NEW YORK, NY.- Jane Kallir, co-director of Galerie St. Etienne, has issued her 2018 market report on the state of art world. Kallir has identified a number of conditions that are affecting the market and impacting galleries and auction houses. Among her concerns are:

• Baby-boomers are aging out of the art market, and not being replaced in comparable numbers.

• The art market is increasing controlled by the major auction houses and a handful of high-powered dealers.

• Poaching of big ticket artists by mega-dealers destroys the creative ecosystem that fosters important but less marketable work.

• The fundamental framework for assessing quality has been replaced by a system in which marketing prowess and financial value often trump aesthetic value.

Will fundamental economic changes destroy the art world as we now know it? Kallir notes that millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at their age. Income inequality is on the rise and likely to continue.

With major auction houses and mega-dealers gobbling up market share, mid-size galleries are facing financial pressures from high rents and the expensive art fair circuit. Kallir notes that today, for the first time in recent memory, more galleries are closing than opening.

Another worrisome development is that the largest galleries are poaching major artists away from smaller galleries. The more successful artists in a gallery’s stable are the cash cows, which help finance the presentation of work by other artists. The art world depends on dealers to nurture emerging talent with the understanding that they will reap the rewards if and when an artist becomes successful.

Grouping works according to origin, period, artistic intent, medium, etc., facilitated comparative judgments in the past, but this approach to connoisseurship has fallen out of fashion. An obsession with glamour, scandal, and money has largely replaced serious art criticism.

The FUTURE OF ART: 2018 Art Market Report is available here. Jane Kallir has been issuing annual art market reports since 2000.