when the art language changes, the debate changes too
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| Circle Graph By Eiman Muiny |
- When the Art Language Changes, the Debate Changes Too
The art market has undergone significant transformations over the centuries, responding to changing economic conditions, cultural movements, artistic generations, and technological developments. In the 21st century, however, the convergence of new generations of artists and buyers, digital platforms, artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging technologies has introduced new dynamics that are reshaping how art is created, presented, discovered, valued, and purchased.
To understand these changes, we need to look beyond the annual financial statistics and consider the forces influencing the relationship between artists and the art market. Drawing on the Art Basel and UBS art market reports, I would identify four major forces: artists, art buyers, social media and technology, and younger generations. Alongside these, we cannot overlook the influence of galleries, museums, curators, and other art institutions in determining which artistic practices receive recognition and visibility.
1. Artists: Adapting to a New Technological Vocabulary
Artists working in the 21st century have witnessed the emergence of technologies that have expanded the vocabulary of artistic expression. Digital tools, photography, video, computer-generated imagery, AI, installation, and interactive media have introduced new ways of creating and experiencing art.
These developments have not simply provided artists with additional tools; they have also challenged established ideas about artistic production and what can be considered an artwork. Digital art, for example, has become a recognized collecting category, attracting increasing interest from younger collectors.
However, technological innovation does not necessarily require artists to abandon traditional practices. Artists continue to make independent decisions about their materials, methods, subjects, and artistic intentions. Technology may influence those decisions, but it does not have to determine them.
2. Art Buyers: Changing What Gets Rewarded
Art buyers have become increasingly connected to artists through websites, social media, and online marketplaces. According to the 2025 Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting, 51% of surveyed collectors who purchased through dealers had bought artworks through Instagram without seeing them in person. Direct purchases from artists have also become an important part of the changing market.
Nevertheless, the reasons behind purchasing decisions are not always predictable. Although visibility, followers, and likes may influence how buyers discover artists, popularity does not necessarily translate into a purchase. Collectors may respond to personal taste, cultural connections, recommendations, the experience of other buyers, or the desire to own something that speaks to them personally.
The art market is therefore more complex than a simple relationship between popularity and sales. Market demand can influence artists and the opportunities available to them, but influence is not the same as control. An artist may consider the expectations of buyers while maintaining an independent artistic vision.
3. Social Media and Technology:
Changing the Presentation and Accessibility of Art
Social media has opened the art world to broader audiences. Artists can present their work internationally without depending entirely on traditional galleries, art fairs, or exhibitions. Buyers can discover artists from different countries and same cultural backgrounds, living outside their regions of origin, in which immigration has impacted their artistic outcome and shaped by their new adaptation of new culture.
This has created opportunities for cultural connections that were previously more difficult to establish. Collectors may discover and support artists whose cultural heritage resonates with their own, regardless of geographical distance. Furthermore, people purchase art for many reasons, not necessarily as an investment, but simply for the personal desire to live with and appreciate an artwork.
At the same time, art increasingly has to communicate through an image on a phone or computer screen. This encourages immediacy, recognizable visual identities, short-form storytelling, personal branding, and work that photographs well.
We are also witnessing the emergence of what could be described as a museum without walls. Online galleries, digital exhibitions, and crypto art have changed how we navigate the art world, discover artworks, and participate in collecting. Buyers can access and purchase art without travelling to international exhibitions or relying on the same traditional intermediaries, dealers, and brokers.
Yet accessibility raises another question: when an artwork is encountered primarily as a digital image, what happens to the physical experience and the context behind it? A screen can communicate the composition, colours, and subject, but it cannot fully reproduce the scale, surface, texture, and material presence of an original painting.
Digital access can introduce an audience to an artwork, but it does not necessarily provide the complete experience of understanding it.
4. Younger Generations: Who Will Shape the Next Art Language?
Gen Alpha, the youngest generation growing up with TikTok, AI, gaming, smartphones, and an increasingly visual culture, has not yet become the principal force shaping the art market. Much of the current generational influence comes from Millennials and Gen Z, who are already participating in collecting and purchasing.
The 2026 Art Basel and UBS research highlights the growing influence of younger high-net-worth collectors, particularly Gen Z, and their engagement with digital resources, social media, and AI.
This makes the future particularly interesting. Will younger generations develop their own artistic values and expectations, or will the art market, technology, and established institutions shape what they see, value, collect, and ultimately encourage artists to create?
And if technology has changed how we see art, has it also changed what we consider art?
5. The Institutions: Who Determines What Becomes Recognized?
Alongside these four forces, we cannot overlook the influence of museums, galleries, curators, critics, auction houses, and art institutions. They contribute to how art is presented, interpreted, exhibited, and preserved.
An artist may create an important work without receiving significant market attention. Another may gain considerable visibility through commercial success or institutional recognition. These outcomes demonstrate that artistic meaning, public visibility, institutional recognition, and financial value are not necessarily the same thing.
The language of 21st-century art is therefore shaped by an interaction between artistic vision, technology, changing audiences, and institutional and market influences. These forces do not always carry equal power, nor do they necessarily share the same objectives.
6. Painting in a Digital World: My Own Perspective
Despite these transformations, painting remains an important part of the contemporary art market. Recent Art Basel and UBS research continues to show interest in traditional media such as painting and sculpture, even as collectors explore digital and other emerging categories.
This is particularly relevant to my own artistic practice.
My paintings emerge from an interest in the physical materials and craftsmanship that historically developed through classical painting methods. I work with traditional approaches to depicting figures, constructing compositions, and exploring colour and light, while using these methods to pursue contemporary artistic objectives. My intention is to translate cultural ideas and human experiences into paintings that can communicate through both their visual language and their underlying meaning.
I do not consider classical painting simply a reproduction of the past. Historical techniques can remain relevant when they serve a contemporary purpose. The materials, methods, and craftsmanship provide a foundation, while the artist's individual vision determines what that foundation communicates.
Classical style itself is a broad concept that extends beyond painting into architecture, decorative furniture, clothing, and other aspects of everyday life. It represents an aesthetic and, for many people, a lifestyle. Audiences who appreciate European artistic traditions, including Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassicism, continue to exist alongside collectors interested in contemporary and experimental practices. These preferences represent different segments of an art market that does not move in a single direction.
I also recognize that viewers may approach my paintings from different perspectives. Some may appreciate their classical appearance, others may respond to their cultural references, and some may establish an entirely different dialogue with the work through their own experiences. I am speaking here from my position as an artist, but I believe this diversity of interpretation is part of what makes painting meaningful.
The challenge is how to communicate these intentions to audiences who increasingly encounter artworks through digital screens. An image may attract attention, but the viewer may not immediately understand the materials, historical references, or cultural ideas behind it. This is where an artist's explanation, educational content, and access to the creative process can deepen the experience without dictating how the audience must interpret the work.
An artist's responsibility is first to create according to an artistic vision. Providing context can then invite audiences to look beyond the image and discover the thinking, craftsmanship, and meaning behind it.
Conclusion: Who Is Really Changing the Language of Art?
The language of art in the 21st century is not being changed by artists, buyers, technology, or institutions independently. It emerges from their reciprocal relationship, although their influence is neither equal nor constant.
Artists create and communicate their visions. Buyers respond through their preferences and purchasing decisions. Technology transforms the possibilities of production, presentation, and access. Institutions influence recognition, interpretation, and preservation. Social media connects these forces while introducing new conditions for visibility and engagement.
The challenge is to distinguish between what makes art visible, what makes it commercially valuable, and what gives it artistic and cultural meaning.
Perhaps the real question is not whether artists must change to accommodate the market, or whether buyers must adapt to the artists. It is whether we can preserve artistic independence while allowing new audiences, technologies, and forms of cultural exchange to expand our understanding of art.
After all, a change in the way we encounter, purchase, and value art does not necessarily mean that the meaning of art itself must change.
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