Kobel's
Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 34 2026

The FAZ appears to have brought its art market coverage out from behind the paywall. At the very least, all current articles are freely accessible. Older articles can be accessed following free registration. Nicole Scheyerer summarises the seasonal results of the Viennese auction houses: “Kinsky increased its half-year turnover from 9.1 million euros in 2025 to 10.4 million. At the Dorotheum, which was recently the target of a foiled jewellery theft, no figures have been released, but the auction house is describing it as the best spring season in the history of this multi-disciplinary institution. Contributing to this success were an antique brooch set with an 18.6-carat Kashmir sapphire and a pocket watch by the Swiss watchmaker Thomas Engel, as well as a painting of a faceless saint.” The fact that the Dorotheum still treats its turnover as confidential does not exactly speak well of the company.

In the Handelsblatt of 14 August, Sabine Spindler profiles an antiques shop with promising prospects: “Anyone looking around antiques fairs will notice a shift towards new areas of collecting. Record sleeves, posters and signed photographs have long been part of the scene for many in the industry. At Felix Jud in Hamburg, this section is called the ‘Wunderkammer’. It houses photographic portraits by Harry Graf Kessler, a 140-million-year-old dinosaur tooth and a pair of gloves from Karl Lagerfeld’s estate. Prices here start at around 400 euros. ‘I’m convinced that, following the theoretical, cool modernism, there is a reawakened desire for things that aren’t entirely rational and for a sense of wonder,’ says the young antiquarian [Robert Eberhardt], who opened a branch in Keitum on Sylt last year. The Cottage Felix Jud caters to holidaymakers’ longings with old maps and small antiques, but is far more than just an upmarket souvenir shop.”

In Frankfurt, Silke Hohmann from Monopol also has questions about “A Sky Full of Hope” above the Konstablerwache: “From an artist’s perspective, the budget for this is fantastic. It comes – and this is important to Ina Hartwig, the Head of Cultural Affairs – not from the culture budget, but was left over from the city’s marketing budget. It would otherwise have gone to waste. But did that mean it had to be spent on something so obviously rooted in the events sector? The city chose the American artist Janet Echelman. She is largely unknown in the art world; she has had neither gallery nor museum exhibitions. […] It is an installation with the aesthetic of corporate events organised by DAX-listed companies. Something that corporations usually use to show that they have a great deal of money. Not the best signal to send in a city like Frankfurt.” Questions about the commissioning process are justified. However, categorising the work as ephemeral event décor does not do justice to the artist Janet Echelman. Her works have been installed at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, the Chiostro del Bramante in Rome, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, in the entrance area of Arco Madrid, and in several major museums in the USA (including Denver, Miami Beach and Cambridge, MA). One of her works is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Most recently, she was Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). These are certainly not the worst references. The heated debate has now even made it onto the Tagesschau. Christoph Scheffer comments there: “And what about the costs? Of course, 2.3 million euros is a lot of money. But this is predominantly funding that was made available specifically for this purpose during the COVID-19 pandemic: to revitalise the city centre with light and art. Whether Echelman’s artwork can fulfil this function is also being scientifically monitored. It is not difficult to provoke indignant reactions with the buzzwords ‘art’ and ‘millions’. It is far more difficult to further develop an urban area through a targeted aesthetic intervention.”

Magnus Resch has examined the obvious, backed it with data and found that women are under-represented in institutions and in the art market, as he writes in the FAZ: “The most surprising finding is that gender plays a significantly smaller role in later success than many assume. What matters most of all is the network within which a career develops.”

According to Ann Austin of Prazzle Art, the art world is all about the right network, which is all too often invisible: “Picture the dinner. Or the exclusive vernissage. Or the pre-opening, the one that never makes it onto the invitation. A curator, a collector who also happens to sit on a museum board, a gallery director, someone from a foundation. Notable journalists invited to shape the next narrative. Good wine, better conversation. Nobody signs anything. Nobody needs to. By the time anyone reads about the museum’s new acquisitions programme, or the gallery’s newest represented artist, or the foundation’s next grant cycle, half of it had already been decided somewhere between the main course and the espresso, or the first walk-through and the doors opening to everyone else.” The portal sets itself high standards, billing itself as a “media-tech platform reimagining how art is discovered, experienced, and supported. ‘We bridge the gap between art, business and commerce through storytelling, technology and curated experiences.’ It also functions as a network. However, access here is available for a modest monthly fee. Incidentally, the testimonials section includes Sakhile&Me, a Frankfurt gallery that closed six months ago.

A new book is being published on the art forgery industry, as reported by dpa: “Forgeries are as old as art itself and are now a huge business. Yet figures are scarce, not least because the market is fragmented and blurs into a grey area with legitimate trade. Auction platforms such as eBay have long been a major gateway. Works are frequently offered there with descriptions such as ‘Signed by…’ or ‘Attributed to…’. ‘At first, people just laughed it off, thinking: “Anyone who buys something there has only themselves to blame”’, says Henry Keazor, author of the book ‘Deceptively Real – A History of Art Forgery’. Keazor established the first study collection of forged artworks at the University of Heidelberg. He says that we now know the process often works like this: A small but respectable collector purchases a work of art on eBay and then channels it into the art market, where its price is driven higher and higher over time. “The work itself may be innocent – in other words, it need not be a deliberately produced forgery – but it is simply not what it is passed off as.”

In Italy last week, on the one hand, stolen works by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth millions were seized, as reported by APA; on the other hand, several even more valuable paintings by Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum, reports dpa.

beck-aktuell reports on a potentially significant ruling by the Hessian Finance Court regarding the import of ivory: “A traveller brought an ivory pendant back to Germany from Turkey – without a permit. The Hessian Finance Court upheld the customs authorities’ confiscation of the item. The fact that the piece had allegedly been in the family’s possession since 1970 did not help the tourist. […] Nor could she invoke the exemption for personal effects set out in the Species Protection Implementation Ordinance. This is because the invoice from 1970 showed that the item had been purchased in Syria, i.e. in a third country outside the EU. That is precisely what rules out the exemption.” Incidentally, in 1970 the EU was considerably smaller than it is today – the UK, Greece, Spain and Austria did not join until much later in some cases. So anyone going on holiday with, say, ivory jewellery inherited from their grandmother or a crocodile-skin handbag should make sure beforehand that they can produce a valid proof of purchase.

The Guggenheim in New York would like to recover a Picasso that was stolen over 60 years ago, reports Valentina di Liscia at Hyperallergic: “In a lawsuit filed in the New York State Supreme Court this week, the Guggenheim Foundation accused Massachusetts residents Lawrence Jay Handler and Wendy Cohen Handler of unlawfully withholding the painting, disregarding the museum’s ownership rights, and unjustly benefiting from possessing stolen property. According to court filings, the Handlers purchased ‘Femme dans un fauteuil’ from Beadleston Fine Art in Manhattan in 1999, nearly 40 years after it went missing in Pittsburgh. But the Guggenheim only learnt of the painting’s reappearance in July 2023, when a researcher at Christie’s who was investigating the work for a private sale consignment brought it to the museum’s attention.” The case has wider implications because, citing a previous ruling, the court could reject the argument of acquisition in good faith. “The court eventually ruled that the lawsuit could proceed, cementing New York State’s reputation as a jurisdiction that tends to protect an artwork’s rightful owner, even when the property is acquired by a buyer acting in good faith.”

A new BBC television series explores the art market: The Big Deal with Steph McGovern. Katie White from Artsy is delighted that her employer is involved: “The Artsy auction is one of six real-world sales challenges contestants face in the series. Other episodes see contestants auctioning off work by Royal College of Art graduates, furnishing two luxury homes to a client’s brief, and selling prints and limited editions in Margate alongside artist Margo McDaid. They are also tasked with curating a collection for the cabaret bar aboard the cruise ship Queen Anne, pitching a high-end sculpture to industry insiders at Frieze London, and selling at the Affordable Art Fair.” Apollo is less enthusiastic: “At the risk of spoiling the show, most of the art sells. But the sale looks more like a hen night than an auction. The auctioneers are dressed in orange jumpsuits and have slightly intimidating German accents. Is this meant to represent the unapproachability of the art world? Far from opening up the art market to those curious about art, this programme feels more like a higher-budget version of Bargain Hunt. Scouring art colleges to find something to sell, the producers seem to have forgotten that before people want to collect, they want to know about the art.”

As President of the Bundestag, Julia Klöckner is bound by the principles of non-partisanship and the institution’s rules. As a CDU politician and a private individual, she is free to express herself on social media. However, an Instagram post has just backfired on her. To mark the start of the new school year, she shared her vision of the first day at school. Unfortunately, the AI programme she commissioned – the use of which was apparently only labelled as such retrospectively – happened to contain exclusively white children aged around ten. Critics, such as a professional photographer, were blocked en masse and the comments section was disabled. Meanwhile, Der Spiegel (paywall) has taken notice of the matter.

Margaret Carrigan reports from London on Artnet that two galleries are closing: “Beers Gallery, near the Barbican, has announced it will close at the end of the month, after 14 years in business, whilst the 10-year-old South London gallery Sid Motion will cease operations in October.” Whether a gallery can really be considered a long-established institution after just ten years is, however, a matter of opinion. Sid Motion has taken part in the last two editions of NADA Miami and, prior to that, appeared several times at Photo London.

The (healthily) downsizing Pace Gallery has two high-profile departures to contend with, reports Daniel Cassady in Artnews: “Amelia Redgrift, the gallery’s chief communications officer, and Dani Forest Brandi, a senior sales director, have both resigned. Where they’re going remains under wraps. Sources told ARTnews, however, that both have already secured senior roles elsewhere in the art and culture world.”