Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 16 2025

Basel, we have a problem. The Art Basel UBS Art Market Report 2025, among other things, for the market leader, summarises Sigmund Skalar at Finanzen und Wirtschaft FuW: ‘Art fairs like Art Basel no longer have the importance as a sales channel for high-priced art that they once had. While in 2019 more than 40% of art purchases were made through art fairs, in the last two years it was less than a third. Art fairs have lost relative importance. ‘This is of course a problem’, [Art Basel CEO Noah] Horowitz also admitted. [...] For Art Basel, the consequence is that it should invest more in marketing and that gallery stands at the fairs themselves may become smaller and thus cheaper.’ But investors won't like hearing that. Especially since the Frieze is currently for sale at a really exorbitant price, as one hears. The results of the report were largely to be expected, states Ursula Scheer in the FAZ: ‘At most, the findings of the report may surprise in their clarity. The long-running political and economic crises are also taking their toll on the globalised art market, and the recent hope of stabilisation or even an upturn after the elections in the USA and Europe has been overcome is being dashed by the man in the White House with his sledgehammer.’ I read the report for Monopol and Artmagazine.

Silke Hohmann recommends seven stands to see at Art Düsseldorf in Monopol. Julia Stellmann assesses the fair for the FAZ: ‘With 108 galleries, 34 of which are from the Rhineland, Art Düsseldorf has once again successfully positioned itself as a regional fair, even though some Düsseldorf galleries no longer participate. This may be due to scheduling conflicts, as the fair's director Walter Gehlen says. Perhaps it is also due to increased prices for exhibitors or a less international audience. Above all, Art Düsseldorf attracts collectors from the region and from Frankfurt.’ Christiane Mexner sees the event as on the up for the Tagesspiegel: ‘Numerous of the 108 participating galleries are showing courage on uncomfortable topics. This is the seventh edition of Art Düsseldorf, and the young fair is developing in every respect: in terms of quality, its VIP programme and, finally, with regard to sponsors.’ I was in Düsseldorf for the Handelsblatt and Artmagazine.

For The Art Newspaper, Carlie Porterfield is looking for clues in Texas to the reaction of US collectors to the trade war started by their president: ‘The Dallas Art Fair is the first test of the art market at the dawn of this new global trade regime, setting the scene for the San Francisco Art Fair and Expo Chicago later this month, then the New York fairs and auctions in May. ’It's really difficult to navigate. Everybody wants to do the right thing,’ Kelly Cornell, the Dallas Art Fair's director, said of the possibility of tariffs affecting sales the morning of the VIP preview on Thursday (10 April). ’Dallas is not impenetrable, but it's somewhat insular to the larger economy. People really make a point to have the fair on their calendar. Many of our collectors are buying once or twice a year, and their major buying moment is here at the fair. It's part of their plan, and I believe they'll stick to the plan.’

Stephanie Dieckvoss describes the efforts of the London marketplace to counter the Brexit slump in her preview of the London Gallery Weekend for the Handelsblatt: ‘The initiative aims to fill a gap in London that has been growing for years. The traditional summer season, which linked trade fairs, auctions and exhibitions with English seasonal events such as the horse races at Ascot, the Chelsea Flower Show and the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, is getting thinner and thinner. The summer fair ‘Masterpiece’, which combined art and antiques, was first bought out by Messe Schweiz and then cancelled. It has since been replaced by the new ‘Treasure House Fair’, which has so far attracted less international attention.’

In the eternal ebb and flow of art fashions, abstract positions are currently replacing figuration, observes Alex Greenberger at Artnews: ‘Here's where a New York-specific obsession with painting collides with an international fascination with ‘rediscoveries,’ or artists who have thus far failed to achieve canonization and are now being given a second chance, whether in their late-career period or posthumously. A cynic might say that these current shows in New York are a money-motivated attempt to cash in, while an optimist would suggest that dealers' interest in the under-recognised of art history reflects a welcome global interest in widening the canon. Because commerce and canonisation are so deeply intertwined in this city, both viewpoints are probably true.’

In the case of a Corsican stone sculpture auctioned in London, several problem areas of the art trade come together, as Gina Thomas describes in the FAZ: ‘Either way, the case is problematic, says Laëtitia Deudon, who is now responsible for archaeology in the regional management, in an interview. If the statue were authentic or a genuine artefact from another era, it would arouse suspicions of looting and illegal export. As a fake, other legal violations would come into play.’

Nicola Kuhn presents the Day of Provenance Research and the efforts of the Berlinische Galerie and its provenance researcher Wolfgang Schöddert in the Tagesspiegel: ‘Nevertheless, Schöddert shakes his head. In his opinion, many more dealers' estates should be processed in order to link this information digitally. He is annoyed that the discussions about arbitration courts and spectacular cases such as Picasso's “Madame Soler” in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich are only discussed “at a high level” and that little is changing at the working level.’ In this context, Marcus Woeller presents a database that works with AI in the WeLT: ‘The objects of the provenance researchers' work are not only the objects themselves, but also index cards from museum inventories, old letters, invoices and notes, photographs, records of purchase and sale transactions, concrete and non-concrete traces. Provenance research is highly specialised detective work. The JDCRP digital platform is designed to help with this. It provides archived information about Jewish cultural property that was confiscated or looted during the Nazi era and the Holocaust online.’

The worst case scenario could become reality and Joe Chialo could become Minister of State for Culture. This is what the Berliner Zeitung is reporting (Paywall) and Monopol referencing to it. Harry Nutt comments in the Frankfurter Rundschau: ‘Even worse: he is criticised for having meekly yielded to the demands of his senator of finance. But he could have prepared for the impending valley of tears just as well as the Berlin cultural sector. The energy crisis and a fragile security situation have put a great deal of pressure on the financing of state cultural institutions, among other things.’

The coalition agreement doesn't have much to offer when it comes to culture anyway, criticises Simon Strauß in the FAZ: ‘And it is this “don't care” attitude that is reflected with resounding clarity in the chapter on culture in the coalition agreement. ‘There are much more important things right now,’ is the disparaging assessment of many, if not all, incumbent leading politicians. This is, to put it bluntly, shameful for this country. A country that is no longer even presented as a ‘cultural nation’, but only as a ‘cultural state’ – at least that is the compromise formula softened by the Social Democrats in the preamble to the culture chapter.’ Oh yes, the Socialists again, they just can't let the beautiful idea of the nation from the 19th century rest.

The Bavarian intrigue around looted art continues, reports Tobias Timm in DIE ZEIT: ‘In February, an excerpt from the museum's internal database was leaked, in which almost two hundred works were categorised as “red”. The list, which was first reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and is also available to DIE ZEIT, shows how little transparency the museum has when dealing with suspicious works. Last week, the Minister of Art, Blume, announced the resignation of the general director, Bernhard Maaz – a scapegoat, as experts say. The management, but also the supervisory board of the State Painting Collections, is now having to deal with a whole range of accusations of mismanagement, which were first made public by Deutschlandfunk.’

A second interested party has been found for Artnet AG, I report at Artmagazine.

After I reported the insolvency of Peres Projects on 18 March in Weltkunst Insider (PDF, 60 days free), also Artnews, Artnet (possible paywall) and the FAZ took notice now.

Yelizaveta Landenberger writes about the life and death of the Ukrainian artist Margarita Polovinko, who was killed in the war in Ukraine, in Monopol.