Postal Services to the USA cancelled across the world! What does this mean for artists?

At midnight on Sunday, I spotted a post on social media which indicated there was going to be a major issue for ALL ARTISTS - anywhere in the world - who sell artwork to buyers in the USA.

MOST POSTAL SERVICES AROUND THE WORLD 

HAVE CANCELLED DELIVERY TO THE USA

+ 

ART SALES TO THE USA ARE GOING TO CRASH

I spent most of yesterday and this morning working on a new page for my website - called Shipping Art to the USA i.e. https://www.artbusinessinfo.com/shipping-art-to-usa.html 

Today, being a bank holiday is not the best day to announce it's now public - however the proverbial will be hitting the fan today and tomorrow.....

My new web page for all those caught out by the change in tariffs / border control
and the comprehensive suspension of postal services
Link is https://www.artbusinessinfo.com/shipping-art-to-usa.html

I know a lot of artists - across the world - who regularly sell art to Americans are very worried about what this means for their business.

My new website includes sections about

• three key drivers around the problem for artists
• what has been happening in the last month
• what it means in practical terms for artists
• what it means in different continents and countries around the world.
• plus lots and lots of references

The irony in the title is that the AIRLINES are the current driver leading to the comprehensive suspension of aircraft for carrying post to the USA.

"No longer shipping" courtesy of Astral Synergy Productions

Bottom line, yet again, the change in policy at motormouth speed is way in advance of the systems developments required to deliver what the USA wants which is

• cancellation of the exemption from tariffs for all post and parcels with a value of between $800 and $100 
• all post/parcels for imports MUST arrive in the USA marked up "Delivery Duty Paid" (this is Trump's notion of how to get the other countries to pay him money)
• On top of this there's an argument going between lawyers as to whether Trump can cancel the almost universal exemption of certain classes of art from any form of tariff duty payable.

The airlines have seen the writing on the wall and they are NOT HAPPY! (I'm assuming they worked out the reality, i.e. masses of small packages not going anywhere fast and stuck on planes because space has run out in normal storage areas before packages are processed). 

So they pulled the plug! Well done the airlines is what I think!

So given the complete carcrash of a mess which is currently exploding around the world, I thought I better get on with my new page!!!

So what I've published is my "best effort to date" BUT it is neither comprehensive nor do I guarantee everything on it is correct. However I've included a lot of references to people writing about this issue in other places and will continue to review and update in the coming days.

This is the short section providing headlines about implications for artists

Implications for Artists
- as producers and exporters of art to buyers in the USA

I'll be writing more about this - but right now I'd like to have lunch and get out in the sunshine and "have some time off"!

RBA Annual Exhibition 2025 METRICS: Analysis of art sales & Recommendations about pricing

This is an analysis of the art sales at the recent Annual Exhibition 2025 of the Royal Society of British Artists. 

It contains a number of charts and tables which attempt to explain what can be learned by both members and open artists about sales compared to artwork hung.

The charts and tables include

• CHART 1: an analysis and comparison of the number of artworks sold by type of artist and price range
• CHART 2: a comparison of the number and percentage of artworks sold with the total hung hung - according to the Mall Galleries Price Ranges
• TABLE 1: an analysis of the distribution of artwork by media (numbers hung and sold) - and then ranked according to the percentage of sales for different media
• TABLE 2: An analysis is subject matter by media used

Looking at numbers in isolation does not however tell the whole story. It's only when we look at comparative data in previous years that the very obvious and very significant finding stands out.

This was a much bigger exhibition with much fewer sales when compared to previous years.  There were 554 artworks hung in the show split between:

• 275 artworks by members
• 279 artworks by open entry artists

This was my review of the exhibition - Review: Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2025 in which I commented

The artwork selected comes from 3,843 submitted images. To give you a sense of what that represents it's bigger than the entry for some major art competitions.

Mostly it was good work, although it certainly included artwork I personally would have edited out at the selection stage.

You can see a much bigger version of the chart below on this post on my Facebook Page . Just click it to see the big version

Or get a magnifying glass out!

CHART 1: An analysis of the number of artworks sold
at RBA Annual Exhibition 2025
by type of artist (member or open) and the price range

The main findings of this chart are as follows

• A total of 63 artworks sold (just 11% of the artwork hung) which is VERY LOW 
• SEE SOLD ARTWORK HERE
• Previous sales figures for this exhibition 
• 2023:  97 sold (20% of the exhibition) - overall volume of sales was excellent
• 2024: however this year's exhibition is marginally better than the 52 sold from 491 hung (10%) last year - but only just (11%!!)
• in general the trend is the MORE artwork exhibited, the FEWER sales are achieved

Analysis of Sales at The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2025

After the annual exhibition of the The Pastel Society (PS) and my review of the exhibition comes my metrics post!

• Which price ranges achieved the best sales? 
• Is this the same for members and those selected from the Open Entry - or does it vary?

This is another of my regular posts reviewing sales and prices after the annual exhibition. It covers:

• General commentary on 
• sales of artwork and how and when art is sold
• Buyers at the Mall Galleries - where the PS hold their annual exhibition
• Sales at the 2025 Annual Exhibition of the Pastel Society focusing on:
• the number of sales and 
• the prices that pastel artwork sold for 

The reason I'm writing this post is because I'd like to see:

• more artists do better
• more artists make sales
• more artists improve their annual income from their artwork
• THROUGH more intelligent pricing of their artwork

Bottom line, the most realistic price for your artwork is the price which enables a sale. Otherwise, why bother pricing at all?

General Commentary on Sales of Artwork

How and when art is sold

These days art sales are typically generated in one of three ways

• the associated online website for the artwork - and the fact this goes online before the exhibition in the gallery opens
• sales at the Private View - where it's a common expectation that a goodly proportion of artwork will be sold given this is an opportunity for artists to be nice to collectors!
• sales while the exhibition is open to the public.

In the past, art societies used to have Buyers' Views for people:

• who were known collectors and/or
• had previously bought at the exhibition.

Art Societies don't seem to be doing these as much these days. Maybe because of the online exhibition - which is published well in advance of the exhibition opening and the fact people are more used to online sales. It's certainly the case that artwork regularly sells before an exhibition opens

Nevertheless, I still think there's a case to be made for the "pampering time" for previous art buyers/collectors when they don't have to fight for space with the legions of "friends of the artist" and can actually see the work properly.

I don't go to as many private views as I used to, mainly because to my mind they should be artists and buyers and "influencers" in the absence of a private view. 

I left this one early because of the crush - see Review: The Pastel Society 126th Annual Exhibition (2025) 

It's nice to have an event for friends of the artist BUT if it creates such a crush that it causes people to leave and/or deters sales, then that is a problem. 

My solution would be to introduce a constraint for all members and those selected via the open entry of strictly one friend only at the PV.

After all, friends can come any time, but artists typically only come once and it's on PV day! Plus buyers and collectors do like to meet the artist - and I see precious little effort by art societies generally to making sure that can happen. 

On the day of the PV, it's perfectly possible to stage manage a different focus at different times eg buyers at lunchtime; members getting together in the afternoon and friends allowed in the evening. That way we might actually get to see some art. I find I always have to go back if I go to the PV - just to be able to look at the art properly.

Sales have also been less than usual due to the constraints on people's budgets in the last couple of years. It seems to be easing slightly - but sales are still not yet back to where they used to be - and it's worth thinking about how to help them along....

Who are the buyers at the Mall Galleries?

Essentially annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries are about AFFORDABLE ART for most of those who visit, view and buy art.

This is about my well known mantra characterising buyers at the Mall Galleries. 

Typically they are essentially "middle class, middle aged and middle income"

They typically like buying artwork priced at less than £1,500 - and they like it even more if it is priced at less than a £1,000.

You should bear this in mind as you review the charts and commentary below and as you check the profiles of the price ranges of artwork sold in the charts below

Sales at The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2025

This is a chart of the sales at the recent Open Exhibition 2025 of the Pastel Society.

I got my numbers by going through the data on sales available from the online exhibition.

Analysis of the number of artworks sold by price range
in The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition 2025

The Pastel Society exhibited 382 artworks and sold 84 paintings (22% of the hung artwork). 

This is a marked improvement on the 2024 performance (see below).

NEAC 2023 Annual Exhibition METRICS

It's been a long time since I reviewed the metrics of the Annual Exhibition 2023 of the New English Art Club. 

Below is a summary - essentially for those artists submitting via the Open Entry, however I think NEAC members and others will learn something new as well

New English Art Club Annual Exhibition in East Gallery, Mall Galleries

What are Metrics?

The metrics I use are numerical indicators of:

• what the exhibition comprised
• how many member / open entry artworks - and the average per artist
• how many works sold
• what price works sold for
• how performance varied between NEAC members and open artists

Below is my summary of of the metrics - the performance indicators - for the exhibition.

• number of artists exhibiting - members and open
• number of artworks exhibited - split between members and open
• number of sales of artworks - categorised by price band and split between members and open artists.

Number of artworks exhibited and exhibiting artists

399 artworks were exhibited in the 2023 annual open exhibition - across all three galleries of the Mall Galleries of which all but 14 were for sale.

Artworks included:

• paintings - in oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolour, egg tempera and distemper
• drawings - in charcoal, pastels, conte, colour pencils, graphite, ballpoint pen and mixed media
• fine art prints (very few) - etching, aquatint, wood engraving, nkjet print, 

[The exhibition of watercolour paintings by the former Prince of Wales - in the guise of AG Carrick - appears to have ceased.]

Of the 399 artworks hung in 2023

• 257 (64%) artworks for sale were by 75 (43%) members (of whom one had died in the previous year); 14 artworks by members were "not for sale" 
• 118 (29%) artworks were by 97 (55%) non-members 
• 12 (3%%) artworks were by 3 (2%) NEAC Scholars (who have been counted as non-members for the purposes of other calculations
• 14 (3.5%) artworks (by 3 deceased member artists and two living members) were not for sale and were excluded from the calculations below.

Note: 

1. Prints have been excluded from the calculations if sold as "unframed" / direct from the artist. No figures are provided for prints sold.
2. all figures subject to rounding.
3. Back in 2015 some 1,000 entries resulted in 94 paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours (i.e. 9.4%) were hung alongside the 293 works by members - so the exhibition is now showing more works from the Open Entry.

NEAC Member Artists

Of the NEAC members:

• the vast majority of living / practising artist members exhibited artwork in the exhibition
• The majority of member artists exhibiting displayed 4 artworks with a few (typically older members) only displaying one or two.
• 4 deceased members (Fred Cuming, Antony Green, Ken Howard, Dawn Sidoli) also had exhibits

In relation to sales: a very large proportion of member artists had no sales at all. The pricing section will explain some of the reasons why.

Of artists with sales, those who sold more than one artwork included:

• sold 3 artworks: Diana Calvert, Melissa Scott-Miller. 
• sold 2 artworks: June Berry, Francis Bowyer, Judith Gardner, Mary Jackson, Charles Rake, Richard Pikesley, Glyn Saunders, Sarah Spencer

Between you and me, I think the ladies have the right idea!

Artists from the Open Entry

The selectors this year were treated to another record number of submissions allowing us to indulge in picking only the very best from so many good entries. Catalogue

I'm very much not a fan of the term "record number of entries" in the introduction to the exhibition in the catalogue - without a NUMBER! Tell us how many!

Of the 97 artists from the OPEN Entry:

• 7 were members of other national societies (most of which are based at the Mall Galleries).
• Leaving 90 artists with no affiliation to a national art society
• The majority of the non-member artists only had ONE WORK selected from the open entry for the exhibition, with a few having two works.

Average artworks per artist

Member artists typically had four artworks hung. Overall the average was 3.4 artworks for sale per exhibiting member artist as some only submitted one artwork.

Similarly, the NEAC Scholars each had four artworks hung. It's certainly an opportunity to make a big positive impression which not all capitalised on.

Those artists selected via the open entry typically had just one artwork hung - with an average of 1.2 artworks per artist. 

My advice to those submitting via the open entry is to submit just one - and make it a stunner!

Artworks sold and price of artworks sold

Now for the charts! I have to confess I've been through these numbers 4 or 5 times and keep coming up with a discrepancy of 2. I've given up trying to find it since the overall numbers stay very much the same.

I'll start with the Overall Picture and then comment on the charts for NEAC and the Open Entry (which includes the NEAC Scholars artwork).

Below the yellow is sales and the burnt orange is artworks exhibited. 

NEAC 2023: Comparison of number of sales to artwork exhibited by price range

HEADLINE: irrespective of how artworks were priced and/or how good they were - most sales were priced at less than or equal to £1,500. 

I have been making this point for a very long time.  If you want to improve the chance of an artwork selling it needs to be priced at a level that the market is prepared to buy.

RI Annual Exhibition 2023: Analysis of art sales metrics and pricing artwork for the future

This is my third post about pricing in recent art society exhibitions. Today it's about the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) Annual Open Exhibition 2023 at the Mall Galleries in London in April 2023. 

The exhibition is the biggest exhibition of watercolours in the UK. This is my review of the exhibition Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2023 in which I indicated I'd be doing this exhibition metrics post after the exhibition had closed.

Sales for this exhibition take place:

• during the exhibition - to visitors
• online - before, during and after the exhibition in the Mall Galleries

Below you can find charts I've produced from a lot of careful counting of artworks hung in the exhibition and which ones sold.

Plus some fairly robust comments.....

Exhibition Metrics: Artwork Exhibited and Artworks Sold

The purpose of the post is to illustrate some points about pricing which I've been making for some time - which are again underlined by the results I got from my analysis

This post considers three aspects

• the number of artworks exhibited and sold in each price range - analysed between member and non-member artworks
• observations on sales - in different price bands - for both members and non-members.
• pricing lessons for:
• the RI and Mall Galleries
• member artists
• artists selected via the open entry - when entering in 2024.

My charts reveal

• which are the most popular price bands for sales.
• which price bands have the most unsold work!

There are a number of important points - about which I'll comment more below - which, in summary are:

• Price point hurdles are VERY important determinants of sale 
• Affordable art sells well
• There's an effective ceiling limit at the Mall Galleries - above which few artworks will sell
• Excessive prices rarely generate sales for unknown artists - you need to be aware of the audience an exhibition attracts
• Expensive artworks are harder to sell during a period of economic uncertainty

All/any pricing ALWAYS needs to take economic context into account. This is particularly relevant to some members who normally sell and sold no work in this exhibition.

I'm uploading larger versions of my pricing/sales charts to a post about them on my Facebook Page.

Overall:

• 449 artworks were selected for hanging in the exhibition
• 68 artworks sold - represented 18% of the artwork hung
• open artists sold more artwork than RI members
• 40 by RI members (17% of artwork hung)
• 43 by artists selected from the Open Entry (20% of artwork hung)
• most sales were for less than £1,500 - which has been a really important hurdle price for a very long time.

[NOTE: This post has been corrected for an error I made which I spotted this morning in the comments immediately after the first chart - and updated.] 

What proportion of artwork sold - across different price ranges?

Two price ranges saw the most sales - and there were few sales after £1,500

RI Annual Exhibition 2023
Comparison of total numbers of artworks sold and exhibited

• Under £500: 36% of artworks hung sold - and most of these relate to small/smaller artworks by open entrants
• £501-£750: 24% of artwork hung sold - again mostly in relation to smaller artworks

This is not untypical of what happens in an economic context of uncertainty such as 

• the current cost of living crisis and 
• concern around increases in interest rates - which has NOT abated (i.e. this applies to all upcoming exhibitions too)

Exactly the same thing happened when we had the banking crisis in 2008 - which is when I started monitoring prices and sales. Sales were much better at the "affordable art" end and basically sales crashed among the more expensive price ranges. Interestingly I could spot established artists on the wall who had learned the hard lessons of 2008 and adjusted what they submitted accordingly. (In 2009 we had a LOT of "play it safe during the recession" exhibitions and this is what I've been expecting to see this year)

Other observations which can be made are:

• the first four price ranges have a similar number of artworks hung
• however the number of sales in the first four price ranges DIMINISH as the price rises
• after £1500 (a VERY important price hurdle observed by me in numerous FBA exhibitions)
• the numbers of artworks hung drop off dramatically
• the drop in sales is even more dramatic
• only 6 artworks sold above £1500
• nobody sold above £5,000

I am absolutely certain there are artists who would have sold or sold more if they'd had better information about 

• how sales work relative to prices in these galleries - and 
• how best to price in relation to price hurdles
• how best to price in a time of economic uncertainty

What are the price hurdles?

RWS Open Exhibition 2023: Analysis of prices and sales of selected artwork

This is the second in my series of posts about pricing for art society exhibitions relates to the annual RWS Open Exhibition of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS)

View of the RWS Open from outside the Bankside Gallery on the South Bank

The RWS holds its exhibitions at the Bankside Gallery (next to Tate Modern) which despite being a very decent space for many exhibitions is not actually big enough to hold a combined member and non-member exhibition. It does however have an extremely good footfall outside - if they can be attracted down the steps.....

Consequently, the RWS holds 

• two member exhibitions each year in the Spring and Autumn
• a Christmas small works show
• PLUS an Open Exhibition for non-members and those aspiring to become members of the RWS (see my blog post Call for Entries: Royal Watercolour Society Open 2023)

This post relates to that latter show - the RWS Open held in the Bankside Gallery in March 2023. You can browse the artworks hung in the exhibition here

View of part of the exhibition

In order to produce this post this is what I did

• I visited on the afternoon of the last day (19th March) and went around the Gallery and very carefully identified all the sales and marked these up on the list of artworks with the sames
• I then analysed the sheet which listed all artworks in terms of price ranges
• I then compared the number of sales in each of those price range and produced an excel spreadsheet with the results tabulated and charted... which you can see below.

This chart compares the number of artworks hung to the number of sales. It shows you 

• (light column) the distribution of prices - between price ranges - of the artworks selected to be hung in the RWS Open. 
• (darker column) the distribution of sales in those same ranges.

My observations can be found below

153 artworks were hung. Of these just 17 sold (11% of work hung).  It needs to be remembered that this is an exhibition of artists who are not as well known and many will lack followers and collectors. Hence I would not expect a high percentage of sales. 

In the various price ranges the chart above demonstrates a very pronounced bias towards more affordable art with the £500 and under category accounting for over 70% of the sales. This is the category commonly considered to be one which accounts for a lot of "impulse buys" which is a very important part of any gallery sales.

RWS Open at the Bankside Gallery

If looked at in detail, in terms of percentages:

• £500 and less: 46% of the selected artworks hung and 71% of total sales
• £501-£750: 22% of artwork hung and 12% of total sales
• £751-£1000: 14% of artwork hung and 12% of total sales
• £1001-£1500: 8% of artwork hung; NO SALES
• £1501-£2000: 5% of artwork hung; NO SALES
• £2001-£2500: 1% of artwork hung; 6% of sales (i.e. the one painting in this category sold. This was The Shed by Stewart Smith who also won the Dry Red Press Award)
• £2500-£5000: 4% of artwork hung; NO SALES

This analysis certainly reinforces the importance of having a price range in an open exhibition below £500.

There's a conventional view that watercolours are worth less than paintings in oil. It's certainly true that oil paintings typically sell for more than watercolours. 

RBA Annual Exhibition 2023: Analysis of art sales metrics & Recommendations about pricing artwork

This week I'm focusing on pricing art - and looking at sales in three recent exhibitions I've visited.

This post is about the sales of artwork - by members and non-members - achieved in each price band at the Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2023.

This post considers three aspects

• the number of artworks sold in each price range - analysed between member and non-member artworks
• observations on sales - in different price bands - for both members and non-members.
• pricing lessons for:
• the RBA and Mall Galleries
• member artists
• artists selected via the open entry - when entering in 2024.

My charts reveal 

• which are the most popular price bands for sales. 
• which price bands have the most unsold work!

Plus I comment on a well-established rumour about the Mall Galleries raising the future minimum price of an artwork - from £300 to £500 - and why this would lose money for the artists, society and the Mall Galleries. i.e in my opinion, a major rethink is required if the rumour is true!

(NOTE: 

1. A number of you know I'm a qualified accountant and an ex-Finance Director who loves crunching the numbers to reveal what might not be obvious to those artists who are less happy with numbers! I've done quite a few exhibition metrics posts in the past.
2. All charts and tables EXCLUDE any unframed sales of prints)

Sales at the Royal Society of British Artists' Annual Exhibition 2023

Number of artworks sold in each price range

Below is a chart which compares the number of artworks sold (97) to the total number of artworks exhibited (nearly 500) - by price range. 

In other words approximately 20% of the artwork on the wall was sold either at the Mall Galleries or online.

This chart does not examine whether artworks were by RBA members or open entrants. It purely focuses on:

• the distribution of total artworks hung by price band (pale column)
• the distribution of total artworks sold by price band (blue column)

The percentage of artwork sold in each price band has a very pronounced distribution.

From this, some obvious conclusions can be drawn:

• the most popular price bands are all below £1,000 - with under £500 being the most popular (for what I commonly refer to as "impulse buys")
• for the three price bands below £1,000 identified above the percentage of sales achieved for artworks hung is between 23-30% - which looks like a good result to me
• by way of contrast over 90% of artworks in the top two price bands (above £2,000) failed to sell. (i.e. 7 sales out of 93 hung = 7.5%)
• That's very expensive wall space for a very low return on the 90%
• I have been saying - for a very long time - that the only people pricing above £2,000 in the Mall Galleries should be artists with an established track record in reputable art galleries for sales above this figure. 
• The artwork might be great - but if financial targets have to be met then pricing needs to be sensible and sensitive.

What is art? (legally speaking)

I needed to find a definition for the question "What is art" recently while developing a new page about Money Laundering & the Art Market: Law, Regulations and Practice.

[Note: If you are selling art - but are not an individual artist who is selling their own art - and don't know about the new money laundering regulations, there is a very serious gap in your "need to know" art business knowledge. I'm hoping to publish soon.....]

So what is art?

Purists might suggest that if the artist says it's art then it's art. 

That might be fine in isolation - but it doesn't cut it as a definition in the "Art as a Merchantable Commodity Market" where there are very many relevant laws and regulations - and taxes and penalties and fines. ( for anybody in any doubt I suggest you read my Art Business Info for Artists page about "Legal Matters for Artists - How to stay on the right side of the law ​and understand all relevant legal liabilities" )

The legal definition of works of art in the UK

It's really quite simple. 

Art (in the UK) is defined for art business, tax, finance and money laundering purposes as stated below. 

Works of Art" has the same meaning as in section 21 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 and includes:

• Painting, drawings, collages and decorative plaques executed by hand; 
• Limited edition prints; 
• Original sculpture or statuary and limited edition sculpture casts; 
• Handmade limited edition tapestries and hangings; 
• Signed ceramics executed by an individual; 
• Signed limited edition enamels on copper (not comprised in an article of jewellery); and 
• Signed limited edition photographs. 

By way of contrast in the USA the courts have been used to dispute and contest constraints (i.e. "the obscenity pledge" and "the decency clause") which related to censorship of what is deemed inappropriate for public funding. In doing so they referenced the First and Fifth Amendments.

NFTs are NOT Art

Interestingly, I've only just realised that last week there was a bit of a furore online because Wikipedia has decided that NFTs are NOT ART! 

As in 

• Sales of 'art' as NFTs are NOT art sales.
• the most expensive NFTs which purport to be art are not being included in the list of the most expensive artworks ever sold

You can read the debate on the discussion page here - under 'Separation of NFT sales and artwork sales' which cites

NFTs are not a new artistic medium in the way that oil paint, printmaking, photography or video art were. Even digital art (which is just art made on a computer) preexisted NFTs by decades. NFTs are financial instruments. They make it easier to sell digital files by creating scarcity. Washington Post

Beeple’s work has been compared to that of KAWS or Banksy, two other artists who have bypassed art-world gatekeepers to establish huge sale prices. But ultimately, NFTs are a technology used to authenticate an artwork; determining whether a work is art or not is up to the viewer. The technology can be used to authenticate other kinds of objects, too. New York Times

So we now have

• List of most expensive paintings
• List of most expensive photographs
• List of most expensive sculptures
• List of most expensive artworks by living artists
• List of most expensive non-fungible tokens

An NFT is a Non-fungible token 

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger.[1] Types of NFT data units may be associated with digital files such as photos, videos, and audio. Because each token is uniquely identifiable, NFTs differ from blockchain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. (Wikipedia)

This in turn could affect their value - and hence there's a lot of "investment" in how they should be defined!

Personally, for me, an NFT is a digital token not art - and won't ever be art until it enjoys copyright protection - which NFTs do not.

Here are some of the articles discussing Wikipedia's decision to define NFTs - as NFTs!

• Wikipedia Editors Have Voted Not to Classify NFTs as Art, Sparking Outrage in the Crypto Community | ArtNet News
• What’s Really at Stake in the Debate over Whether NFTs Are Art | ArtNet
• Should NFTs Be Classified as Art? Wikipedia’s Editors Vote ‘No’ | Smithsonian
• NFTs Weren’t Supposed to End Like This | The Atlantic
• How Wikipedia’s Classification Of NFTs As ‘Not Art’ Impacts Equity In The Art World | 
• Are NFTs art? Wikipedia says not exactly | Quartz

I suspect some of the rationale might also relate to law and how art is defined.

An NFT (and, if applicable, the associated license to use, copy or display the underlying asset) can be traded and sold on digital markets. The extralegal nature of NFT trading usually results in an informal exchange of ownership over the asset that has no legal basis for enforcement, often conferring little more than use as a status symbol.

There needs to be parity in terms of the marketplace in terms of what is being bought and sold before you can start making comparisons about "what is the most expensive?"

There again it's entirely possible that there are also some considerable suspicions about:

• inflation of NFT sales/receipts due to "wash trading"
• use of NFTs for money laundering

BECAUSE at the moment there is no regulation of NFTs in terms of robust and regulated financial systems - which will very definitely NOT last forever.