8. Getty Images Text size
For gallery owners, artists, and collectors, life before the pandemic often involved getting on a plane and going to Paris, Los Angeles, or maybe Shanghai, to attend the next splashy art fair.
But all that was upended, of course, as the pandemic shut down fair after fair. First to announce a closure was Art Basel Hong Kong, which canceled its March fair in February and moved many of its galleries to online viewing rooms, or OVRs.
The Covid pandemic of 2020 created one of the most lopsided economic environments in recent memory, with the rich getting richer while unemployment and bread lines soared. In such an environment it may come as little surprise that the ultra-luxurious, multi-billion dollar art world produced some of the biggest market gains this year.
Through July, the art market gained 5.5 percent a better performance than most other markets and assets classes, according to a recent report from Citi Private Bank’s art advisory and finance group.
The gains were based on the Masterworks.io price-weighted All Art Index, which measures the gains in prices of artwork sold by the major auction houses. That index gained more than ten other major asset classes over the same time period, including equities (both developed and emerging markets), which were down 2.6 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, for the period, the report said.