I try to avoid making predictions—mostly because I’m terrible at it—but I also know that making them is an inevitable part of closing out a year and welcoming a new one. Whether that’s because knowledgeable people can’t resist showing off, or virtue-signalling, or just trying to manifest a desired outcome by vocalizing it, a practice known on Wall Street as “talking your book,” I will let you decide.
As a compromise, I’m evaluating other people’s predictions for the coming year—as a way to both summarize and comment on the emerging conventional wisdom. What’s interesting here is less about what turns out to be correct, but rather what these prognostications can teach us about the mood and expectations of the art market.
