Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 12 2025

Ursula Scheer describes in the FAZ (Paywall): ‘The aim of the new managing director Dominique Savelkoul is to maintain and expand the position that has been established over decades. As the first Belgian to hold the position, which has seen a lot of change in recent times, she comes from the Mu.ZEE in Ostend and has a few cautious innovations in mind, such as a digital signpost for young collectors. It leads to works for less than 20,000 euros. On the dealer side, the generational change is also underway’.

Scott Reyburn of the New York Times assesses the current edition of the Maastricht fair: "Several visitors said that though this year's TEFAF still kept up its reputation for offering a wealth of museum-quality items, standout masterworks by major names were fewer and farther between. ‘Despite the lack of obvious showstoppers such as we have seen in past years, people were still quietly doing good business and there was a very international crowd in attendance, which makes all the difference,’ Morgan Long, a London-based art adviser, said after the preview.

PR for the fair is done by Alexandra Wach in the Tagesspiegel: ‘But the modern segment, in which 90 of the 273 participating galleries from more than 20 countries are represented, is breaking all price records. The biggest attraction is Picasso's 1965 painting ‘Les Dormeurs’, exhibited by Landau Fine Art – it's just unfortunate that it is not for sale. The stand also features top works by Chagall, Giacometti, Henry Moore and Jawlensky, but the portrait of Jacqueline, the Spanish artist's muse, attracts the most attention. It is estimated to be worth 50 million US dollars.’ Arun Khakar knows the price of the painting on Artsy: over $50 million. In 2002, the work was still selling for $7.5 million, also at Landau, but in Basel, where the dealer showed it again 20 years later. It was last seen in February in Gstaad. The fact that most media outlets are focusing on the store's closure says a lot about the state of the industry and the fair.

Werner Remm points out a less pleasant aspect in Artmagazine: ‘The development of exhibitors from German-speaking countries is disappointing. For various reasons, Thomas from Munich, Die Galerie from Frankfurt and Thomas Salis from Salzburg are no longer participating. This is not offset by a single newcomer among first-time exhibitors.’ I was in Maastricht for the Handelsblatt.

The British government is making it easier to import works of art, reports Kabir Jhala in The Art Newspaper (possible paywall): "In a move expected to boost the ailing British art market, the UK Treasury has extended the period during which fine art and antiques from overseas can come into the country free of import duties. [...] Dealers will now pay zero import tax on works brought into the UK, provided they are exported within four years. The change particularly impacts London, which is one of the global art market's three largest hubs for cross-border trade, along with New York and Hong Kong, neither of which levies import taxes for art and antiques.’ However, the article does not make it clear whether it is taxes or customs duties that are being referred to, as it uses both terms.

Deutschlandfunk reports shocking figures from the auction market, possibly once again in an unmarked and apparently unchecked adoption of a dpa report. According to this, the data service provider Artprice has calculated that global auction sales in the art market fell by a third to 9.9 billion dollars last year. Surprisingly, however, according to their own information, Sotheby's and Christie's together already generated almost 12 billion dollars with their auctions. Furthermore, the link provided in the article leads to the Artprice report on contemporary art and not to the one the new is actually based on. Karen K. Ho of Artnews goes into the report in more detail.

Daniel Cassady reports on a possible collaboration between Sotheby's and the Pace Gallery at Artnews: "Sotheby's and Pace Gallery are currently negotiating over a deal that would see the auction house make a significant investment in the mega-gallery. While nothing has been finalised yet, and the details appear to be very much in flux, a source close to the negotiations told ARTnews that it was not an acquisition, but a ‘joint venture between Pace and Sotheby's that will be multifaceted and has many elements. Let's call it a “new model.”’

Tech startups founded by people with a background in galleries usually avoid venture capital, explains Angelica Villa at Artnews: ‘Fair Warning and several other major art-tech startups were founded by gallery and auction insiders in response to pandemic-related challenges. The companies, and their founders, were careful about taking investment from venture capital firms and tech luminaries, instead leaning on financing from close contacts in the art world. Now, five years since the start of the pandemic, the companies are slowly moving toward profitability, a cautious approach enabled by the source of their funding.’

With a dose of humour, Scott Reyburn discusses in The Art Newspaper (possibly paywalled) the question of whether a decline in educational standards could be linked to the weakness of the old masters market: "On the other hand, a wealthy private individual might think: ’Who is Van Heemskerck? Never heard of him. Why are there two versions of this picture? Is it a copy? What if I hang an old painting of the dead Christ on my wall? Will my friends think I am weird? The price seems high. I could buy an Airbnb apartment in a major European city for that. The property would increase in value and I would have income from my investment. How can I be sure I will make money out of this painting?‘’

Not worthy of a reputable newspaper – and an economic publication at that – is the article ‘How do I get a good work of art for 1000 euros’ by Benjamin Ansari, which the investment section of Handelsblatt published (paywall). ‘High returns with art? It's possible,’ claims the lead-in. Surprisingly, the article does not explain how this is possible at all, but only how to get hold of cheap art, even from the comfort of your sofa: ‘And selecting art from a curated online shop is always more convenient than the arduous tour of the country's art academies.’ You can stop reading at the latest when you come across the terrible phrase: ‘For years, the international art world has known only one direction: upwards.’ If only someone who knew about it had been asked – the in-house art market department, for example.

When Vitalik Buterin's crypto network Ethereum and Charlotte Fang's NFT project Milady join forces, the result is self-empowerment for artists, Annika von Taube at Monopol Paywall is convinced: ‘When the Milady project recently launched its own currency, interested parties had to pass an IQ test to gain access to it. Although this was not so successful economically, the Milady NFTs have been doing all the better since Buterin acquired one and is promoting Fang's product. So both sides come out winners, in terms of sales on the one hand and image on the other. But the case is particularly interesting because it shows that artists have more power over the platforms that produce and distribute their art than one might think – they just have to make themselves their accomplices.’ However, Fang who became famous through anime NFTs is not without controversy. In 2023, the feminist accelerationist had to admit that she was behind the account Miya, which spreads hate speech against minorities.

Suddenly finding themselves without health insurance is one of the worst nightmares for many people in precarious circumstances. And that is exactly what has happened to those insured by the artists' social security fund in eastern Germany, as Monopol has discovered: ’A representative of the KSK told Monopol that around 30,000 insured persons were affected. Despite compulsory insurance in Germany, they and, where applicable, co-insured relatives were thus temporarily without protection. There was no individual contact between the artists' social security fund and those affected. The KSK does not know whether the respective health insurance companies actively communicated the suddenly unclear insurance status. In the case of the Berlin artist known to the monopoly, this had not happened. It was only when the ‘expired’ card was noticed at the doctor's that, according to him, a letter arrived at the beginning of March stating that he was ‘no longer insured according to current information’.’ What is scandalous here is not so much the mistake, but the way the KSK deals with its own failure. All the more reason to tackle a reform of the social security system for artists.

While the outgoing federal government was still in office, the future financing of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation was secured in an agreement between the federal and state governments, as reported by dpa: ‘The agreement will come into force on 1 January 2026. The federal states had already agreed on the budget at the meeting of heads of government in December. Accordingly, both the federal states and the federal government are increasing their respective contributions to the funding. In total, the federal government and the federal states are providing an additional 12 million euros for the annual so-called basic amount. This amount thus rises to around 135 million euros. In addition, there are subsidies for ongoing operations and special payments for construction measures. In 2024, the foundation received a total of around 387 million euros from the federal and state governments.’

A seven percent reduction in staff by the Tate with its four museums Tessa Solomon at Artnews.

Maritta Adam-Tkalec recounts the odyssey of the famous glass frieze at the Haus des Meeres in Berlin in the Berliner Zeitung: ‘The Wüstenroth Foundation, which has experience in rescuing GDR-era art in public buildings, has agreed to finance the restoration and reinstallation, but can only take action if the artwork is in state ownership. In other words, the city of Berlin would have to acquire the glass artwork, possibly with funds from the lottery foundation. If such a prospect existed, the state office for the preservation of historical monuments could take it into its care, store it securely in its depot, and prepare for restoration and partial exhibition. If the ownership question were resolved, Christoph Rauhut would be willing to do so, the LDA responded when asked.’