Contemporary art online sale: a new challenge for Design Italy

Not only furniture and home decor: Design Italy is going to extend its online catalogue in the field of contemporary art photography. Read the article.

Design Italy is excited to be embarking on a new chapter in the coming months. After expanding our furniture and home decor section of our online catalog with designs from over 130 Italian companies, we are about to expand our contemporary photography offering as well.

I met Lorenza Castelli – managing director of MIA (Milan Image Art) Fair, the most important art fair dedicated to photography in Italy and one of the most important in the world – thanks to mutual acquaintances.

Our enthusiasm for what we both do pushed us to join forces to offer, to a wider market beyond physical art fairs, galleries and exhibitions, a selection of the best that contemporary photography has to offer.

There is an undeniable e-commerce growth trend in the art world because it makes it possible to purchase art anywhere and because there is greater pricing transparency. And the art market, while limited to a group of art enthusiasts, could grow even more if there were a clearer view of prices and related trends.

New buyers, who are 23–38 year old millennials, have come to the art market. These young people are accustomed to online shopping and comparing prices. Thirty-two percent of new buyers at “online-only” sales were millennials, according to Christie’s 2020 data, while Sotheby's saw double the number of buyers under 40.

These are the buyers we want to cater to in our contemporary photography offering, providing them with a fast and satisfying buying experience that guarantees that the works they purchase are backed by an authoritative entity like MIA.