Painter Koceila Chougar

Koceila Chougar

“There is two kinds of art,” the painter Koceila Chougar said on the On The Margin podcast. “There is the most rarest art as master art, and there is the pop art that many people buy. But for me, I will tell you it’s a scam, because it’s not rare and the people want to collect this kind of art but there is no value because there is many of them.”

Chougar, who sells canvases for as much as $100,000 and describes himself as a “cultural spy,” was talking about the fine-art market. He could have been describing the thing that is quietly replacing it.

The top of the art market is in retreat. Global art sales fell 12% in 2024 to $57.5 billion, and works priced above $10 million dropped 39%, according to the…