Art Trends for Galleries and Collectors for 2024
Art galleries are predicting and gearing up to showcase a myriad of trends that promise to influence consumers, collectors and galleries around the United States and abroad. Like fashion, art trends, recycles and recapitulates. Here are a few movements the internet, critics and myself forecast to dominate gallery walls and the art scene for 2024.
Immersive Experiences: As technology continues to shape our daily lives, art is no exception to tech’s impression. Immersive experiences such as Wonderspaces in Scottsdale will continue to unveil and immerse viewers in the convergence of art and tech as a multi-sensory journey. Though artist such as Bill Viola, Tony Oursler and Nam June Paik have been doing it for the better part of a half century.
Sustainability and Eco-Art: Young artists and galleries will showcase sustainable art in both its medium and message for 2024. However, unless your art is archival, practically speaking, I can’t see collectors investing too much into anything that will eventually compost. However, Non-fungibles are creating attention with their own little market as intangible works. Nevertheless, there will assuredly be more art that helps and draws attention to environmental causes and charities in 2024.
Artificial Intelligence: AI is predicted to aid artist, fuel immersive art, and also drive the NFT market to name a few. Though the art world is captivated by AI as both the artist and the medium, seasoned investors tend to see NFT’s as a Cryptocurrency of sorts and remain slightly skittish. I personally don’t see the value in taking the ghost out of the machine nor the human experience out of art. That said, digital art will probably rise in a practical sense and in the consumer realm but not so much with collectors.
Inclusive and Diverse Narratives: Galleries everywhere are becoming platforms for underrepresented voices and social narratives. In 2024, expect to see a surge in artworks that celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and social justice from all sides. This will likely produce a new wave of artists, but collectors will still have a critical eye, keeping it business as usual.
Retro Futurism and Nostalgia: The past is always meeting the future in the world of art, design, and architecture. Artists draw inspiration from nostalgic elements and infuse them with futuristic aesthetics (and vice versa). Retro Futurism blends vintage and modern elements. Various experts and publications like US Art news predict a surge in collecting pop art, minimalist geometric art and Swedish landscapes which are characterized by their loose strokes of flat but rich tertiary colors much like Eric Fischl and David Hockney. This is a solid and safe bet for galleries and collectors.
2024 promises to be an interesting year as the art world still struggles to find its way out of the Modern and post modern art movements. Look for collectors and galleries to reflect this. The art critic Clement Greenberg once lamented, modern art itself criticizes, challenges and contradicts itself. The current contemporary movement is arguably stagnant, so expect more nostalgia and mash ups. Building upon nostalgia is a movement in itself I have personally coined “Recapitulationism”. This movement should still produce original and innovative ideas through a mashup of influences as all prior movements have. The current social and political culture will create a divide and vacuum amongst the art community as it struggles conceptually and sometimes hypocritically with censorship and other cultural attitudes. Which is why I personally look forward to what art is churned out in 2025.
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Palmer Saylor III