1. Introduction: A Market in Decline
For years, the contemporary art market has existed in a state of seemingly unending growth and expansion of record auction prices, art fairs (of which there are many), and enhanced public visibility. However, the recently released information suggests that a meaningful and sustained decline had taken place, indicating that the supports for the trend may have been less sturdy than had been previously construed. This decline is not merely an economic adjustment or even a business cycle in the decline phase, but this decline denotes a more significant “crisis of value” that has been exacerbated by an overreliance on “show and PR.” In other words, the value narrative that becomes part of the meaning of the artwork and the justification for highs prices seems to be crumbling as the weight of its trustworthiness is bending under the weight of its own hype.
The evidence for decline is now indisputable. Global art sales fell 12% in 2024 to an estimated 10 million fell by 45.5% in 2024, a price segment that has primarily driven the aggregate auction market sales [1] [2]. All major auction houses reported declines in the sales tally in the first half of 2025 down 6% from the 2024 period. For three years in a row, these were the lowest sales total figures in a decade, excluding the unusual year of 2020 [3]. The “show and PR” environment that was manufactured to proliferate value and create meaning was exposed as a gimmick that kicked off significant closures of thousands of art exhibitions and gallery closures. The economy, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the political instability of the dominant broker or converts to art exhibitions and auctions were factors, this report raced against the narrative to assert the decline in the fashion industry is symptomatic of a deeper; “narrative breakdown”.
The problem is ethical and cultural at the core. The dependence on a show, PR, and culture of excessive theater and show of spectacle to create value has steepened a “narrative breakdown” that do-away with possible conditions of consequential art histories, and critical discourse. In our analysis, we will first breakdown how this show culture built excessive speculation with in our so-called art economy and ignored the building of authentic value and that inevitably the market became fragile exposing to complexities. By understanding the PR constellations that define art related value, and a brief sociological account of the “collapse” category of provenance, past, and present actors, we will argue in order to mitigate the possibilities of sustainability in the contemporary art market operating systems need a “re-thinking” and “re-imagining” practices of building and forging value.
2. The Narrative Breakdown:
When Value Loses its Story. Value in the art market is not an intrinsic quality of an object, but a social consensus based on a compelling narrative. This narrative – a complicated story made up an artist’s biography, public reception, rigor of the concept, provenance, and art historical context – creates the meaning that affixes cultural and monetary value to the artwork being sold. However, this narrative in the contemporary art market is mostly broken – as the relationship between an artwork’s price and its narrative is now very tenuous. This break in the narrative is a consequence of the market losing sight of critical-made narratives and instead shifting the narrative to PR.
2.1. Needed a Critical Ecosystem
Traditionally, the value of artworks were connected to an ecosystem of critical discourse between critics, curators, and academics. Their collective critical judgment was fundamental in situating an artist’s work in cultural/historical context, thereby creating a foundation of long-term value. Contemporary art market orients toward a model that is increasingly bypassing critical discourse. As one analysis explains, the primary art market is the market that composes art priced or works of art to be commercially viable, while the gallery is professional representation for the artist to establish a reputation. Therefore the gallery is responsible for managing all marketing, advertising, and public relations activiies [4]. Consequently the “taste-making art machine” is distributive, not based on independent critical discourse, but the marketing of key players in the market [4].
This momentary changes priorities around narratives based on performance in today’s economy for publicity / media and speed of value appreciation, rather than the idea or formalism of the artwork, venture capital based, or based on unique storied history pending media, PR, or celebrity collector. It shifts the attention of the story of art to the story of market. Therefore the value proposition is based on luxury-market criteria – label awareness, scarcity, rather than art-historical; which might make the story textually/artistically significant [5]. When these narratives – or sentiments – manufactured and evaporate, they will not have a credible story anchor, and thus value collapse.
2.2. The Speculative Bubble for Young Artists
The biggest sign of this narrative breakdown has been the speculative bubble by young contemporary art. When liquidity is high there is a culture of hype, and consequentially markets based in hype, markets dwarf size on possibly the next “big thing.” These speculative bubbles invest without a vast portfolio or established critical consensus – just PR to generate growth in value, or possibly early auction outcomes to inflate the perception of sustainable value.The market decline has made evident the instability of this model. Auction house data shows that spending on young contemporary artists collapsed 71% from $347 million in 2022 to $101 million in 2024 [6]. This drop indicates a massive withdrawal of speculative collectors who are now investing in “safer bets” for artists having established secondary markets [6]. This shift to safety illustrates a loss of faith in the PR narrative, which created value in the emerging art market. When the only case for the value of an artwork is because it can be sold at a profit, its value will always be precarious. The changing of the speculative bubble provides a clear picture of what happens when it values market velocity over real artistic value. Without a compelling story that appeals to more than market momentum, values can quickly evaporate when that momentum runs out.
3. The Mechanics of Excess: Show and PR in the Undermining Value
The structural instability of the contemporary art market is perennially tied to its investment in a culture of excessive ‘show and PR’. The nature of show and PR exceeds legitimate marketing, so that the latter becomes the primary generator of value, often prioritizing show over substance and manufactured hype over genuine artistic discourse. This section will illuminate the specific mechanisms behind this, from art financialization to engineered market frenzies, demonstrating how dependencies on show and PR methodologies systematically undermine stable value.
3.1. The Financialization of Art and the Emphasis on the Brand
Over the years, contemporary art has been increasingly framed not merely as a cultural artifact, but as an alternative asset class for investment and wealth storage. The process of financialization is shifting the primary locus of valuation away from aesthetic complexity and merit based, to metrics of financial performance. Evidence has shown that short-term price fluctuations in the art market ultimately reflect behavior derived from speculation and collector sentiment rather than intrinsic artistic merit, leading to volatility and the potential for market bubbles [7]. The culture of show and PR is integral to the financialized model of art valuation, as it is the main engine of creating the artist “brand” that attracts buyers with investments on their minds.
This notion of the art-market-as-brand narrative has powerful precedent from artists like Andy Warhol who paired together art, commercialized celebrity, and glamour, preparing the market to reward brand recognition as much as artistic merit [8]. In such an art market, PR campaigns, cross-promotions, and auction records are less validators of artistic merit, and more marketing devices to increase the artist’s brand equity over time. The artwork could become secondary to the story created around it; a story that increasingly emphasizes investment potential. This branding dependence also means that this art market is susceptible to cycles of hype and disappointment, which affect markets for luxury consumer goods, separating value from the steady point of reference of art historical significance.
3.2. The Production of Hype – The Engine of speculative frenzies
Excess culture thrives on a production of urgency and scarcity, creating “trading frenzies” around particular artists or movements [9]. Academic work on the art market has considered the role of “extrapolative expectations” (i.e., thinking that past price increases would continue) as a major force propelling speculative bubbles [10]. Strong PR and marketing campaigns are critical to creating these expectations. Through the press release of record sales, high publicity of sold-out booth presentations at art fairs, and even cultivating a waitlist for an artist’s work, market participants can create a powerful narrative about demand.
This creates a feedback loop, as buzz generated by PR spurs speculative buyers, and those buyers drive prices up. Then those prices are reported as news and the narrative of desirability is further extended to draw even more buyers. This feedback loop has the potential to create a “bubble,” a market condition in which market participants buy an asset for more than its fundamental value, expecting to resell it at an even higher level [9]. While this strategy can garner significant short-term profits, it builds value on top of a premise of market sentiment instead of a critical consensus of worth. When that sentiment changes or the market runs out of new buyers, the bubble pops and we have the type of steep correction currently occurring in the young contemporary art market. The over-reliance on manufactured hype creates a market where the volatility naturally presents itself in boom and bust cycles that harm investor confidence and disrupt artists’ careers.
4. Sociological Drivers and Psychological Effects
The art market’s dependency on show and PR does not just occur in a bubble – it is also configured by larger sociological and economic realities. The transformation of art into a high stakes arena for the performance of wealth and status has established fertile ground for a culture of spectacle. Understanding these external drivers and the psychological effects on participants are important for understanding why the system becomes so reliant on hype and the implications of that reliance.
4.1. Art as a Stage for Status and Cultural Capital
In a moment of significant wealth concentration, the contemporary art market has become a prime space for the performance of social status and cultural capital. The acquisition of a highlighted piece of work and participation in exclusive art world events signal elite positioning. The culture of show and PR caters to this dynamic by creating highly visible, celebrity-powered, and saturated media moments amplifying a collector’s social currency. Blockbuster exhibitions, VIP previews at art fairs, and record-setting auctions are not simply commercial events, they are social spectacles where status is performed and validated.This sociological role helps explain the cultivation of branding and spectacle in the market over connoisseurship. Simply put, for the collector of status, the relevant story may not be the work’s position in art history, but whether it was visible in the media and/or associated with other markers of high status. It creates demand for art that has visibility and which is publically validated by spectacle. The more the cultural and social capital of art become conflated with market hype, the more its value becomes tethered to public, short-lived social trends. As one analysis puts it, the potential danger for the art market is to lose its stake as a form of cultural production and devolve into a pure luxury market – a spectacle without a message that impotently loses meaning and relevance long-term [5].
4.2 The Psychology of the Market: FOMO, Fatigue, and Disengagement
The vicious cycle of hype and promotion has profound psychological consequences for all stakeholders of the market. For collectors, PR strategies are often built to leverage FOMO – there is urgency to acquire works by “hot” artists before prices escalate. It can lead to impulsive purchases based more on market momentum than on considered value judgment. The market correction over the past year and the turn toward more considered, methodical research, in the case of wealthy collectors acquiring art, seems to suggest a growing fatigue and disgust, if not contempt, for the high-pressure environment of the art market [11].
For artists, the pressure to make a marketable or “instagrammable” product to fit into the PR narrative compromises the integrity of an artist’s production and can stop experimentation. The pressure of maintaining a consistent output that fits a brand can inhibit risk taking and lead to a classic example of group think homogenizing style. Critics and curators suffer from fatigue over the insatiable market-based publicity machine that often trumps other deserving or nuanced artist conversations while developing sensibilities of cynicism.
Perhaps the most damaging consequence of hype and pressure upon the public. Art is often framed as an ultra-exclusive commodified good or social spectacle, requiring status or wealth to engage. The perception of an opaque, elitist, and speculative playground that compromises art’s potential as a meaningful aspect of the broader public cultural experience damages the entire public’s engagement with an important contribution to it. This disengagement from art’s potential is the most dangerous long-term consequence for the art ecosystem, which, ultimately, depends on a shared belief in the importance of art that extends beyond a mere financial instrument.
5. Towards a More Sustainable Market:
The current contraction of the contemporary art market goes beyond mere cyclical downturn but is a critical moment of reckoning. The rapid decline in sales, especially at the high end, and the collapse of the speculative bubble for emerging contemporary artists indicate that there was never any real value in a system that prioritized manufactured hysteria over real values. The culture of excess and media generated narratives have developed a speculative art market where the story is made for immediate fiscal gain separate from any real, longer lasting valuations based on critical acclaim, art history, and cultural significance. This “narrative breakdown” has left the market exposed, depleted of trust and cementing the instability of value based on spectacle.
The text has shown that PR dependency is not an issue but a foundational problem to the financialization of art and the sociological market purpose as an arena for status display. The mechanics of hype have created speculative frenzies that while profitable over the short term, prove unsustainable. In other words, the market has become unstable with psychological costs for artists, collectors, and public which has ultimately jeopardized the art market’s long-term economic health and cultural position.
In order to move forward we must correct the ship. A sustainable art market cannot be based on the transient notions of marketing trends and speculative momentum. It is rooted in the commitment to the principles that create real value: rigorous critical debate, independent curatorial discretion, and focus on the integrity of the artist. As we move forward, market participants–galleries, auction houses, collectors, and advisors–must actively disentangle the valuation of art from the noise of how art is promoted. This means promoting transparency, collecting artwork from artists that oppose commercial trends, and encouraging creative practices that allow for more direct investment in workmanship rather than immediate hear return. The current downturn presents immediate challenges but also represents an essential opportunity to reconstruct the art market on a more stable and substantive foundation–one where the story of art, not the spectacle of sale, is once again the ultimate value of a project.
References
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