Figures reveal increasing gains in renumeration, sales, and employment opportunities at the art market’s high end. Will this worsen workforce issues brought on by accelerated technology?

During the pandemic, as the art world drew to a grinding halt, there was an attempt, however short-lived, to face the myriad employment issues plaguing one of the most insular and unregulated industries worldwide. There were calls for wage transparency, diversity and inclusivity beyond PR efforts, empathetic leadership, trustworthy boards, paid internships, and more.

The efforts from the pandemic did have some long-term impact. For the sake of wage transparency, this April, specialist recruitment company Sophie Macpherson Ltd (SML) released the first SML Art Market Salary Report 2023, a biennial publication analysing wages in the UK and US across commercial galleries, fairs, auction houses, advisories, and associated technology businesses.

Unfortunately, the report’s findings, spanning from January to December 2022, do not reflect any real change. Since the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in salary rates across the global art market, with the biggest changes recorded in the US. This is likely skewered towards senior roles, given the type of candidates SML typically recruits.

The highest earners are senior sales directors and partners at commercial galleries earning between $225,000 and $425,000 in the US. Meanwhile, in the UK, the salary range for the same job is £213,000 – £250,000. Unsurprisingly, international auction houses offer far more competitive packages than art fairs.

On the other hand, entry-level positions are still paid very little. A gallery assistant, whose job description can be quite extensive, earns between £23,000 – £30,000 in the UK and $40,000 – $70,000 in the US. 

The pay inequity raises the problem of barrier to entry, a mounting challenge in the predominantly elitist art world as well as similar creative fields. Data from UK’s Analysis of Office for National Statistics revealed that 16.4% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 had a working-class background, but for those born forty years later, it had fallen to all the way to 7.9%.

This presents gaps in terms of producing content and staying relevant. Speaking to the Guardian, Dave O’Brien, a professor of cultural and creative industries at the University of Sheffield, noted that TV commissioners and publishers tended to be from a “reasonably kind of cohesive, quite narrow, elite social background”. Hence, what is interesting for them may not be of interest to young people from less privileged backgrounds.

The expansion concentrated at the top was also apparent in the trends identified by the Art Basel and UBS report, The Art Market 2023, released this quarter.

While the global art market grew by 3% as a whole in 2022, to an estimated $67.8 billion, from its pre-pandemic $64.4 billion in 2019, much of the expansion was focused at the art market’s high end. The report even dubbed 2022 as a “year of divergence” aligning with the increasing wealth gap worldwide.

According to the report’s author, Dr Clare McAndrew, from 2009 to 2022, the index for the Ultra-High End (US$10 million-plus segment) grew almost 700%, whereas the low end (sub $50,000) experienced only an increase of 10% growth over that same period.

Also, last year, the auction market’s $10 million-plus segment was one of the only ones to indicate an increase in value year-on-year, while all other lower price segments contracted.

Yet, for most part, industry insiders remain willfully ignorant to the challenges posed by a top-heavy art market. Since last year, with the return of the full gamut of its annual international calendar, the global art market has been chugging along blissfully, even as other creative industries face the brunt of labor issues brought on by accelerated technology and inequity. As of 13 June, Hollywood actors have voted to authorize a strike in the wake of writers entering their sixth week of a walkout.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Writers Guild of America requested that the entertainment industry agree not to use AI to replace writers in one of its contract proposals. The studios reportedly declined, in addition to refusing to meet routine demands like pay increases, leading to a breakdown in negotiations and the inadvertent strike.

These issues on the table are not specific to the largest entertainment industry in the world – there are implications for creatives everywhere. This April, LA-born artist Alex Israel used ChatGPT to craft a press release that was sent out to promote his exhibition Fins running at Gagosian Rome from 12 May to 28 July.  When queried about the implications by Ocula, Israel responded, “New tool, new world.”

One can only hope this new world involves a much-needed employment reset for the art industry.

A version of this analysis was originally commissioned by London-based Pictorum Advisory for their June newsletter.