Market Dispatch

As we go to press, there is no knowing what global crises will confront us in the fall. The past few years have brought political upheavals, a pandemic and a land war on the edge of Europe, all against the background of impending climate catastrophe. A worldwide recession looms. And yet, despite these challenges, the market in collectible design is booming.

Auction houses in Paris, New York and London are seeing record prices for 20th-century design, with more than $75m spent by collectors in June alone at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York, over the course of five design sales. That same month, Phillips New York registered new records for artists as different as Shiro Kuramata, Jennifer Lee and Doyle Lane. Prices continue to reach eye-watering levels for the current blue-chip leaders in the field – works by Les Lalanne, Diego and Alberto Giacometti, Carlo Mollino, Jean Prouvé and Jean Royère – while the art deco market shows vigorous growth and Tiffany continues to draw strong interest in the US. In-person art fairs with strong design participation – NOMAD, FOG Design + Art, PAD Design + Art, Design Miami and Salon Art + Design – have returned to find eager audiences. Above all, however, business has been resurgent for galleries.

As Marc Benda of New York gallery Friedman Benda comments: “It was quite astonishing how the market came back after the shock of Covid.” There are several reasons for this. Benda suggests that, while in general the collectible design market has become increasingly aligned with the financial and real estate markets, it differs critically in the response of its main participants to global crises. “You are not insulated from these things, but you are buying something for your home. You are acquiring something that gives you pleasure.” Even the highest priced design objects – François-Xavier Lalanne’s languorous Léopard I (2005), for instance, for which the winning bidder paid €8.3m ($9.7m) last November at Sotheby’s Paris – are appealingly more affordable than much contemporary or Modern art. Many people have also noted that lockdown, specifically, turned the critical gaze of collectors upon their own homes. Cristina Grajales, speaking from her newly opened space in Tribeca, reports, “Our homes have become our refuge, an oasis, the only place where we feel safe.” She adds, “Because of this new understanding of our spaces, the market has increased and expanded. Within younger audiences we have seen a new type of curiosity and hunger for information.”

Valerio Capo, co-founder of London-based Fumi gallery (with Sam Pratt in 2008), returning to the fair this year, says of the first year of the pandemic: “After complete silence for five months, our clients started to come back to us. As people became more attuned to their domestic spaces, they wanted to make them more beautiful. We are seeing more interest in what we do, from both collectors and interior designers.” From Paris, according to Laurence Bonnel of Galerie Scène Ouverte, a newcomer to Salon, the report is the same: “In our experience [the market] is now very dynamic. We can see that very limited-edition pieces meet a lot of success. People want to have very special works that have a history.”

Adrian Sassoon, meanwhile, a Salon stalwart, notes the opportunity that lockdown brought for his team to up their virtual game, using online tools to develop conversations and reach new audiences. “I am an old dinosaur. Earlier in my career, I was posting transparencies to collectors, which often were images of an object like a target in a coconut shy,” he says. “Nowadays we can pop a scaled image into your room setting a continent away and you can see it on your screen in a moment.” As a consequence, he suggests, “Over the past three years, we have sold more wonderful works of art to collectors whom we have never met from across the world than ever before.” He also notes the steadying support of art fairs “that remain in the same place and at the same time as always. Likewise, the level of exhibitors being sustained at these art fairs gives visitors confidence in the permanence also of the works of art we present.”

But if the market is buoyant, where is it trending? Art consultant Astrid Malingreau suggests that today’s collectors of design are looking for an emotional connection with the pieces they buy. She observes that this is shared by the designers who infuse into their works “very personal ideas or memories or physical experiences of material”. This is, of course, not new. Malingreau suggests it’s a revival of ideas from pioneers of the 1960s, “who understood that design did not have to be limited by the form/function dialectic”. She has also noted the rise in popularity of what has been called “neotenic” design, identified as a trend in 2019 in an exhibition curated by architects Justin Donnelly and Monling Lee in Brooklyn. Neotenic design is “cute” furniture, characterized by soft or rounded edges, bulbous shapes and mono-materials, evoking babies or puppies and inducing a sense of comfort. “The world is scary. You want a comforting home,” Lee suggests. Similar qualities might account for the popularity at auction of works by French post-war designers Jean Royère and Pierre Paulin.

The search for comfort has also been noted by Benda. “We used to joke that we have sold 1,000 chairs that no one sits on and that has changed markedly. Certain studios have veered in the direction of usability and we have started working more with designers in this area.” Benda cites the recent work of Faye Toogood and Raphael Navot, which the gallery will be showing at the fair, where typology – chair, table, stool – “is very much part of the original concept”.

“Good designers were always interested in typology, but usually our conversations started with, ‘I have found a technology that no one is using’ or ‘I have had a chance to bend a material to my will’. With Navot, the starting point was ‘Let’s see what an incredible sofa can look like,’” Benda comments. The gallery’s booth will reflect this shift in focus: “[It] could be well described as a drawing room, with some important accents by contemporary designers. Whereas some people used to put a piece in their living rooms on a pedestal with a light on it, which turned their homes into a gallery, that has reversed. [The design] is really integrated, with a piece that makes you think alongside the children’s playpen and drawing room furniture.”

At Nomad Capri this summer, color was a major feature of many booths’ presentations. Capo, who exhibited there, suggests that “playful, colorful, joyful works are becoming more and more popular.” Grajales confirms this, saying of her audience, which is largely based in North America and Europe, with growing interest from Asia and the Middle East: “In terms of trends, people have had a new interest in color and experimental new materials. There is a curiosity about natural materials like mycelium and other plant matter.” Certainly sustainability has become a big theme, with artists such as Fumi’s Casey McCafferty drawing attention to the way even the by-product of his woodworking – sawdust – is used creatively. Benda confirms that, at every level, the integrity of the process has become increasingly important to collectors. He says, “There is always a cheaper way to do something – you can just go to an anonymous fabricator in China and get 98% of what you want. But working with that one chiseller in France or that one supplier of certified wood to a Chilean studio, this is very different. Ethical factors play an important part.”

The vintage market has also seen a renewed interest in natural materials and one-off crafted objects. Bob Aibel of Moderne Gallery,

Philadelphia, a leading figure in the market for American studio furniture, explains that while domestic trade has been erratic, in response both to Trump and Covid, he has found new clients in Europe and Asia. “George Nakashima is still a very active and growing market throughout the world. Fortunately, it’s leading more collectors to look at and purchase historical and contemporary studio furniture by talented, lesser-known makers.” He adds: “The studio ceramics market has been growing for quite some time, and it’s beginning to truly flourish.” This has been observed around the world, with galleries increasingly adding ceramists to their roster and prices at auction rising steadily (think of Magdalene Odundo and Jennifer Lee). Andrew Duncanson, director of Modernity, based in Stockholm and London, notes that alongside increased interest in vintage Swedish designers such as Axel Einar Hjorth and Otto Schulz, “we have seen a much greater interest in ceramic art recently. We sold 15 pieces of ceramics at Masterpiece in London, for instance. We are also selling ceramics well on our website.” They will be showing a young Swedish ceramic artist, Alvina Jakobsson, at Salon.

Almost all gallerists report that, above all, even this side of a sequence of challenges, American collectors remain more audacious than their European and Asian cousins. In terms of scale and a readiness to fall in love with new work, there is a boldness that has survived Covid. It is this confidence and excitement that has drawn galleries from across the globe to New York this fall.