What is Trending in the Art World Today? In this post, we will give more detail on evolving trends in the current art market, and help give examples of what art world insiders might define as the best, most desirable kind of art in in the market today. In the last five years, the work of marginalized artists has been increasingly centered in both emerging and established spheres. Changing social landscapes have necessitated the long-overdue recognition of artists of color, women artists, and queer artists. Within this, the art world has specifically seen a rise in the popularity of figurative art, textile art, and video art. Figurative art experienced a revival as lockdown during the early months of the pandemic sent artists looking inward. The art world is celebrating artists whose work defies both the art historical canon dominated predominantly by white cis-heterosexual men, as well as the material status quo.

Bisa Butler, 2020, photo by Nonexitfiction courtesy of Claire Oliver Gallery

One artist in this vein is Bisa Butler, who primarily works with textiles, and who is also a black woman. Butler creates life-sized quilt portraits of black subjects, including historical figures and those from her personal life. Starting with black and white photographs, Butler sketches out the image, and then overlays brightly-colored patterned fabrics, many of which are imbued with a rich historical significance, including West African wax printed fabric, kente cloth, and Dutch wax prints. Sewn together, these bright and colorful quilted portraits deny the discriminatory relegation of textile art to ‘craft,’ and celebrate and reimagine narratives of Black life.

Installation shot, Nick Cave: Forothermore. Guggenheim.

Another artist who has received major celebration is artist Nick Cave, who recently had a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, titled Nick Cave: Forothermore. Cave similarly works with unorthodox materials, just as Bisa Butler. Cave’s famous sound suits, of which there are more than 500, have been made from a myriad of materials, including sticks, children’s toys, sock monkeys, and sequins. His work creates space for those marginalized by the culture at large, and his choice of material further enforces this idea that the cannon must expand to be more inclusive.

As you can see, these artists both have practices that center around not only their identities but also their exploration of materials. Artist Zoe Schwartz, whose work was recently on display in Mother Mold at Alanna Miller, is another emerging artist employing sculptural materials in new and exciting ways. She makes use of crocheted metal wire, pearls, molten glass, and shells to explore matrilinear trauma and the often violently enforced social roles established by white patriarchy.

In addition to diverse tactile mediums, video art rose significantly in popularity among emerging and contemporary artists as well. Institutions have reflected this trend, with The Museum of Modern Art’s survey exhibition of video art titled Signals: How Video Transformed the World, taking place in 2023 and The Whitney’s put Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century recently in 2023. Virginia L. Montgomery is an artist who has been working in multimedia and video art for many years and continues to be at the front of the movement with shows at the New Museum in 2020, the Tate Modern in 2023, and most recently at the Blanton Museum of Art in 2023. VLM will soon be featured in a solo exhibition at Alanna Miller in Spring 2024. Her work uses video art, an unconventional yet familiar medium, to explore cellular healing, physical and psychic structures, and feminist metaphysics – topics that not so long ago might not have received as much critical institutional attention.

Virginia L. Montgomery. Video still from Pony Cocoon. Blanton Museum.

Created during lockdown, O’ Luna (2021) is a video piece by Montgomery; it is a surreal meditation on themes of mythology, growth, and isolation. The 5-minute video captures a luna moth's emergence from its beginning stages as a caterpillar, into its cocoon, and its emergence and life as a fully grown moth. In the wake of massive social changes of the early 2020s, the art world has been reacting to the growing desire for art that exists beyond the scope of white male perspectives. Curators, gallerists and artists like the ones explored in this post are all seeking to seize the moment and find new ways to engage audiences and revitalize the art world through their unconventional work.

Trends in Emerging Art