Digital Scarcity Is Back — Just Not Where You Were Looking
The edition is the oldest trick in the art market. New platforms have quietly figured out how to make it work online. That’s the real digital thesis.
Mark Bradford: The Institutional Darling That’s Now an Allocation Decision
Between museum shows, Venice representation, and a steady secondary tape, Mark Bradford has moved from ‘up-and-comer’ to ‘portfolio line item.’
Estates Are Running the Market. Live with It.
Single-owner estate sales are producing most of the flagship numbers at evening sales — and creating an artificial scarcity that distorts what ‘normal’ looks like.
Art Lending 101: What You’re Actually Signing When You Pledge a Painting
Art-backed loans have gone mainstream. Most first-time borrowers don’t understand what they’ve given up. We walk through the terms that matter.
Museums Will Buy Less. That’s the Story of the Next Five Years.
Acquisition budgets are flat, fundraising is soft, and deaccession pressure is rising. Institutions are about to stop being the buyer of last resort.
Julie Mehretu: The Institutional Stack Is Not the Same as a Liquid Market
Mehretu has museum reach very few living artists can match. But her secondary depth doesn’t match her institutional footprint. That gap matters.
Private Sales Are Eating the Public Market. Quietly.
The numbers auction houses post don’t include their private sales desks — and those desks are now doing more volume than the rooms they used to feed.
The Catalogue Raisonné Is the Most Important Document in the Market
It’s also slow, political, and increasingly contested. Here’s how to use one, how to read one, and what it actually guarantees.
The $100M Problem: Why the Top of the Market Is Getting Narrower
The number of artists capable of producing a $100 million lot is stuck at roughly twenty. It’s getting harder to get on the list and easier to fall off.
Peter Doig Has Always Been Strange Money. That’s Partly the Point.
A disciplined look at Peter Doig’s auction record, why his best years were 2007 and 2017, and what a realistic hold period on a Doig looks like in 2026.