Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 38 2024

The autumn art season in Vienna is showing its challenging side and it seems that only the hardiest were drawn to the fairs and galleries at the weekend. While Curated by, Viennacontemporary and Particolare were at least able to take place, Parallel at the Otto Wagner Areal had to close early; it will continue next weekend.

In the FAZ, Nicole Scheyerer draws a positive conclusion from Viennacontemporary and Particolare: “The traditional focus on Eastern and Southeastern European art markets is less pronounced at this year's Viennacontemporary. [...] Overall, Viennacontemporary is likely to sail into calmer waters again after some turbulent years. In any case, it is not failing because of the Particolare: according to reports, the new competition has brought its own collectors from Dubai and elsewhere, which is more likely to bring Viennacontemporary more audience than to detract attention from it.” Eva Komarek sees Vienna as a well-positioned art market place in the Presse thanks to the new unity of local players: “The move to Hall D at Messe Wien finally offers enough space to live up to its claim of being the leading Viennese art fair for contemporary art. Last year, the VC was still more of a boutique fair. We have also succeeded in winning over the Austrian Association of Galleries, which is now once again united behind the fair and continuing its cooperation with the renowned gallery festival Curated-by. We are even cooperating with Parallel Vienna, which is taking place again this year in the pavilions of the Otto Wagner building at Baumgartner Höhe, which is reflected in a combined ticket. If everyone pulls together, which is not a matter of course in Vienna's art scene, Vienna has a chance of getting more attention on the internationally dense trade fair calendar in the future.” Michael Huber discusses the new ownership structure of VC in the Kurier (paywall): “Viennacontemporary, as Vienna's central market vent for Contemporary Art is called today, has decoupled itself from the shareholder Dmitri Aksenov. After a reshuffle, the US hedge fund manager Marwan Younes has taken over a 50 per cent stake, as managing director Markus Huber explained at the press conference on Thursday.”

Christiane Meixner of the Tagesspiegel likes the new Particolare: “Just like at the ViennaContemporary fair, which starts a day later, sales are taking place here, but differently – which is why Particolare calls itself a 'Collectible Exhibition'. A carefully curated project with 65 works, in which possible transactions play a subordinate role. Of course, this only works to a limited extent. After all, any event similar to a fair is measured by its sales success. But the Particolare, with Thomas Hug as an advisor and an experienced founder of fairs at its side, wants to position itself as an alternative. The typical ingredients – countless stands with white walls and as many participating galleries as possible, from as many different countries as possible – are missing at Kursalon Hübner. Instead, individual, high-quality works [...] are on display. There are concerts, performances, talks and an exhibition concept with the (somewhat arbitrary) theme of ‘time’.”

Michael Huber took a tour of some of the galleries participating in Curated by for the Kurier (paywall): “Among experts, the networking meeting is now regarded as a unique Viennese event and its reputation extends beyond the art fair autumn season. [...] However, ‘Curated by’ is not primarily about selling, but always also about thinking outside the box and trying out other forms of presentation.”

A favourable portrait of the new VC director Francesca Gavin is painted by Chris Erik Thomas at Artnews.

I was in Vienna for Artmagazine and the Handelsblatt.

For some time now, the Berlin art autumn has had a name under which the heterogeneous programme takes place, which Christian Herchenröder presents in the Handelsblatt: “The 13th 'Berlin Art Week' advertises over 300 events. It has always been a melting pot of exhibitions, gallery openings and art events, but now it has taken on a dimension that is almost impossible to grasp. Everyone is getting in on the act, from artist talks and performances to exhibition openings and guest appearances by international galleries. The programme, which is scheduled to culminate in a gallery night on 13 September 2024, ranges from exhibition openings and guest appearances by international galleries. The fifty or so core galleries that are presenting their autumn programme here are still the main attractions of this extended art weekend from 11 to 15 September.”

Michaela Nolte visited the Positions art fair, which the former studiously ignores, for the Tagesspiegel: “At the Berlin Positions Art Fair, painting is not otherwise so decidedly questioned or even tongue-in-cheek subverted. For the 11th edition, the traditional medium is particularly omnipresent. Art producers from 60 nations, represented by 111 galleries from 24 countries, are competing for the favour of collectors in the hangars of the former Tempelhof Airport.” Elke Buhr has selected the “8 highlights of Positions” for Monopol. Julia Stellmann, writing in the FAZ on 14 September, was not quite so enthusiastic about Positions: “For some time now, the fair has been courting trendy galleries and trying to win them over as participants by offering favourable conditions. However, the current 11th edition shows that despite the chic venue in hangars 6 and 7 of Berlin-Tempelhof Airport, the fair remains, as in previous years, mediocre and lags far behind the major German players with Art Cologne in the Rhineland. That being said, thanks to more work in the lower price segment, the position of the fair is similar to that of Art Karlsruhe, where sales are on the increase."

Susanne Schreiber offers a preview of the Leipzig Grassi fair for Design at the end of October in the Handelsblatt: “The Grassimesse was launched in 1920 and, thanks to the jury's selection, has a unique selling point that still acts as a seal of quality today. Until 1941, around 1500 artisans, designers, art schools, artists' associations and companies, mainly from Germany, Austria and Scandinavia, exhibited their work, from Bauhaus to Wiener Werkstätte.”

With Office Baroque, another prominent avant-garde gallery has failed due to the pitfalls of late capitalism. On its website, the gallery writes: “In the background of 2016, an ice age seemed to spread through the art world as the market became increasingly polarised between emerging and blue chip art. A lot of the people who were active in the spaces in between, were hit by the so-called mid level squeeze. The outlines of the current ecosystem were traced long before, but things seemed to take an irreversible turn around that time. A lack of support and regulation on all levels in the art world, ended up and continues today, to put emerging and mid-career artists and galleries, ever more at risk. Long term (shared) goals seem to have disappeared from the radar. Being signed up by a mega gallery may have become the new holy grail of careers, for artists, gallery staff and even for gallery owners. At the very heart of the system, severe misuse of power continues to accompany admission into almost every segment of the art world, both for galleries and artists. A fix-all solution for many galleries remains to expand, in the hopes of interconnecting gallery growth, with spikes in represented artists careers, often until the very point of losing.”

This is in line with a report by Alex Greenberger in Artnews: “David Lewis, a taste-making New York dealer who recently shuttered his gallery in the city, has joined Hauser & Wirth, where he will now serve as senior director.”

An ugly inheritance dispute, reported by George Nelson for Artnews, threatens to damage the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

It is rare for legislators or courts to rein in the excesses of copyright law. However, the Federal Court of Justice has now finally exempted photo wallpaper, reports the Legal Tribune Online: “It is common and in line with life experience that photos and videos are taken of rooms decorated with photo wallpaper and posted on the internet, whether for private or commercial purposes. This reproduction was also foreseeable by the author within the scope of the contractual use when he made his work freely accessible without restrictions or copyright notice.”

A basic course in money laundering recognition is given by Kai Thomas in the Handelsblatt.

From the popular series ‘Is that art, or can it go?’: The Cologne waste management companie AWB Koeln have almost completely removed a graffito by Harald Naegeli from the outside wall of the Church of St. Cäcilien, reports dpa.