Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 13 2024

With the Salon du Dessin and Drawing Now, two art fairs are attracting specialised dealers and collectors to Paris. Bettina Wohlfarth reports for the FAZ: "Fragonard's study may already be taken, much to the chagrin of some connoisseurs, but other fantastic works can be discovered at the 32nd edition of the Salon du Dessin at the Palais Brongniart. A good half of the 39 galleries are French, 17 dealers come from neighbouring European countries or the USA. Curators from the world's most important graphic art collections have also travelled to the opening this year." Aurélie Tanaqui also took a look around both events for Handelsblatt: "If the Salon is about a ride through the eras, from the Renaissance to the present, 'Drawing Now' is the first contemporary art fair in Europe to be dedicated exclusively to drawing. The Carreau du Temple will bring together 73 galleries from all over the world with works by more than 300 artists. 19 gallery owners are taking part in Drawing Now for the first time; many international galleries are putting women centre stage. The new fair sector 'Flashback' presents solo shows with masterpieces from the years between 1913 and 1960, enabling the discovery of (too) long hidden art."

A print fair that Stephanie Dieckvoss visited for the Handelsblatt serves the local London market quite successfully: "The 'London Original Print Fair' has been struggling to attract international exhibitors since the coronavirus crisis and after Brexit (until 24 March). As a result, the London fair may not be internationally recognised, but locally it shows that the London print collectors' market is lively. [...] Alongside the established names presented by galleries such as Hauser & Wirth and Enitharmon Editions, the strength of this fair lies in the discoveries of young artists who are increasingly turning to the medium of printmaking. They are supported at the fair by a wide range of galleries, dealers and publishers."

Scott Reyburn wonders in The Art Newspaper whether the art market prefers to look past the crisis-ridden nature of world events: "Visual art is an enormously diverse realm of human creativity. But do both the commercial and institutional art worlds now feel there is simply too much risk involved in showcasing works-and artists-that directly engage with the turbulent times in which we live? Or is contemporary art today more valued as an emotional and financial haven from all this anxiety-inducing turbulence? Are artists self-censoring or just giving curators and collectors what they want? The international array of 243 dealers exhibiting at this month's Art Basel in Hong Kong will almost assuredly avoid showing any works of art related to the Beijing-imposed 2020 national security law that has cracked down on free speech in the former British colony." Angelle Siyang-Le, the director of Art Basel Hong Kong, gives an expectedly flexible answer to the question posed by Reyburn in an interview with Harrison Jacobs for Artnews.

Sabine Spindler presents the 8th Art & Finance Report 2023 by Deloitte, published at the end of last year, in the Handelsblatt: "The report, which is published every two years in collaboration with London-based art market analysts ArtTactik [sic!], summarises moods and trends decade by decade and at shorter intervals. The data comes from the three auction multinationals Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips. [...] Deloitte's report is aimed less at collectors than at financial service providers. The 8th report recommends the luxury segment to this sector in particular: with gemstone-rich jewellery, memorabilia from sports stars and extravagant classic cars."

Anna Sophie Kühne tries to find out whether fractional ownership, i.e. ownership shares in individual works of art, or editions are the better option for small investors in the business section of the FAZ. The only expert advice she seeks is from someone who, as one of the largest individual shareholders, chairs the supervisory board of a company that offers the latter option. That could have been mentioned.

Rachel Monroe takes us into the very special world of memorabilia auctions in the New Yorker.

Annika von Taube at Monopol (paywall) predicts that quantum art will have its own marketplace: "It's a bit of a shame that you can't see the fascinating origins of most quantum technology-generated works, but the fact that they have them takes the wind out of the sails of any criticism regarding their possible banality, for which [...] classical analogue painting would have done just as well. But seriously, once quantum computers are fully developed and accessible to every household, quantum art could become a big thing. It will just be ignored or ridiculed by the established forces in the art world for the time being, as has been the case with all technology-based art to date, which is why there will be separate marketplaces for it, just as there were for blockchain-based art. Which brings us to another advantage of technology-based art: It always creates its own market." Wasn't it rather the case with "blockchain-based art" - aka NFT hype - that it wasn't the technology that was ridiculed, but rather the promises of salvation made by its disciples? Incidentally, the author calls this quantum art qunst. Reminds of Quäse.

Damien Hirst has artificially aged and predated newly produced works of art. Maeve McClenaghan from the Guardian first got to the bottom of it with three works and shortly afterwards identified a shark in aspic trimmed to look old: "Dates attributed to artworks are widely understood to refer to the year they were completed. However, in response to questions from the Guardian, Hirst's company, Science Ltd, said the date the artist assigned to formaldehyde works did not represent the date they were made. 'Formaldehyde works are conceptual artworks and the date Damien Hirst assigns to them is the date of the conception of the work,' the company said.[...] Hirst's lawyers later clarified that while using the date of conception in the title was the artist's 'usual approach' for formaldehyde works, he did sometimes use the date the sculptures were made. 'The dating of artworks, and particularly conceptual artworks, is not controlled by any industry standard,' they said, adding: 'Artists are perfectly entitled to be (and often are) inconsistent in their dating of works." This is where the (juridical) poet is wrong. Since vintageity and provenance are part of the price-setting aura of an artwork, these things are taken very seriously by the market, and Hirst may have done himself, his collectors/investors and galleries a disservice in his greed. Incidentally, the artist's website is currently offline and refers to returning soon as "the Damien Hirst complete catalogue raisonné". A German summary of the story can be found in the Standard.

At Monopol https://www.monopol-magazin.de/damien-hirst-datum-tricksen-aber-schlecht, Daniel Völzke takes the artist to task: "Not much is left of the 58-year-old Hirst's owlish mockery of the trickster; instead, he turns out to be a disdainful trickster who is only interested in his own advantage. After all, what other idea is behind his date fraud than to increase the value of these works by dating them back to a glorious time? It is difficult to imagine any other motive in Hirst's work. [...] It's not easy to get older and reinvent yourself again and again - especially when you see yourself as a rebel. Retired rock musicians sell their entire oeuvre to culture industry groups, record podcasts, paint or go on tour again with old albums. It's all legitimate, it can even be touching. What would be the acoustic version of Damien Hirst? What would be a worthy work of old age? There must be a way even for such a hallodri. Staging yourself as an eternal professional youth and then secretly taking the piss out of your own fans, that's not it." That really says it all.

Olga Kronsteiner elegantly summarises the various Banksy stories currently making the rounds for the Standard.

In a restitution case, a New York court has ordered Sotheby's to disclose the names of buyers and sellers, reports Colin Moynihan in the New York Times: "Auction houses have long kept the identities of buyers and sellers confidential to guard their privacy, but the lack of transparency in the art market has increasingly drawn attention. Though the U.S. government has decided against further regulation, critics have questioned whether the market, where millions of dollars routinely change hands, has become an unwitting haven for money laundering. Several experts said the ruling, by a State Supreme Court justice, rendered in January but not previously reported, was unusual in that it directed that the auction house release the names of both parties in the transaction. While courts have sometimes directed that one party in a sale be named, the experts said, it is not typical for both to be revealed."

The city of Unna may yet realise that by accepting the donation of the estate of the artist couple Buschulte, which comprises 4,118 works, it has bought itself a Danaer gift. A press release states: "Wilhelm Buschulte (1923-2013) is known in particular for his work in the field of stained glass and decorated numerous sacred and secular buildings with his works, including St Paul's Church in Frankfurt, the cathedrals in Aachen, Münster and Paderborn and the chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin. His wife Maria (1923-2014) only became active as an artist from the early 1970s, but her work is nevertheless very extensive. It mainly comprises portrait drawings and still lifes. [...] 'We are also planning to gradually record all the works in a museum software system so that they are also available for loan,' announced Sandro Wiggerich, the first councillor responsible for culture."

Almost nine months after Frieze bought the Armory Show, its director Nicole Berry is leaving the company for the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), reports Maximilíano Durón at Artnews: "Berry's departure is the first major shake-up since the fair's acquisition, along with that of Expo Chicago, by Frieze, which stages its own fairs in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Seoul. When the acquisition was announced last July, Frieze CEO Simon Fox said that the two fairs would retain their leadership structure and that the acquisition did not endanger the future of either fair'. At the time, this already sounded like a overspecific denial.