Introduction
Starting life as a simple online blog, Avant Arte has grown organically into a global community of over 3.3 million young enthusiasts and collectors. We know this new generation intimately and have always believed in the growing power they have to positively impact the wider art world. However, with limited sources of real insight available, it has been easy to typecast this new generation in lazy ways: as lacking the means to support artists and museums in meaningful ways, too distracted to pay attention to anything other than social media, and uninterested in serious arts institutions.
Our collector report aims to debunk these assumptions by surfacing the understanding we've built from our own community:
- There's a new generation collecting art and the community is growing — with half of those surveyed starting collections within the last 5 years and 40% spending more than €10,000 every year on art, there is impressive new energy entering a market that is often characterised alongside classical music and theatre as stagnating while its core audience ages.
- The new generation care about our arts institutions — 61% of our community go to a museum or gallery at least once a month, with 74% defining these 'traditional' spaces as one of their main sources of inspiration — a level of engagement that challenges the defeatism of some of our cultural commentary today.
- And, they want to support the arts — a staggering 40% of our community were keen to do more to support museums financially and, of them, 75% were unsure about how they could.
Despite the huge challenges we face today, with a cultural funding climate that continues to worsen, the findings of this report give cause to be optimistic about this new generation and its potential to support artists and museums with an evermore powerful voice within the wider art world.
