A number of articles this yr have already mourned the top of the figurative frenzy that dominated the frothy pandemic-era artwork market. Dubbed “Figuration Fatigue” by Artnet, the backlash targets a wave of work marked by saturated palettes, polished surfaces and emotionally impartial depictions of the human type—works designed extra for industrial virality than enduring significance. These once-ubiquitous photos, optimized for feeds and festivals, not appear to command the identical consideration or costs. However, as with all art-world pattern, this shift must be contextualized quite than lowered to a single generalization.
This decline additionally coincided with a broader slowdown out there for so-called ultra-contemporary artists—these underneath 40 or born after 1974—whose freshly painted works had been usually flipped at public sale inside a yr of their gallery debuts. In response to the 2025 Artwork Basel & UBS Artwork Market Report, the ultra-contemporary section, as soon as a locus of explosive progress, fell from roughly $2.9 billion in 2021 to simply $1.1 billion in 2024—a virtually 60 % decline.
An oversaturation took maintain: too many artists gained traction too rapidly, with costs rising simply as quick—usually justified by synthetic shortage, engineered via ready lists that restricted entry on the first market but unsupported by institutional recognition. Limiting entry to 1 artist can create demand, however provided that shortage exists throughout the board. As a substitute, a surge of artists with comparable aesthetics emerged suddenly, flooding the market. And as soon as costs climbed into the five-digit vary, there merely weren’t sufficient dedicated collectors to maintain momentum in what had turn into a hijacked, speculation-driven panorama.
“I believe the market has turn into saturated, however that’s largely due to the sheer quantity,” Brett Gorvy advised Observer in a latest cellphone dialog. “When you could have a growth—like we noticed with ultra-contemporary artwork—there’s solely a lot room. At a sure level, what number of work by a single artist can the market actually soak up?” He additionally famous that the market had strayed from conventional amassing conduct, the place works had been purchased with the intention of being held—generally for many years, generally for a lifetime. “What emerged was a mindset the place individuals anticipated that as quickly as they purchased one thing, it will instantly be value extra—and that they may resell it in two years.” That speculative mentality turned central to the ultra-contemporary area: the idea in artwork as funding. However, as Marc Spiegler not too long ago wrote in The Enterprise of Vogue, that logic not holds—or maybe by no means really did.
On the identical time, the growth in figuration coincided with actions like “Me Too” and “Black Lives Matter,” which pushed the artwork world to reckon—no less than partially—with its imbalance in gender and racial illustration.
At one level, as Barry Schwabsky not too long ago famous in Artwork in America, it appeared that amongst high public sale tons and galleries’ best-selling artists, three out of each 5 rising names had been portray portraits of Black figures. The remaining usually targeted on the feminine physique, identification and later broader diasporic narratives. However as repetition set in, even these once-urgent acts of reclamation started to really feel commodified. And because the sense of social urgency light—or maybe turned eclipsed by a continuing backdrop of political, financial, environmental and emotional disaster on a worldwide scale—consideration shifted away from particular person identification narratives towards extra common storytelling: works that handle the up to date human situation or re-anchor a soulless period to the ability of the oneiric, non secular or mythological and the rediscovery of ancestral truths.
That’s why I choose to not converse of the dying of figuration—nonetheless very a lot current, albeit with fewer headline names—however quite the decline of what I name “non-frictional” portray.
We dwell in an more and more frictionless world, the place almost each facet of life has been streamlined, optimized and templated by digital instruments. From apps to A.I., most of our each day choices are smoothed over by algorithms constructed to cut back hesitation and take away resistance. And but, it’s exactly friction—these moments of rigidity, doubt and energy—that fosters progress, transformation and which means. In artwork, as in life, it’s the additional step, the unresolved edge, the interpretive demand that lingers.
Eradicating limitations can improve pace and comfort, however it could actually additionally obscure each thought and soul, dulling creativity and demanding considering. This holds true for artwork as properly. When there’s no friction—no resistance, no problem—artwork usually loses its grounding, its urgency and its capability to talk meaningfully. In a system optimized solely round previous conduct, we cease encountering unfamiliar concepts or communities. Style stagnates. Information narrows. And with that, the thrill of discovery fades.
But artists are nonetheless making work that leaves a long-lasting mark—artwork that, via intricate symbolism or the universality of its visible language, resists the senseless scroll and lodges itself in reminiscence. These are sometimes the works that establishments and curators acknowledge and elevate lengthy earlier than—and generally no matter—market validation.
As friction and battle escalate within the bodily world, the attract of seamless digital escape begins to really feel like a mirage. As a substitute, it’s usually the extra complicated, demanding works that compel us to confront the arduous truths of our time—or provide a approach again to one thing deeper and older, one thing important about what it means to be human.
As financial commentator Kyla Scanlon not too long ago famous in an Instagram video interview for the New York Instances Opinion, frictionless usually aligns with meaningless. When all the pieces turns into too simple, it turns into troublesome to search out which means in any respect. Michael Meade factors out that people usually really feel a determined want for which means in occasions of uncertainty—for the pursuit of a extra soulful life and a reconnection with deeper truths. We’re drawn to what transcends fleeting headlines and distorted narratives, to what faucets right into a broader order—one thing past manipulation, past spectacle. On this context, artwork can reassert its position not as a luxurious or funding car, however as a human necessity. It turns into a language for the soul, a vessel for ambiguity and a compass in moments of disorientation. Via symbols, tales and aesthetic expertise, artwork helps us maintain on to what’s important—restoring a way of inside coherence when exterior methods collapse or are changed by algorithmically optimized alter egos.
As my colleague Annie Armstrong aptly wrote on Artnet, so-called “red-chip artwork” stays very a lot alive, fueled by a rising fan base that always operates and circulates outdoors the official channels of the normal artwork world. These works are tailor-made for a digital-native, commercially pleasant context—whether or not bodily (as work or cartoon-like collectibles) or digital (as NFTs or crypto artwork). They have an inclination to share a cartoonish visible language, graffiti and street-art influences or digital and crypto-infused aesthetics. Normally, they’re loud, vivid and sensory-saturated—designed to seize consideration and engineered primarily for hype, screens and feeds.
Mr. Brainwash, Alec Monopoly, WhIsBe, Matt Gondek, Jerkface, Mad Canine Jones and FEWOCiOUS are only a few names totally embedded within the red-chip aesthetic. Even some blue-chip artists like Takashi Murakami, Daniel Arsham and KAWS have efficiently navigated each worlds—aligning seamlessly with the tastes of red-chip collectors regardless of having debuted inside conventional artwork circles and already secured institutional backing.
I’m certain that if Andy Warhol had been nonetheless alive, he’d be very happy to take part on this pattern—if not lead it—maybe seeing in red-chip artwork a pure evolution of his personal radically democratic imaginative and prescient of “Pop artwork” for mass enchantment. Pink-chip artwork continues the basic collapse that Pop artwork first initiated, i.e., the erasure of boundaries between excessive and low tradition, between movie star and floor and between artwork and commerce. What as soon as felt subversive in Warhol’s palms now performs out as a default setting: not a critique of client tradition, however its most algorithm-optimized expression. The mechanisms are totally different, however the logic is analogous: most recognizability, minimal friction.
Pink-chip artwork already embodies the commodified, frictionless qualities favored by digital marketplaces. It thrives in algorithm-driven environments the place discoverability is optimized and visibility is all the pieces. On this ecosystem, inventive manufacturing will not be solely created but in addition curated for digital virality—reels, swipeable Instagram grids, short-form video aesthetics on TikTok or Instagram Tales. Right here, the work is usually secondary to the circulation that makes it viral.
These are the sorts of works promoted via Instagram reels from unknown Miami galleries presenting pseudo-Condominium work—cartoon mashups paired, maybe, with Rolexes and candy-colored mini Hermès luggage, most likely pretend. It’s an algorithm-optimized chimera of a life-style, one which finds its viewers by mirroring social media–coded preferences. And but, this artwork nonetheless carries a symbolic aura—even because it’s in the end lowered to questionably priceless luxurious objects, serving extra to sign standing than provoke thought.
Maybe most significantly, this type of artwork is much extra accessible, each financially and by way of limitations to entry. Consequently, it tends to draw the “younger cash” of digitally native, prosperous millennials, tech entrepreneurs, crypto fanatics and even celebrities. What attracts them in is its immediacy, shareability and the promise of speculative upside. Even when these artists are genuinely appreciated, their work usually circulates solely inside the red-chip ecosystem. What’s sizzling as we speak could also be passé tomorrow—its visibility formed by group chats, influencer posts or market hype—whereas remaining largely disavowed by establishments and critics. On this approach, the red-chip market mirrors the identical speculative volatility that has come to outline the ultracontemporary sector.
Nonetheless, maybe these two parallel markets have one thing to study from one another. Pink-chip artwork displays a frictionless, fast-moving, democratized, media-savvy artwork financial system, and it could be the normal artwork world that extra urgently must adapt—to decrease its limitations, embrace new types of storytelling and interact with a technology of tech-born wealth. Not by abandoning content material or which means however by refusing to retreat into exclusivity as a marker of legitimacy.
Meet the collectors
