The Art Market Podcast
The Art Market Podcast 21 episodes Nov 6, 2026
The Art Market Podcast is a weekly show that examines the global art market, from auctions and galleries to collectors and the financial forces behind major artworks. Hosts Georgina Adam and Tom Forwood bring insider experience to explain how the art world really operates. They offer a clear-eyed look at a fascinating, seductive and often opaque industry.
Episodes
29. Instagram and the Art Market, Buyers vs. Collectors vs. Patrons vs. Philanthropist, and the Decline of Asian Art in London
This week, Tom takes a deep dive into Instagram’s grip on the art market, and how it became the industry’s default platform. From the dirty secret of the “also followed by” line, to the research showing artists can win the art world’s respect or the public’s but rarely both, and the cautionary tale of an artist running a dozen fake “collector” accounts.Then Georgina reports on a notably thin Asian
28. Cracks at Sotheby’s in the October Auctions, Pessimism at Talking Galleries, and Did the Art Market Kill Contemporary Art?
This week, Georgina and Tom cover a lot of ground. They begin with the aftermath of Art Basel Paris, forced to close early by the riots: who reimburses the dealers, the “Art Basel Paris Encore” online viewing room wheeled out as an emergency life raft, and why the protests may have hurt exactly the small galleries the movement claims to defend.Then Tom digs into the October auctions in London and
27. Riches and Riots at Art Basel Paris
This week, Georgina is reporting from a Paris, a city currently rattled by protests, and from Art Basel Paris, which pulled off a remarkable commercial week, despite announcing they are closing early in the face of the city’s student protests and riots.Georgina explains how Art Basel strong-armed the historic FIAC out of its October slot, the mounting tension between a tens-of-millions art bubble,
26. Frieze Week Special
This week, Georgina and Tom hit the road together, racing around London during Frieze Week to take the temperature of the city’s art fairs, from the biggest behemoths to the scrappy upstarts.They start at Minor Attractions, a young, trendy fair held in a Fitzrovia hotel, where co-founder Jacob Barnes makes the case for the hotel-fair model and building a year-round community rather than a once-a-y
25. How to Sell £200 Million of Art in a Week (with Katharine Arnold)
For our Silver episode-iversary, Georgina and Tom sat down with Katharine Arnold, Christie's Vice Chairman of 20th/21st Century Art and Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe, to go behind the scenes ahead of Christie's major October sales during Frieze Week.Katharine takes us inside the run-up to the sale of the Peter Simon Collection, and pulls back the curtain on the machinery of a maj
24. ARTBO and the many Art Markets of Latin America (with Maria Sancho-Arroyo)
This week, Georgina and Tom dip their feet into the massive topic of the art market in Latin America. They are joined by Maria Sancho-Arroyo, art market specialist, lecturer, and author of ¿Inversión o pasión?: Una guía para navegar por el mercado del arte, a guide to navigating the art market.Freshly back from ARTBO in Bogotá, Maria reports on Colombia's homegrown collectors and artists, and why
23. Has Korea Survived the Hype? Frieze Seoul, Gwangju Biennale (with Vivienne Chow)
This week, Georgina and Tom are joined by journalist Vivienne Chow, for a look at the Korean and wider Asian art markets. They discuss Frieze Seoul after 5 editions, and how perhaps now after the boom in 2022, galleries are increasingly playing the long game, opening spaces, hiring local teams and staging pop-ups rather than parachuting in to sell.Vivienne also reports from the Gwangju Biennale, a
22. Does Belgium have the best art market in the world?
Episode 22 is the the show's first city deep-dive, and Tom and Georgina chose Belgium, to answer question: is Belgium really home to more art collectors per capita than anywhere on earth?Tom went to Brussels for Brussels Art Week to understand why through conversations with the Belgian heads of Christie's and Sotheby's, gallerists, collectors and fair organisers, he unpicks what makes
21. Building an Art World from scratch in Uzbekistan + the Art Business Conference
Episode 21 sees Georgina back from Uzbekistan, where a state-driven push is trying to conjure a cultural destination, and maybe even an art market, almost from nothing. She reports on the new Centre for Contemporary Arts in Tashkent and unpacks their ambitious plans: four new museums, a five-year partnership with Qatar, and talk of an art fair in a country with almost no galleries.In the second ha
20. Is There Such a Thing as a "Bad" Gallery? Plus, Exodus at Phillips
It's our 20th episode-versary! This week, Georgina and Tom tackle the contentious question of how do you tell a good gallery from a bad one?They set out what a primary market gallery is really selling collectors, and then get into the murkier territory of galleries making investment claims, the sleight of hand some galleries use to make artists seem more impressive than they are, and the sale
19. How to Fail at Disrupting the Art Market (with Tim Schneider)
In Episode 19 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom are joined by one of the great thinkers in the art market, Tim Schneider, the journalist and author of The Great Reframing, and writer of the long-running The Gray Market.Tim joins Georgina and Tom to dissect some of the dynamics of the art market today, including:Why the gallery world is a 'matching market', like Hollywood, Birkins, and
18. What makes Private Museums bad? + Are Galleries really 'not OK'?
Georgina and Tom are back from their summer break with two stories that have been bubbling away in the background all summer. First, private museums: with roughly 450 to 500 now in existence, almost all built this century, and prompted by the billion-dollar Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles deciding to charge $25 entry and solicit public donations, they ask when these institutions serve
17. REPLAY - Art Basel Qatar, Buyer's Premiums, Modigliani Cat Res, and Politics in Venice
The Art Market Podcast team are on summer holidays, so we have put together a special compilation of clips - four of the most popular and still relevant conversations from earlier in the year, for the new listeners who've joined along the way.Our first ever topic, Art Basel Qatar and the perennial question of whether the Gulf becomes the next great art hub. Then, why auction buyer's premiums keep
16. Aspen Art Week, and the Power of US Collectors (with Julie Brener Davich)
In Episode 16 of the Art Market Podcast, Tom and Georgina are joined by Julie Brener Davich, art journalist, veteran of both Christie's and Sotheby's, and author of the Substack The Appraisal, for a deep dive into the American art market beyond the coasts. Julie reports back from Aspen, where the Aspen Art Museum's new AIR festival, the Artcrush gala and a fast-growing art fair reveal a summer sce
15. Art as a Bad Investment, and why the Art Market has Stopped Growing (with Melanie Gerlis)
In Episode 15 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom are joined by Melanie Gerlis, art market correspondent for the Financial Times and author of such tomes as Art as an Investment? and The Art Fair Story.Melanie makes the case that art is not a good investment, and they trace the whole "art as an asset class" idea back to Peter Wilson's Times Sotheby's index and its deliberate courting of Wa
14. Manipulating Auctions, Collapsing Galleries, Dodgy Dating, and the Artist Pension Trust (with Jon Sharples)
In Episode 14 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom welcome their first ever guest: Jon Sharples, the London-based art lawyer who spends his working life at the legal coalface of the art market. They dive what auction manipulation, and the business model in which investors buy dozens of works by an unknown artist and manufacture a secondary market from nothing.Next, they turn to the wave of
13. Q&A - $50m Dinosaurs, Fraudsters, Chinese Contemporary Art, and more
In the first Question and Answers episode, Georgina and Tom open the mailbag for the first ever listener questions episode. They answer questions about Gus, the T. rex that made $50 million at auction, why is the art market so vulnerable to fraudsters? What really killed the Chinese contemporary art market? And finally, are buyer's premiums at auction houses getting out of control at nearly 30%?En
12. Riga Contemporary, Young Buyers and Classic Art, and Women in the Art Market
This week, Georgina reports back from Riga Contemporary in Latvia, where the stands cost only €500 (!), and asks what it takes to build an art market in a small country from nothing. She then turns to Classic Week in London, where a nineteenth-century Laocoön made £13.6 million against a £2 million estimate, and questions whether young collectors really are flooding into the Old Master market.In t
11. London's June Art Season: Not as Hot as the Weather
In this episode, Tom and Georgina dig beneath the headlines from the June London auctions, where a £458 million total looked like a triumph, until you notice that 65% of it came from a single sale. Tom asks whether London is really back, or still stuck in a post-Brexit slump, and tells the extraordinary story of Lewis himself.Georgina reports from the more traditional end of the market, visiting t
10. Art Basel and “Basel Exclusive,” Plus Pace’s Downsizing and the Broken Gallery Model
In the 10th episode (!!) of the Art Market Podcast, Tom reports from Art Basel in Basel, quality on the floor, the new “Basel Exclusive” initiative, the spectacular Basel Social Club, and whether the original fair can hold its crown as Art Basel Paris closes in and the market deglobalises.Georgina then turns to Pace’s dramatic downsizing - fifty artists dropped and a twenty percent headcount cut –
9. Poland’s Emerging Art Market, and the Rise of the Artist’s Agent
In Episode 9 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina reports from Art Warsaw on Poland’s remarkable transformation, a flourishing post-EU economy, serious new collectors and institutions, and world-class artists, but are some things still holding the market back?Tom then examines the growing world of the artist’s agent, from Joe Hage’s all-encompassing HENI model with Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter, an
8. The New York Mega-Auctions, and the Rise and Rise of Guarantees
In Episode 8 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom dissect a monumental week of New York auctions – the billion-dollar SI Newhouse sale at Christie’s, the Mnuchin estate at Sotheby’s, record Rothkos, a Pollock that broke records, but also the works that quietly lost money, revealing a discriminating flight-to-safety market.In the second half, Tom takes a deep dive into third-party guarantees
7. The Venice Biennale SPECIAL
In Episode 7 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom dedicate the whole episode to the Venice Biennale, fresh from the opening week. They explain what a biennale actually is, how its supposedly non-commercial pavilions and museum shows have become prime selling territory, and how dealers leverage Venice’s aura of prestige, from Christie’s “Ghost Pavilion” to gallery-funded museum exhibitions r
6. The Modigliani Catalogue Raisonné, the Artnet/Artsy Merger, and Art Monte Carlo
In Episode 6 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina unpacks the explosive new Modigliani catalogue raisonné from Marc Restellini with its 100 newly accepted works and 13 demotions, and the high-stakes minefield of authentication, lawsuits, and chilled expert opinion.Tom then asks why so many tech “solutions” for the art market fail, using the merger of Artnet and Artsy as a lens on why the art market
5. Sotheby’s Under Drahi, Art Cologne Palma, and Milan’s Art Fair Shake-Up
In Episode 5 of the Art Market Podcast, Tom takes a deep dive into what has really been happening at Sotheby’s under seven years of Patrick Drahi’s ownership, the new round of borrowing, including from clients, the securitisation of art backed loans, the leveraged real estate, and the strategic pivot from art house to luxury business.Georgina then reports back from the newly revived Art Cologne Pa
4. Hong Kong’s Spring Auctions, South Korea’s Art Market Woes, and Next-Gen Collectors
In Episode 4 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom explore the shifting dynamics of the Asian art market, from Hong Kong’s resilience to the rise and recalibration of South Korea. They look at the results of the Hong Kong March auctions, and whether the Asian art market is truly recovering or still under pressure. Tom then dives into the recent boom-and-bust cycle in South Korea’s art market
3. Ongoing Middle East Crisis, the 2026 Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report, and TEFAF Maastricht
In Episode 3 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina and Tom begin with the postponement of Art Dubai, and what ongoing instability in the Gulf means for the future of the Middle East as a global art hub.Next, Tom looks at the findings of the newly released UBS Art Basel Art Market Report 2026, breaking down the key trends. Why the art market remains largely flat despite headline sales, the growing do
2. The London Spring Auctions & the constant rise of Buyer’s Premiums
In Episode 2 of the Art Market Podcast, Georgina Adam and Tom Forwood break down the latest London art auctions, the first major test of the global art market in 2026. Despite geopolitical tensions and market uncertainty, the results reveal a surprising sense of resilience and relief to many. But beneath the surface, the data tells a more complex story... In the second half, Georgina and Tom deep
1. Welcome to the Podcast! Plus, Art Basel Qatar, and Art-Backed Lending
In this very first episode of the Art Market Podcast, hosts Georgina Adam and Tom Forwood dive straight into one of the most talked-about events kicking off 2026 in the art market – the launch of Art Basel Qatar.This episode explores whether the Middle East is truly the next major art market, or simply the latest “El Dorado” in a long history of art market ventures, and whether the Gulf region can
