Recovering Art Market, but the real growth is elsewhere

After two years of contraction, the global art market cautiously returned to growth in 2025 according to the latest Art Basel report. Total sales rose 4% to $ 59,6 billion, driven largely by renewed high-end activity and strong auction performance. But the real transformation of the art economy is not measured in sales but in initiatives and thinking.

@ Domus Dover Street Market

Several structural shifts signal what the market is actually doing:

• The market is recovering, but unevenly. The above-mentioned numbers indicate growth, yet the market remains below its 2022 peak, showing that recovery is partial rather than a structural expansion.

• High-end works above $ 10 million grew significantly and are driving the rebound, demonstrating continued concentration of value at the top. Hello democratization?

• The United States remains the dominant market and accounts for roughly 44% of global art sales. The UK and China follow as the second and third largest markets. France, coucou?

• Geopolitics is now a structural factor. Tariffs, trade tensions, and regulatory shifts are increasingly shaping the moment of artworks and collectors. The art market is becoming more complex and politically sensitive. The ongoing wars will further exacerbate this situation.

• Online sales dropped to 15% of total value, confirming that digital platforms complement but do not replace the physical experience.

In this emerging landscape, value is no longer solely defined by artworks, more auctions, more galleries, or more fairs. It is increasingly defined by how art interacts with other systems such as business, strategy, knowledge, and society. The market now operates through global mobility of capital, international regulations, is defined by wealth concentration, asks for cultural diplomacy, and moves towards cross-sector collaborations. Art has become a node inside a much larger system. Yet the art market still largely operates with transactional logic, and that's exactly where the gap is.

On top, another structural force shaping the future is the Great Wealth Transfer, with more than $ 80 trillion expected to move between generations in the coming decades. The next collectors tend to be more interdisciplinary, impact-oriented, experience-focused, and digitally native – a completely new mindset. For them, collecting is no longer about ownership but about participation in cultural ecosystems.

How can you think about art differently? Treating art as a strategic form of intelligence, opening up the next layer of the art economy. If the 20th-century art market was about objects, and the early 21st century about markets, the next phase will be about infrastructure. Infrastructure of ideas, dialogue, interdisciplinary collaboration, and cultural intelligence.

The aim is to create platforms that connect art with the wider world through questioning assumptions, imagining alternatives, interpreting complexity, and creating meaning in uncertainty. Think of art working at the interface between art & business leadership, culture & strategy, creativity & systems thinking, and market & meaning. Let's art circulate in new ways!

We exist precisely at this intersection as a thinking platform within the art and business ecosystem, as the next evolution of the art world won't come from selling more art. We are convinced that it will come from thinking with art. If you are recognizing this shift already, we would love to shape the next cultural economy together with you.

Your truly,

Margot

MDA sidenote: Dover Street Market is a concept retail space founded by Rei Kawakubo that blends fashion, design, and contemporary art through constantly changing installations curated like gallery exhibitions. By collaborating with artists and designers and treating retail displays as creative environments, Dover Street Market has built a strong connection to the art world and serves as a platform where fashion and artistic practice intersect.