The Art Market Has Transformed Over the Past Decade. Here Were Its Fastest-Rising Stars, According to the Artnet Price Database

We like to think good art is timeless. But the art market is in
the business of timeliness, not timelessness. And
that means that changes in the market—whether they are the result
of an institutional push, a speculative rush, a change in taste, or
simply the death or divorce of a collector—can happen fast. Many of
the most sought-after contemporary artists today were not
particularly coveted just 10 years ago.

To get a sense of which artists’ fortunes have risen most
sharply over the past decade, we examined the history of Artnet
Price Database searches to determine who had the biggest rise in
interested users. (The metric shows us which artists are gaining
traction based on how many individuals searched for their auction
records.)

The result offers a vivid picture of a changing industry that
privileges youth more than ever before, but which is increasingly
recognizing the value of—and looking to cash in on—women and
artists of color.

Read takeaways from our findings and check out the full list
below.

1. The market of the 2010s loves
youth. 

Of the 100 artists with the greatest increase in interested
users since 2010, only two do not qualify as either postwar (which
covers artists artists born between 1911 and 1944) or contemporary
(artists born after 1945): the canvas-slasher Lucio Fontana
(1899–1968) and abstract color theorist Josef Albers (1888–1976).
They rank sixty-ninth and seventy-third, respectively. Meanwhile,
artists born after 1975 took up 23 slots on the 100-artist list,
led by market darling Jonas Wood (b. 1977), who was the
most-searched artist of the decade.

2. The pull of street art is
real.  

The 2010s may be remembered as the decade in which street art
sold out—or at least the one in which the art market began to cash
in on a new generation. KAWS, the New Jersey-born
graffiti artist turned art-market sensation, is the second
fastest-rising artist on the list. But the top 100 names also
contains RETNA (19), Banksy (20), Mr. Brainwash (30), Shepard
Fairey (46), and Invader (56). While these artists often base their
personas on the fact that they operate outside the market, it’s
clear that their work has found its way in—and, over the past
decade, it has been of great interest to market players.

3. It’s not (entirely) a white man’s game
anymore. 

This past decade has also widely been trumpeted as the era in
which women and artists of color finally began to be recognized by
the market and museums (although the reality of the
situation is more complicated). Our list
of rising artists reveals a changing marketplace, but not a
fundamentally transformed one. Thirty out of the top 100 artists
are not white; 20 are women. The presence of Yayoi Kusama (3) and
Sam Gilliam (4), who have been working steadily and inventively
since the 1960s, so high up on the list is emblematic of an art
market finally waking up to art and artists who have been making
waves and wielding influence outside its confines for decades.

Here are the top 100 artists with the biggest rise in
Artnet Price Database searches from 2010 to
2019. 

1. Jonas Wood
2. KAWS
3. Yayoi Kusama
4. Sam Gilliam
5. Günther Förg
6. Harold Ancart
7. Adrian Ghenie
8. Kerry James Marshall
9. Stanley Whitney
10. David Hockney
11. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
12. Carmen Herrera
13. Wolfgang Tillmans
14. Henry Taylor
15. Mark Bradford
16. Jean-Michel Basquiat
17. RETNA
18. Banksy
19. George Condo
20. Danh Vo
21. Lee Ufan
22. Alex Israel
23. Theaster Gates
24. Keith Haring
25. Mary Corse
26. Joe Bradley
27. Kazuo Shiraga
28. Mr. Brainwash
29. Rudolf Stingel
30. Rashid Johnson
31. Christopher Wool
32. Albert Oehlen
33. Mel Bochner
34. Josh Smith
35. Mark Grotjahn
36. Antony Gormley
37. Günther Uecker
38. Tracey Emin
39. François-Xavier Lalanne
40. Robert Longo
41. Oscar Murillo
42. Glenn Ligon
43. Ai Weiwei
44. Shepard Fairey
45. Sterling Ruby
46. Thomas Houseago
47. Wade Guyton
48. Zao Wou-Ki
49. Tauba Auerbach
50. Dan Colen
51. Mary Weatherford
52. Urs Fischer
53. Park Seo-Bo
54. Invader
55. Njideka Akunyili Crosby
56. Nate Lowman
57. Harland Miller
58. Eddie Martinez
59. Otto Piene
60. Lucien Smith
61. Mark Flood
62. Tony Cragg
63. David Ostrowski
64. Heinz Mack
65. Katherine Bernhardt
66. Gerhard Richter
67. Lucio Fontana
68. Jack Whitten
69. Georg Baselitz
70. Rob Pruitt
71. Mickalene Thomas
72. Katharina Grosse
73. Josef Albers
74. Carol Rama
75. Richard Hambleton
76. Sturtevant
77. Imi Knoebel
78. Agostino Bonalumi
79. Alec Monopoly
80. Anish Kapoor
81. Turi Simeti
82. Walead Beshty
83. Jeff Elrod
84. Petra Cortright
85. Agnes Martin
86. Ugo Rondinone
87. Jeff Koons
88. Tomoo Gokita
89. Alex Katz
90. Chung Sang Hwa
91. Pat Steir
92. Enrico Castellani
93. Ruth Asawa
94. Etel Adnan
95. Michelangelo Pistoletto
96. Adam Pendleton
97. El Anatsui
98. Paolo Scheggi
99. Carol Bove
100. Christian Rosa

The post The Art Market Has Transformed Over the Past
Decade. Here Were Its Fastest-Rising Stars, According to the Artnet
Price Database appeared first on artnet News.