To get a snapshot of how tastes changed in the 2010s, we examined which artists drew the most individual searchers.
We like to think good art is timeless. But the art market is in the business of timeliness, not timelessness. And that means that changes in the market—whether they are the result of an institutional push, a speculative rush, a change in taste, or simply the death or divorce of a collector—can happen fast. Many of the most sought-after contemporary artists today were not particularly coveted just 10 years ago.
To get a sense of which artists’ fortunes have risen most sharply over the past decade, we examined the history of Artnet Price Database searches to determine who had the biggest rise in interested users. (The metric shows us which artists are gaining traction based on how many individuals searched for their auction records.)
The result offers a vivid picture of a changing industry that privileges youth more than ever before, but which is increasingly recognizing the value of—and looking to cash in on—women and artists of color.
Read takeaways from our findings and check out the full list below.
Of the 100 artists with the greatest increase in interested users since 2010, only two do not qualify as either postwar (which covers artists artists born between 1911 and 1944) or contemporary (artists born after 1945): the canvas-slasher Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) and abstract color theorist Josef Albers (1888–1976). They rank sixty-ninth and seventy-third, respectively. Meanwhile, artists born after 1975 took up 23 slots on the 100-artist list, led by market darling Jonas Wood (b. 1977), who was the most-searched artist of the decade.
Banksy’s Girl with a Balloon shredded itself after selling for $1.4 million at Sotheby’s. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
The 2010s may be remembered as the decade in which street art sold out—or at least the one in which the art market began to cash in on a new generation. KAWS, the New Jersey-born graffiti artist turned art-market sensation, is the second fastest-rising artist on the list. But the top 100 names also contains RETNA (19), Banksy (20), Mr. Brainwash (30), Shepard Fairey (46), and Invader (56). While these artists often base their personas on the fact that they operate outside the market, it’s clear that their work has found its way in—and, over the past decade, it has been of great interest to market players.
The auction of Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
This past decade has also widely been trumpeted as the era in which women and artists of color finally began to be recognized by the market and museums (although the reality of the situation is more complicated). Our list of rising artists reveals a changing marketplace, but not a fundamentally transformed one. Thirty out of the top 100 artists are not white; 20 are women. The presence of Yayoi Kusama (3) and Sam Gilliam (4), who have been working steadily and inventively since the 1960s, so high up on the list is emblematic of an art market finally waking up to art and artists who have been making waves and wielding influence outside its confines for decades.
