New year, new art world?

Five trend predictions

I hope everyone is enjoying their first few days of 2025.

If you have a minute, I’d love it if you could take part in the 2025 Art Forecast Reader Survey. I want to know what’s working and what you want to read about on Art Forecast. The survey is anonymous and quick (less than 4 minutes!).

Five Art World Predictions for 2025 🔮

As Ana Andjelic of The Sociology of Business aptly wrote in her year-end newsletter on trend forecasting, all predictions are informed guessing. “My main issue with predictions is that I don’t think that there is the future: there are many futures,” Andjelic wrote. I completely agree. The art world takes many forms and shapes. It will branch out in different directions and journeys—it’s up to us to choose what we want to focus on and notice how our tastes shift and adapt.

With that being said, I’ve made some educated guesses about the art world in 2025 (branded as trend predictions for maximum clicks). My guess is as good as yours, but it’s an interesting experiment to think back on the last year and how it might inform the future.

1. Exhibitions with 1-3 artworks total.

   1. This is also a bit of a request. I want to walk into a gallery with a single painting on the wall, forcing me to look carefully. I want to jockey for a position with other people in the gallery! I want to look at it from across the room and see it from various vantage points. I think it would also be nice for an artist to spend time making one quality piece rather than a demand on quantity. Sell said painting for six figures to a museum.

   2. One of the buzziest shows in 2024 in NYC was a two-person exhibition by Matthew Barney and Alex Katz at O’Flaherty’s. The two paintings by Katz are installed in a room directly across from each other. In my opinion, the perfect hang.

      

      Installation view of “The Bitch” at O’Flaherty’s. Photo David Regen

2. More galleries will close, while others will open with experimental formats.

   1. It feels inevitable at this point that galleries will continue to close or downsize.

   2. See the previous Art Forecast newsletter on a rotating gallery model in NYC. “In Tribeca, three galleries are joining together in a collaborative model—a first for the neighbourhood. Chozick Family Gallery, JDJ and Deanna Evans Projects will alternate monthly programming on the second floor of 370 Broadway in Lower Manhattan (previously home to just JDJ).”

   3. I love the idea of an art gallery in someone’s living room—it’s an intimate format that invites viewers to look at art as it’s supposed to be viewed. T Magazine recently covered the phenomenon.

   

   meme by @artreviewpower100

3. A move towards artist agents and managers instead of galleries.

   1. The art world is no longer about moving art from point A (the artist) to point B (the collector). It also involves PR strategy, social media metrics, invite-only residencies, panel talks, designer collaborations, crisis communications, and many more things that successful artists juggle. Blue-chip galleries have teams to support artists with the expectations and necessities of success, but galleries with skeleton crews can’t hit on each area of an artist’s career. That’s where I think “artist agents” will come in. These individuals will craft and negotiate each area of an artist’s career, like an agent or talent manager. I’m mostly curious about how something like this works financially—commission-based?

   2. See point 2A above. As more galleries close, and there are fewer galleries to absorb the artists on the rosters, artists will move towards agents or representing themselves.

4. Less corporate collecting.

   1. It’s been a rough year all around. Artists continue to be critical of institutions that go against their values—from the Sackler Family to Scotiabank. Some corporations will think the scrutiny from artists isn’t worth the visibility art collecting gives them and will pull back their art funding.

   2. To this, I say: Be the change you want to see in the world. If you love art, you should collect it. It goes a long way to support artists and galleries, at any price point.

5. Gagosian will name a successor.

   1. I have absolutely no evidence to support this, but it’s bound to happen sometime soon.

Do you agree or disagree with any of my predictions/guesses? Comment your predicitions or send me an email xx.