The Gray Market
The Gray Market is a bi-weekly column by Tim Schneider about the art market’s transition from an informal, insular economy to a professionalised, growth-minded industry.
The Gray Market: Why Sotheby’s $700m art-backed debt security is an acid test for the trade’s intentions
The large-scale investment vehicle raises major questions about who gets to decide where, how and to whom art circulates
The Gray Market: Demand for young artists' work is bowed but unbroken in top auctions
Defying market dogma, marquee sales results show “reallocation” to youth
The Gray Market: Why contemporary dealers and collectors are monitoring an antitrust lawsuit over Birkin bags
Hermès's alleged sale strategy for the in-demand bags parallels dealers' waiting list policies, but legal experts are sceptical of the lawsuit's merits
The Gray Market: Anyone wrestling with money's influence on art has 800 years of company
A show at the Morgan Library & Museum traces the modern economy's emergence in the Middle Ages—and how it influenced art from the start
The Gray Market: Rybolovlev’s trial against Sotheby’s has become a slog through minutiae—and that’s good for the auction house
The art market ‘trial of the century’ has transitioned from courtroom drama to bureaucratic headache
Fairs, auction houses and AI: five predictions for the art market in 2024
Will Patrick Drahi sell a stake in Sotheby’s? Will Frieze acquire more regional fairs? Watch this space…
The Gray Market: Our art market soothsayer looks back on his 2023 predictions
How did his forecasts weather the roughest turbulence the trade has experienced in years? Read on to find out
The Gray Market: The 1973 Scull auction was a harbinger of today's market, but its meaning is still misunderstood
Fifty years later, history suggests the infamous sale from the collection of Robert and Ethel Scull is not quite the art market precedent it is remembered as
The Gray Market: Prints and multiples may finally be ready for the market spotlight—it only took a few hundred years of confusion
The latest edition of the IFPDA Print Fair in New York and a slew of moves by mega-galleries look set to reshape this long-overlooked category
The Gray Market: Art fraud has hijacked the conversation again, but calls for stronger regulation miss the bigger picture
Is regulation a wonder drug for curing the art market of its chronic fraud problem? Our columnist explains why that thinking is a myth