Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 36 2024

Die CHART Art Fair in Copenhagen can be imagined similar to the former Open Space in Cologne, without booths and partitions, explains Georg Imdahl in the FAZ: "It looks more like a group show, with up to three galleries sharing a room at times, so that the works of around 150 artists can sometimes only be recognised at second glance. A community spirit that is truly invoked in Copenhagen fits in with this: A positive atmosphere, as the Copenhagen fair teaches us, can also be marketed as a factor, and if you have experienced the gallery owners at long tables in the courtyard over dinner on the evening before the opening, this spirit certainly seems credible. CHART thus presents itself as a vital regional fair, albeit with a noticeable qualitative gap and works that almost completely exclude video and new technology." George Nelson spoke to Julie Quottrup Silbermann, the fair's director, for Artnews.

I covered the Art-o-rama art fair in Marseille for Tagesspiegel and Artmagazine.

Daghild Bartels presents a new exhibition format that brings major international galleries to the capital for Berlin Art Week in Handelsblatt: "The idea came from Felix von Boehm, head of Art/Beats, a highly successful company for all kinds of services in the art world. It offers advertising campaigns, curatorial assistance and podcasts for museums, galleries and artists. The list of clients is impressive. Von Boehm invited four high-calibre, globally active galleries to join: Ropac, Pace, Mariane Ibrahim and Mendes Wood DM."

The Cheng family has received an offer of 1.2 billion dollars (US, not HK!) from a state-owned company for the K11 shopping mall and museum in Hong Kong, reports Reena Devi at Artnews. It is not clear from the article whether this is an offer that cannot be refused or whether the family needs money.

Karen K. Ho presents travelling exhibitions as a hitherto little-known business model at Artnews: "'It's a constantly changing industry because museum people are constantly changing, and so are their needs, stars, tastes, and administrations,' Jeff Landau, director of Landau Traveling Exhibitions, told ARTnews. The clients for Landau's 'turnkey' shows on art and photography are often mid-size institutions and university art galleries. The company charges flat fees between $20,000 to $100,000 for a three-month run, with the cost varying based on the rarity and importance of the items included in a given show, as well as the size of the exhibition and the number of lenders involved."

George Nelson discusses the opportunities and risks of using artificial intelligence to authenticate artworks at Artnews: "Bendor Grosvenor, a leading British art historian who has discovered several lost old master paintings, told ARTnews that he is wary of AI. 'I suspect AI will play an increasingly important role in helping us to recognise who painted what, and when,' he said. 'At the moment, however, the track record of AI attributions is patchy, to say the least. Probably just as important is the fact that the market is some way from accepting what the computer says, and prefers the judgment of academic research, the human eye, and technical analysis."

One of the largest NFT marketplaces has received a lawsuit threat from the US financial regulator, reports Angelica Villa at Artnews: "OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, has said it received a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), signalling the regulator's intent to bring a lawsuit against the company for allegedly offering unregistered securities. On Wednesday, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer disclosed the notice in a blog post on the company's website, asserting that the SEC's targeting of tokens traded on its platform threatens the 'creative expression' of its sellers." It is not without a certain amount of chutzpah to first turn digital art into an unregulated asset class and then invoke artistic freedom.

The crypto winter of 2021 doesn't seem to have bottomed out yet, according to the summary of a report by industry service NFTevening by Daniel Cassady for Artnews: "A report published earlier this month by NFTevening said that the market for NFTs has been in such a dramatic downturn since 2023 that 95 percent of them are considered 'dead,' with the average NFT owner experiencing a 44.5 percent loss on their investment." Mind you, we are only talking about developments over the past year.

Annika von Taube takes an unusually critical view at Monopol (paywall) takes an unusually critical look at the collective collection of crypto art, which she describes as Web3: "While art and consensus don't actually go well together, there are actually some DAOs [Decentralised Autonomous Organizations] for collective and member-shared art purchases - although these are more likely to be aimed at those uninitiated in the art field who, in case of doubt, don't have the prerequisites for a qualified vote on their next art purchase anyway and therefore don't care. if their DAO is run more like a rabbit breeders' club (you follow the decisions of those who have always been in charge) or a planned economy model (you decide what you want), i.e. it's not a real DAO, but hey, it sounds cool. And it doesn't have to be bad, as the example of the XX DAO shows, which was able to win Kim Asendorf, one of the currently (rightly) most sought-after artists in the field of generative art, for a commissioned work. But what is supposed to be more transparent, more democratic and fairer than an old-fashioned centralised art fund is not clear." Now that NFT has become a dirty word, crypto art no longer seems to be so popular.

Philipp Meier mentions Banksy's points of contact with the art market in his reflections on the artist phenomenon for the NZZ: "Banksy also has his fans among the rich. Several times his murals have been taken down and auctioned off, only to end up in the bedroom of a billionaire. Even now, a cat lolling on a dilapidated billboard on a street in north-west London has been removed. Allegedly for safety reasons, claimed a company responsible for the removal. They want to donate the billboard to an art gallery, the police said. Of all places. After all, Banksy never really wanted to be in the elite art world. However, he has occasionally set foot in these noble realms. In 2018, he had his famous spray painting 'Girl with Balloon' - a British favourite - auctioned off in a golden picture frame at Sotheby's auction house on London's posh New Bond Street for a million pounds."