Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 35 2024

Julia Stellmann spoke to fair director Florence Bourgeois about the development of Paris Photo on the occasion of the event taking place at the beginning of October for the FAZ on 24 August: ‘We have kept moving, offered installations and large formats a platform and drawn attention to up-and-coming artists. We also try to enter into smart partnerships. The Maison Ruinart Prize, which was established five years ago, not only benefits the winner, but also the partner and the fair. Six years ago, we also started to gradually give more visibility to female photographers and were able to increase their share from 20 to 36 per cent. We support selected galleries with female positions with 5000 euros each. We are therefore very keen to develop our programme further in the long term.’

I researched the stand prices at art fairs for the new industry newsletter WELTKUNST Insider (still without paywall).

The big auction houses in Hong Kong are testing out innovative business ideas, reports Ernst Herb in the FAZ: "The auctioneers’ expansion course would hardly be conceivable without the rising supply and falling demand in what was until recently the world's most expensive property market. Landmark and Henderson Land, the new landlords of Sotheby's and Christie's, are feeling the effects of the drastic increase in the number of empty properties, particularly in the top price segment of commercial property. Industry experts assume that the auction houses have been granted considerable price reductions as flagship tenants. This is not the only thing strengthening the most important location for the art trade in Asia. Other major cities in the region - such as Shanghai, Seoul or Singapore - would like to push Hong Kong off the pedestal. However, the semi-autonomous Chinese territory is likely to remain number one for the time being, primarily because it has a large free port where works of art can be imported and exported duty-free and unbureaucratically like nowhere else in Asia."

Perhaps the art market's flirtation with the luxury sector is not such a good idea after all. Leonie Wessel writes for Monopol about a scandal that affects more than just one luxury brand: ‘In recent months, Milanese prosecutors have been investigating the use of third-party suppliers in Dior's supply chain. In spring, they uncovered factories near Milan where workers, often illegal immigrants, were working for a pittance and under inhumane conditions, including at night and on public holidays in 15-hour shifts. They slept and ate at their workplace in order to be able to produce even more products even faster.’

The expiry of copyright for works by Emil Nolde poses a problem for the Nolde Foundation, which Susanne Schreiber describes in the Handelsblatt: "In 2026, Emil Nolde will have been dead for 70 years. That is when the copyright protection that protects intellectual property and from which the artist's heirs have earned so far will expire. Nolde's paintings, prints and drawings will be in the public domain from 2026. This is likely to have an impact on the Nolde Foundation and the trade. We ask Christian Ring about this. The director does not want to give any figures. However, Ring admits that the fees currently account for ten per cent of the foundation's budget. They are always incurred when a gallery, an auction house, an author, a book or postcard, poster or merchandising publisher wants to print a motif." Seebüll simply can't buy laws as easy as Hollywood.

Lempertz is testing the market for 19th century paintings with the auction of a corresponding collection in Berlin, explains Christian Herchenröder in the Handelsblatt: "German art from the second half of the 19th century has led a shadowy existence on the art market since the beginning of the 21st century. Apart from big names such as Adolph Menzel, Wilhelm Leibl, Anselm Feuerbach, Hans von Marées and Max Liebermann, most representatives of the Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich and Swabian schools have experienced a strong downward price correction. Only outstanding individual works are in demand and a highly discerning and wealthy buyer who looks beyond regional schools will cultivate the principle of ‘collecting at the top’. [...] It will be interesting to see whether the major and minor works in this collection will have a stimulating effect on the market, and not just in terms of price expectations. Until recently, the collector has always offered top prices, but the current market is not in a record mood."

Making the Spree Canal between Museum Island and the Humboldt Forum swimmable again is the aim of Flussbad e.V., to whose support 50 artists have donated works that will be auctioned on 12 September under the motto 50 Für Bad Berlin. Marcus Woeller presents the project and the auction in the WeLT.

Those who are not put off by the buzzword AI can also learn from Daniel Cassady's article for Artnews that neutrality creates trust: ‘’Along the way, I became an appraiser and was shocked at how that industry ran,' [Caroline] Taylor told ARTnews. 'After a few years, it became very clear there were no neutral appraisers. Every appraisal firm is also a dealer. In 2021, Taylor founded Appraisal Bureau as an antidote, promising neutral, technology-driven appraisals. The company has a proprietary software platform, integrated with AI, which functions as a ‘co-pilot,’ enhancing inventory management with continuous, dynamic evaluations. Appraisal Bureau's neutrality has fostered strong relationships with galleries, according to Taylor, who are more willing to share data with a company not involved in sales. Those relationships mean the company has access to private sales data, which Taylor said helps them provide more accurate valuations than their competitors.’

Stephanie Dieckvoss visited the Money Talks exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for the Handelsblatt: "However, the exhibition begins with an interesting juxtaposition. A ‘Dollar Sign’ by Andy Warhol from 1981 flanks one side of the entrance, the other a sculpture by Indian artist Tallur N.L. entitled ‘Unicode’ from 2011. In the sculpture, the artist replaces the figure of the goddess Shiva inside a wreath with a ball of concrete and coins. The goddess traditionally symbolises destruction and rebirth. The artist's intervention poses the question: What is the god of our time? Is it still money, the American dollar, as Warhol liked to explain? Or a dead, encrusted cosmos? Where does the journey lead?" Laura Cumming from the Guardian finds: "There is so much to learn - that the dollar sign is based on a Spanish colonial coin; that a goldfish is the symbol of wealth in China, in Sumatra the rice barn - that the art is very occasionally overshadowed by sheer knowledge. But this is a vivid and revelatory show throughout."

The Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the only Frank Lloyd Wright tower block ever built, is for sale, reports Elena Goukassian in The Art Newspaper. The current owners bought the building just over a year ago for a mere 10 dollars and have since sold off parts of the interior, which was specially designed for the listed building, after blockchain business ideas, among others, fell through.

A report by Sophia Kishkovsky for The Art Newspaper provides information on the fate of Ukrainian museum employees and artists who were imprisoned and tortured by Russia. Hello Sarah Wagenknecht!

The Washington Post is just the latest newspaper in a series to cut local arts coverage, explain Cara Ober and Michael Anthony Farley in the Baltimore-based online journal Bmore Art: "Culture bubbles up from the bottom, it does not trickle down. The assumption that national audiences and headlines, that a bottom line based solely on web traffic, is a healthy business model is incorrect and irresponsible. If no one knows what's going on in their region, and there's no publication of record informing and engaging with audiences, why should locals subscribe? Why support a locally based newspaper, when they can get national headlines for free elsewhere?" However, this argument does not only apply to local newspapers. All low-reach sections, which are often seen by management in publishing houses as a pure cost factor that can be saved, are precisely the reasons why people are prepared to spend money in the first place.