Contemporary art continues to enjoy a happy season and prove to be a good investment, even in Italy. This is what emerges from the annual report on the artistic goods market edited by Nomisma in collaboration with the LUM "Jean Monnet" University: for 77,7% of the operators interviewed, in fact, the values of contemporary art will be stable or on the rise, while for 76% the prices of antiques will certainly decrease.
However, for the study centre, the local art market is “a sector that presents various criticalities and a rather fragmented scenario. In fact, there is a lack of common strategies and a reference policy”. For this reason, observes Nomisma, moments of discussion such as ArteFiera, which opens its doors today in Bologna, are important "because they manage to condense the experience of the operators and offer the Italian art system an international dimension".
“In Italy, those who buy art are usually connoisseurs of the material and the aesthetic and cultural driver continues to be predominant in investing in works of art. Within the Italian market, ancient works of art continue their progressive loss of weight compared to the segments of modern and contemporary art which, especially abroad, perform notably. In 2013 the modern and contemporary art market had a positive trend compared to the second half of 2012 with prospects for improvement also foreseen for the first part of 2014. Prices remained stable”.
Nomisma also notes how investment in art as a collector has become a worldwide phenomenon typical of developed economies, but “in Italy this perspective is still struggling to find an effective response from operators and families also due to regulatory constraints. Although art demonstrates that it has considerable potential, both as an investment and as a driving force for local development, vehicles, such as closed art funds, have not yet been created to encourage savers to enter the sector”.
However, the contemporary art segment grew very quickly between 1995-2013 with an average annual rate of return of 3,35% and proved to better withstand the blow of the crisis, returning to collector investors +0,6% per annum starting in 2006.
