Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 14 2024

International coverage of Art Basel Hong Kong is less extensive than it used to be, as Art Basel says it wants to concentrate more on regional media and correspondents in its press work. In the FAZ (paywall), Ernst Herb sees the current edition of the fair as being dominated by the recently tightened security laws: "At the fair, the issue overshadows the art trade, although there is still no formal censorship in Hong Kong. Explicitly political art at Art Basel relates to non-Chinese themes [...] Decorative works dominate. In previous editions of the fair, provocative works were on display [...] Sales at the fair appear to have been rather mixed in the first two days, according to selective enquiries from galleries. This could have to do with the economic slowdown in China, but also with fewer customers travelling from the USA, Europe or Australia."

Harrison Jacobs visited an innovative satellite event to the ABHK for Artnews: "This week, for those in Hong Kong looking for a change of scenery from the hustle and bustle of the show floor of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, there's Supper Club. The brainchild of Willem Molesworth and Ysabelle Cheung (the founders of PHD Group gallery) and Alex Chan (founder of THE SHOPHOUSE gallery), Supper Club is a kind of not-fair pioneered by other such alternative events like Basel Social Club during Art Basel and, more recently, Our Week during Frieze Seoul. Located in the stately 19th-century building that is home to arts nonprofit Fringe Club, Supper Club presents works for sale from 20 galleries from New York to Mumbai to Hong Kong in this exhibition-cum-fair. The hope, Molesworth told ARTnews in an interview Wednesday, is to create a space for networking, chatting, connection, and real engagement with the art, which the team felt was lacking at the big fairs."

The New York Asia Week was a success for dealers and auction houses alike, reports Barbara Kutscher in the Handelsblatt: "In galleries, dealers wowed curators and collectors with new and old art from China, Japan, Korea and India. As the association announced, 21 exhibitors and five auction houses have so far reported sales totalling over 100 million dollars. Christie's online auctions run until 29 March. As usual, Chinese antiquities dominated the offerings at Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams. This season, over 1300 lots were once again available for the numerous customers from the Far East who travelled to the auction. But as Vicki Palolympis, Christie's head of the Chinese Works of Art department, knew, "39 per cent of the hammer prices went to buyers in the USA, 52 per cent of the objects will travel to Asia." However, Carlie Portefireld and Kabir Jhala point out in The Art Newspaper: "The $100m figure is nearly a quarter (24.1%) lower than the sales made last year, when Asia Week reported $131.2m in sales from 22 out of 26 participating galleries and five of six auction houses."

Brita Sachs visited Art & Antique in Salzburg for the FAZ: "The fair itself doesn't just boast large calibres, but also has offers for smaller budgets, for example in the folk art range, which is still carefully cultivated here. The tour takes visitors with an affinity for art and music through rooms that not only provide a festive setting for 40 art trade stands, but where great musical history also took place in the past: Monteverdi's 'Orfeo' was the first opera north of the Alps to be performed in the Carabinieri Hall in 1614 and the seven-year-old 'child prodigy' Mozart gave his first court concert in the Conference Hall in 1763. A small Louis XV chest of drawers built by Abraham Nicolas Couleru in Mömpelgard shows what furniture art was capable of at that time. [...] The majority of exhibitors come from Austria and many concentrate on the art of their own country; Dorothea Apovnik from Vienna is almost an exception. In addition to old master paintings from the Netherlands, for example, she is presenting a Florentine cassone, i.e. a wedding chest, with allegorical paintings from around 1400, probably addressing the theme of wisdom, and the alliance coat of arms of Neapolitan families (90,000)."

The collection of the recently deceased Rosa de la Cruz will be commercialised by Christie's, reports Katya Kazakina at Artnet: "The de la Cruz Collection is now closed, and its treasures are heading to the auction block, the Art Detective can reveal. The building is likely to be sold, too. Will it turn into another Chanel boutique? Could it become part of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, which is next door? [...] The closure marks the end of an era for all of us who have come to expect to see the latest art in that sleek white building every December, as Art Basel Miami Beach runs on the other side of Biscayne Bay." And apparently speed is more important to the heirs than profit: "The family has been selling art-systematically, quietly, and anonymously-for about a year, according to people familiar with those transactions. I happened upon one such sale this month. Dan Colen's painting Vengeance (2015) fetched $13,000 at Sotheby's on March 1, a tiny fraction of its $450,000 price nine years earlier. I saw the result as part of a liquidity crunch in the art market, which I wrote about last week." The news teaches us three things: firstly, private collections, even if they are open to the public, are not museums. They can be dissolved at any time and their contents scattered in all directions. Secondly, art in general is not a good investment. And thirdly, the fools who believe the carnival barkers that the current economic cycle will never end.

In the finest academic-speak, OnCurating announces its latest publication, a collection of essays entitled "Speculations: Funding and Financing Non-Profit Art". Those who are not put off by the phrase-driven newsletter will find some illuminating essays on the connection between art and business and the current problems and trends in this field. Particularly recommended is the article by Elif Carrier entitled "Overpriced, Under-represented, Gate Guarded; The Last Ten Years of the Art Market", which explores the predictions of the influential essay "The Contemporary Art Market Between Stasis and Flux" by Olav Feldhius from 2012: "Within this new regime, the price paid for an artwork defines an artist's reputation, not the other way around, giving the branded collector the power to make or break an artist's career. Despite this shift, collectors still need to pay attention to art publications, follow public museum agendas, and attend art fairs and internationally curated exhibitions in which dealers work hard to implement their artists to proactively shape the collectors' choices. In the end, collectors need a lot of assurance because, most of the time, they lack the cultural capital, and the art market with its current configurations makes it very difficult to see how margins are made. There is a lack of trust as well as an asymmetry of information. Therefore, instead of trusting their own instincts and supporting young artists, most collectors buy artworks of already established artists following the choices of other collectors, dealers, or art advisors."

For the New York Times, Andrew Russeth sees Tiffany's flagship store, which has been furnished with art following a renovation by Peter Marino, as part of a long tradition: "It is tempting to wring one's hands about this instrumentalisation of high art to sell high-end accessories, but many decades have passed since Mark Rothko canceled his commission for the lavish Four Seasons Restaurant, reportedly saying that 'anybody who will eat that kind of food for those kind of prices will never look at a painting of mine. Ideas about art's purity, and the stigma of selling out, have less currency today. In any case, Marino's Tiffany project follows in a rich tradition. In the 1950s, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg collaborated on window displays for Bergdorf Goodman, across the intersection from Tiffany's, and Bonwit Teller, a block south."

California is likely to get a law soon that will make restitution lawsuits easier, reports Kevin Rector in the Los Angeles Times: "The purpose of the bill is to ensure an outcome based on morality and justice, and not legal technicalities," he [Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel] said. If the new bill passes, it would make clear that, in scenarios involving property looted or stolen by the Nazis or as a result of political persecution, California law dictates that the property be returned, Gabriel said. The law would apply in any legal case considering such issues in which the ultimate decision is not yet final, up to and including those on appeal before the Supreme Court."

The 2023 financial year of Art Basel's parent company, MCH Group AG, is similarly loss-making as the previous year, according to the annual accounts. There is also a special effect in the form of a provision for the possible dismantling of a car park in Zurich.

Fraudster Inigo Philbrick has been released from prison early, reports Richard Eden in the Daily Mail: "We can expect to hear all about Philbrick's time doing porridge. Last year, Victoria [Baker-Harber, his fiance] told me she was making a television programme about him. 'I'm doing a documentary. It's about my fiance and his time in prison,' the socialite said. 'It's wild. Philbrick was fully behind the project: 'He's all for it. It was his idea.' She added: 'He didn't murder anyone. He put his hands up and admitted what he did, and takes full responsibility and accountability, but everyone makes mistakes." And capitalises on it afterwards.