That lower-priced art—call it the mid-hundred-thousand range—represented what people commonly think of as the “middle market,” says Delaney, and that’s the art that’s arguably gone out of favor, replaced with identifiably “important” 20th century artworks.

“While there were a lot of people buying a lot of that art last time, now there are a few very wealthy people buying art at a very high level,” he explains. “That’s why there’s more expensive stuff—that’s just where the market has gone.”

The trend is relatively recent, says Ales Ortuzar, a dealer who has the exhibition space Ortuzar Projects in New York. “I think there’s definitely been a shift from an interest in the primary market to a much broader interest in a secondary, historical market,” he says. Meaning: There are fewer glitzy, new works by young contemporary artists and more art changing hands by people already in art’s historical canon—along the lines of Picasso.

“Prices at auction reflect that, and you can see it here at the fair,” he says.

Whereas just a few years ago, $20 million sales were “a rarity, even at auction houses’ evening sales,” Ortuzar continues, “now it’s a regular occurrence to sell a work at that range.”

Wealth-Concentration Index
Another reason prices are higher could be that the rich, put simply, are richer. In 2017 alone, the world’s 500 richest people added $1 trillion to their net worth.

“The price of art is an index of wealth concentration,” says Marc Glimcher, the president of Pace Gallery. “Wealth concentration in this case doesn’t mean fewer, wealthier people,” he goes on to explain, but rather just how much individuals are able to accumulate for themselves. America is, for instance, minting more millionaires than ever before.

Standing in his booth, surrounded by art that included a painting by Agnes Martin, priced at $3.5 million, and an Andy Warhol silkscreen of Judy Garland, which Glimcher would merely say was “a lot more than that” (both sold on the first day), he argues that the profusion of high-priced art is simply a sign that more galleries of varied size are gaining confidence in their ability to sell multimillion-dollar art.

Super-high-end art “used to be material that we hid, because the prices, and the way that the exchange took place, could not bear public scrutiny,” he says. “And that’s no longer the case.”

No one raises an eyebrow or gets outraged on hearing about a $30 million sale at this point; 20 years ago, it would have been a different story.