Kobel's
Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 51 2024

The last fair of the year has been held. With Art Antwerp, Art Brussels in the neighbouring city allows itself a free hand that embodies a relatively new type of art fair that no longer expects visitors to travel from far and wide. Julia Stellmann characterises the event for Kunstforum: “The regional nature of the fair is something that all participants are well aware of. Both the fair management and the galleries report that participation primarily serves to maintain contacts with the local collector scene. Many galleries adapt their programme accordingly and exhibit Belgian positions. However, the regional focus does not detract from the quality of the fair. On the contrary, the intimate size allows a special focus on the invited galleries.” I was in Antwerp for the Handelsblatt.

Kabir Jhala gives a brief summary of the ending year in The Art Newspaper: “The top end of the market continued to contract this year, as trophy lots failed to return in the numbers seen during the Covid-19 pandemic or the years prior to that, while the demand for ultra-contemporary work evaporated, leaving some of the industry's biggest businesses in a bind. This was most clear at the auction houses, where sales fell for a second year in a row. At Sotheby's this came with the announcement of major staff layoffs and reports surfacing of a massive 88% drop in core earnings.”

Brita Sachs saw positive signals from the auction results at Ketterer in Munich for the FAZ: “It may have been a case of forced optimism that Ketterer was unconcerned before the “Evening Sale” of modern and contemporary art. In fact, however, there seems to be a slight refreshing movement in the art market doldrums. The hammer fell three times for hammer prices in the millions, with the highest expected for Max Beckmann's painting ‘Large Clown with Women and Small Clown’. Created in 1950, it reflects Beckmann's situation between exile and emigration to America. It now rose to three million euros (estimate 1.4 to 1.8 million euros). Including the premium, it will cost its new owner – a ‘significant European collection’ – 3.7 million.”

Sabine Spindler looks at post-war art for the Handelsblatt: “On 6 December, the painting was one of four lots sold for over a million euros. The figure is remarkable in view of the current crisis in Germany.‘ Another seven-figure sum was attained by Robert Ryman's “General 52” x 52’' of 1970, a painting built up layer by layer of lacquer. It fetched 1.3 million euros. Like all Ryman paintings, it is a reflection on the colour white and on painting itself. In this case, Germany beat the United States. ‘The international avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s is very important to us, as it provides us with a global collector base,’ auctioneer Robert Ketterer told Handelsblatt. And every auction house needs such collectors as they are potent bidders in the high-price range.”

Christian Herchenröder looks at old master prints in his review of the auction at Bassenge in Berlin for the Handelsblatt: “The auction of prints from the 15th to 19th century, on the other hand, attracted international bidders, among whom American, German, Swiss buyers and the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum were particularly active. ‘It was one of the best graphic art auctions in recent years,’ emphasised David Bassenge – and not only with a view to the 218,750 euros for the brilliant print of Rembrandt's etching “Landscape with Three Trees”. A Swiss collector secured it against six telephone bids. Not only the market pillars Rembrandt and Dürer, but all the market rarities represented here were sold at high prices.”

Sabine Spindler has to draw a less than inspiring conclusion of the auction at Karl & Faber in Munich for the Handelsblatt: “The rather subdued mood during the auction meant that there was rarely much excitement. In the evening sale of selected works, Karl & Faber sold fewer than half of the lots. Turnover was correspondingly low at three million euros. The most expensive work was Auguste Renoir's half-length portrait ‘Maria au Repos’. A Berlin collector acquired it for 508,000 euros.”

The session at Neumeister in Munich was even more sobering, as Sabine Spindler summarises for the Handelsblatt: “Neumeister's auction was also accompanied by a high rate of returns. The selection of old masters was particularly selective. Of around 100 lots, about 80 went into the post-sale.”

Silvia Anna Barrilà analyses London as an art market location for the WeLT: “Since the UK left the European Union, the art trade has changed. One city in particular has seized the opportunity to attack London as a European art capital: Paris. Numerous galleries have opened branches in the French capital, including Hauser & Wirth, Esther Schipper, Peter Kilchmann, Mariane Ibrahim and Mendes Wood, but it was the arrival of Art Basel in 2022 that really accelerated the Parisian revival. [...] The tent structures in Regent's Park, which house the London fairs Frieze and Frieze Masters, cannot compete with such grandeur. Nevertheless, structural and architectural changes have been made that have been very well received by the public and the galleries. [...] The response to Frieze was positive, thanks to good sales, despite the overall subdued development of the art market since the beginning of the year. London will remain an important global hub for contemporary art, especially at the higher price levels.”

The dismissal of around 100 Sotheby's employees in New York was reported by Katya Kazakina at Artnet (possibly Paywall) and Karen K. Ho at Artnews. For the FAZ, Ursula Scheer provides a very brief summary of the reports. Meanwhile, the head of the company is apparently lacking in tact, as a report by Katya Kazakina on Artnet shows: “More than 100 people at Sotheby's are losing their jobs, it has since become clear. Entire departments have been affected in some cases, raising questions about whether the auction house will axe entire categories. Conversations continue, and some people will become consultants instead of full-time employees. Just as all this was unfolding, Sotheby's CEO Charles Stewart took to Instagram with a post that showed him posing against a blue sky, natty in black shades and a tan blazer. Behind him, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi was rising”.

Hubertus Butin takes a look at the sometimes questionable promises made in the online shops of Mega galleries for the FAZ: “While the international contemporary art trade is currently complaining of a drop in sales, auction houses are laying off staff and at least a dozen galleries in New York have had to close this year, the sales platforms of the major galleries on the internet are diversifying their offerings. The online presence opens up an additional source of income for them, along the lines of: every little bit helps.”

Whether the money goes into art, NFTs or memorabilia often doesn't matter that much to some of the rich, observes Carlo Mariani in the NZZ: “Because buying memorabilia is considered a wise investment. Similar to art, they are seen as holding their value and are less exposed to the fluctuations of the financial markets. This is also supported by the fact that more and more crypto-entrepreneurs are entering the market, like the buyer of Maurizio Cattelan's banana. They buy art and memorabilia like crypto currencies, NFT or memecoins. The memorabilia are usually auctioned off at the largest auction houses such as Sotheby's, Christie's or Heritage Auctions, which have tapped into a new business in addition to the art and antiques trade.”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, under the direction of Max Hollein, is planning a new building, which Robin Pogrebin presents in the New York Times: ‘The project is expected to cost about $500 million and to open in 2030. In May 2024, the museum announced it had reached its fund-raising milestone of $550 million in private donations for the wing (the Met is raising an additional $150 million for an endowment to support the addition's operating costs).’

However, the Met is also in a unique position worldwide, as Hannes Stein explains in the WeLT: “The museum has an operating budget of $340 million per year, not including purchases of art and major construction projects. It has an endowment of four and a half billion dollars. A quarter of the operating budget comes from the foundation, the rest from donations and income, and the city of New York contributes another 20 million. In other words, the Metropolitan Museum is predominantly privately funded and not subject to anyone – no government in Washington can dictate its programme to it.”

Regarding Saudi Arabia's contribution of almost a fifth of the 50 million euros needed to renovate the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Angelica Villa writes at Artnews: “The funding is part of a broader partnership detailed in a ten-agreement package. Dati and Al Saoud also announced nine other cultural deals related to projects in archeology, film, and photography. As part of the deal, France has pledged to back Saudi Arabia's development of multiple museum and heritage projects, including a new photography museum in Riyadh linked to programs at the National School of Photography in Arles. Other projects include restoring Saudi heritage sites, such as royal palaces, with the help of French institutions like the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and OPPIC.” How active is the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in the area of (real) third-party funding?

The controversial property developer Yoram Roth (Tacheles, Clärchens Ballhaus) expresses his ideas on the drastic cuts in Berlin's cultural sector in the Berliner Zeitung from: “I am extremely proud that we spend so much money on culture in Berlin. But in some cases it was never entirely clear to me why. For example, I still don't understand why we built the Humboldt Forum. We really allowed ourselves every luxury, and now we can't anymore. Maybe I think that way because I come from that start-up world: in my opinion, things have to run a bit on their own at some point. You can continue to help, but we can't just keep paying for everything and working with managing directors who don't take economic responsibility.”

I report the rejection of an extension to the Krichner Museum in Davos by a majority of the population in Weltkunst.

The major bank Unicredit is pushing the Bank Austria Kunstforum over the cliff after the sponsorship was lost due to Benko's Signa bankruptcy, reports Olga Kronsteiner in the Standard: “A surprising about-turn, not only in view of the exhibition programme for 2025, which was only announced on Thursday, for which contractual agreements have already been made that will now result in penalties in the millions. The employees, above all director Ingried Brugger, learned about the impending closure of the Kunstforum from the press release. Just a few months ago, when asked by STANDARD about the loss of the sponsorship, Bank Austria had appeared decidedly optimistic. It said that the loss was less than 20 percent of the exhibition centre's annual budget and could be compensated for by a new sponsor.” The board of the Kunstforum immediately launched a petition that can also be signed from abroad. The move has been met with a incomprehension, Kronsteiner reports in Der Standard: “In a conversation with the Austrian Press Agency (APA), the former “profil” editor-in-chief [and board member Christian Rainer] sharply criticised the raid-like approach of Unicredit Bank Austria: 'I don't understand it at all.' In view of the bank's high profits, a measure of this kind, which involves a single-digit million amount, is as incomprehensible as the publicly stated reason that the loss of Signa sponsorship does not allow further operation for economic reasons: ‘This has nothing to do with René Benko,’ said Rainer. He also pointed out that Unicredit's assurances in Germany, where it is seeking to take over Commerzbank, that it has great respect for locally grown cultures and structures, seem like mere lip service in view of its actions in Vienna.”

An Italian resident in St. Moritz failed to pay his bill at Christie's, reports Vincent Noce in The Art Newspaper.

The closure of Pace Editions subsidiary Pace African & Oceanic Art, founded in 1971, is reported by Francesca Aton in Artnews.

The messy bankruptcy of the Thierry Goldberg Gallery in New York is reported by Vittoria Benzine at Artnet.