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New tariffs under the Trump administration have affected shipping activity at US ports, curbed international tourism, caused volatility in the stock markets, and spurred predictions of a global recession. They’ve also set off a wave of panic among scrambling art professionals and now appear primed to impact art fairs.
New York Art Week kicks off next week with a bevy of art fairs: Frieze, NADA, the Future Art Fair, Independent, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, and TEFAF New York. TEFAF will likely be the one most affected, given the number of exhibitors who specialize in items subject to tariffs.
“I will be frank with you, it’s been a very, very torturous road,” Francis Petit, director of the New York office of art shipping company Gander & White, told ARTnews.
The vast majority of original works of art, collector’s pieces, and antiques at least 100 years old imported into the US are still exempt from tariffs. However, the global art industry still has to deal with US import taxes of 7.5 percent on any artwork from China; tariffs of 25 percent on sculptures made of steel and aluminum; tariffs of 10 percent on all jewelry, furniture, and design pieces imported into the US; and counter-tariffs varying from 155 percent to 179 percent on items imported from the US to China. (Canada lifted its counter-tariffs on art imported from the US in March.)
Furniture and fine art intended for exhibition in New York at Frieze and especially TEFAF could also be tricky for US Customs to evaluate.
“We had to explain to a lot of galleries—and they were understanding—that it’s not because this piece of furniture is very expensive: it was handmade, it is one of a kind, from a very well-known artist that was exhibited at many places, etc. That’s not enough,” Petit said,
Fritz Dietl, president of shipping company Dietl International, told ARTnews that his clients showing at TEFAF New York and Frieze New York modified operations to avoid tariffs entirely.
All of them, he said, opted to not bring any material to the fairs that might be subject to customs duties. He added that the galleries he works with also rented furniture for booths instead of shipping it in. (Sometimes galleries will bring unique or designer furniture like a Donald Judd chair to stage the booth.) Some galleries, he said, are showing items that were stored in the US rather than shipped in from Europe, and have avoided bringing in items from China.
“It’s very unusual, because usually the galleries really bring in new material for a big event, like a Frieze or TEFAF fair,” Dietl said. “It seems like some galleries are very, very cautious and careful about costs right now.”
Charles Ede, a London-based gallery that specializes in ancient art and antiquities, classified all the items it is bringing for its booth at TEFAF as “sculpture” with customs to avoid tariffs. The gallery did so even if the items could also be categorized more specifically on customs forms as ceramics or mosaics.
“There’s no one clear avenue that we should be taking,” director Charis Tyndall told ARTnews, adding that its offerings hadn’t cleared US customs yet. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“All the antiquity dealers I’d spoken to seem to have done things slightly differently,” Tyndall added, noting that art shippers and lawyers have been reluctant to give clear pointers about how to proceed. “People are kind of giving advice, but not necessarily giving instructions, you know?”
Importantly, US tariffs are based on the country of origin of the artwork—where a given painting, sculpture, image, or other type of item was physically produced—rather than its creator’s nationality or the country from which the artwork is shipped. This means if an American artist produces an artwork or art-related item in China, it would still be subject to tariffs of 7.5 percent if imported to the US.
During a webinar last week on tariffs hosted by Artlogic, the founder and CEO of art shipper Convelio, Edouard Gouin, also recommended detailed, precise pro forma documentation clearly stating an artwork’s country of origin and medium, along with details about its originality or rarity, as well as any other relevant information, including its Harmonized System code. “I would literally put in the HS code, and I would refer to the legal exemptions, because you never know how it’s going to be treated,” Gouin said, noting this approach would reduce the risk of an artwork being stuck at US Customs.
Works by Les Lalanne, which have had a hot market of late, are a prime example of items that fall into a customs gray area. During the webinar, Gouin suggested that Lalanne furniture pieces could likely still be classified as artworks because of the artists’ intention, the recognition by the art market, and that the works are sold by an art gallery and many have been exhibited in museums. Petit, of Gander & White, wasn’t so sure, telling ARTnews that he thought chances were “pretty slim” that US Customs would classify the works as such.
“By definition, furniture and design pieces are primarily furniture objects. And then they’ll be taxed accordingly,” Petit said.
Petit said some of the galleries he has worked with for the fairs next week have incorporated more paintings and sculptures rather than jewelry, furniture, or design objects to avoid tariffs, considered sending models instead of original pieces, or brought in items through temporary import bonds. The latter is something Gander & White typically doesn’t use for US art fairs because it restricts an item to only being exhibited and not sold, but still allows a gallery to bring in rare or unique pieces for a booth that has been planned for months.
“Frankly, if they have a wonderful piece, it is such a shame for them to not present it to the client,” Petit said. “It’s like the delivery of a baby, almost.”
Temporary import bonds still have a cost and risk associated with their use. Tyndall said it would have cost approximately £20,000 to bring its sculptures to TEFAF New York and keep them in bond. Charles Ede would also have to bring everything back to the UK in order to complete any sales, an arrangement that wouldn’t work for many lower-priced items. “When you’re buying a four- or five-figure piece, you don’t necessarily want to bring it back to the UK and then pay £2,000–£3,000 extra to ship it over again,” Tyndall said. “We wouldn’t be able to, and that could end up ruining a deal for us.”
When ARTnews asked TEFAF New York about the impact of tariffs, a spokesperson said in a statement that the fair is in “close communication” with shippers, as well as legal, tax, and shipping advisors. The fair further said that it is analyzing the “exact implications of new developments” and has “taken an active role in advocating for the exclusion of artworks from potential EU reciprocal tariffs with the EU Commission.”
Even with the complications of the new tariffs, pulling out of an art fair isn’t an option for many galleries.
“If we don’t go to America, we will not get business from certain clients,” Tyndall said. “We will often find we just sell one thing to a person and never hear from them again, but they’ll buy an important piece. It’s that chance meeting that you get at these things.”