The year 2019 showed that the contemporary digital art market, while still in its infancy, has substantial potential for growth. In 2019, new media art was frequently shown at contemporary art museums worldwide, including Nam June Paik’s show at Tate Modern, the exhibition “The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics” at New Museum and MoMA’s “Surrounds” show of 11 contemporary installations. Artificial Intelligence (AI) art was a key point of discussion at Christie’s Art+Tech Summit in New York as well at Kate Vass Gallery’s show in Zurich this summer. This all in the same year that Pace Gallery announced the launch of PaceX, a new initiative to promote projects that unite art and technology. It was also the year that we at the New Art Academy launched CADAF, an art fair dedicated entirely to digital art, with two successful editions—one in New York and one in Miami. At both these events, collector interest served to further illustrate the growing desire for various digital art mediums including Artificial Intelligence and Augmented/Virtual reality works. Now, with CADAF’s Miami edition under the belt, I’d like to take a look into 2020 and touch upon the trends that, in my opinion, will dominate the market in the next year.
More pop up immersive digital art venues will emerge within museums, galleries, private institutions and public spaces.
Likely the hype for immersive experiential ticketed exhibitions will only increase in 2020. Highly entertaining and accessible for the general audience, these shows are a great introduction to contemporary digital art and create easy avenues to experience it in a physical setting.
Increasing collaborations between digital artists and brands.
Collaborations between artists and brands have been popular for a long time. Now, with the abundance of the commercial screen space and increasing access to digital creators through social media and online platforms, we will likely see this trend grow and develop more in the digital space.
The market for high-tech art will expand.
Art created by Artificial Intelligence had a huge impact last year and in late 2018. Recently, Christie’s announced that the first-ever virtual reality work will be sold at an auction in 2020: Marina Abramović’s The Life (2019). Both signal growing interest in new tech among artists and collectors alike; expect the market will respond accordingly.
Innovative tech will become more accessible for collectors resulting in new solutions to display and manage digital art collections in home, office and commercial spaces.
Right now, there are two major issues for collectors who invest in digital art. The first is perhaps the most obvious: authenticity. That, however, is already being solved by Artory and dotART with innovative ways for recording provenance. The other is the availability of user-friendly presentation and collection management tools. In order to truly enter the commercial art market arena, digital art needs to be easily and safely transferred, shown and stored. We predict (but also hope) that in 2020, more solutions to address these issues will enter the space.
Digital art in museum and institution collections will increase.
With the growing popularity of contemporary digital art, and its market value increasing, museums and public institutions are understandably looking to get a piece of the pie. Additionally, the age of early digital art means its primed for institutional retrospectives and purchases that preserve important works in the public interest.
