Galleries Lose Ground

Traditional galleries are losing share of attention and sales as more collectors buy online, more artists sell directly, and the market’s growth shifts to cheaper works. (artbasel.com) The benchmark Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2025 put total global art sales at $57.5 billion in 2024, down 12% from a year earlier. Dealer sales fell 6%, public auction sales fell 25%, and the number of transactions still rose 3% to 40.5 million. (artbasel.com) That split helps explain the current argument online: the top end shrank, but lower-priced buying stayed active. Art Basel said sub-$50,000 works expanded, while the number of fine-art works sold at auction above $10 million fell 39% in 2024. (artbasel.com) Collectors are also behaving more like ordinary online shoppers. Artsy said 95% of collectors in its 2024 survey consider visible prices important online, and 56% called missing prices a major barrier to buying. (artsy.net) Younger buyers are further along in that shift. Artsy said 82% of collectors age 36 or younger had bought art online, and 42% of that group put more than three-quarters of their annual art spending online. (artsy.net) Galleries are adapting to that demand rather than denying it. In Artsy’s 2025 survey of more than 1,600 collectors and galleries in over 60 countries, 43% of galleries said they planned to focus more on online sales, 55% said they were creating more online content, and more than half said they were expanding online channels. (artsy.net) Artsy’s 2025 gallery report said online sales remained a “bright spot” for dealers from June 2024 through June 2025, especially when works were listed with instant-purchase options and visible prices. The report also said galleries that treated online inquiries as seriously as fair-booth walk-ins performed better on the platform. (artsy.net) The non-fungible token, or NFT, boom is part of the backdrop, but not in the way social posts often frame it. DappRadar said art NFT trading volume fell 93% from a $2.9 billion peak in 2021 to $197 million in 2024, then to $23.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. (dappradar.com) That collapse undercuts the idea that NFTs simply replaced galleries at scale. It does show that artists and collectors got used to bypassing older gatekeepers during the 2021–2022 digital surge, then kept some of those habits after speculative NFT trading faded. (dappradar.com) (artsy.net) The fight over artificial intelligence is feeding the same direct-to-audience dynamic. Hiscox said 40% of collectors expect AI-generated art sales to grow, while only 16% of seasoned collectors think AI art will reach the same value as human-made work and 82% want clearer labeling. (hiscoxgroup.com) Online-only shows are now built around that kind of instant reaction. Calder Contemporary’s “Perception & Provocation,” presented on Artsy from March 12 to April 12, 2026, framed works by Bridget Riley, Damien Hirst, Banksy, and David Hockney as art that hits viewers before “a single rational thought.” (artsy.net) The result is not the end of galleries so much as a narrower role for them. In 2026, the strongest evidence points to a market where galleries still matter, but discovery, pricing, and first contact are moving onto screens the dealers do not fully control. (artbasel.com) (artsy.net)