Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 40 2024

Gina Thomas visited the Biennale Internazionale dell'Antiquariato di Firenze for the FAZ: “The Biennale bills itself as the world's most important trade fair for Italian art. And, after all, as its secretary-general Fabrizio Moretti proclaims with a mixture of stylised arrogance and provocative irony, it is the best in the world. Moretti is a native of Florence who trades in old Italian masters in London and Monte Carlo. He strikes a confident note at a time when there is speculation that the market for old art is doomed due to a lack of goods coming onto the market and a dwindling connoisseurship. At the opening of the Biennale, there was no sign of any of this. In the frescoed rooms of the Palazzo, exhibitors offered a first glimpse of paintings and sculptures, as well as arts and crafts and not-exorbitantly-priced antiques from the centuries up to 1999.”

With the Secretary General of BIAF and the Director of Art Basel Paris, I spoke for the Handelsblatt.

Silva Anna Barrilà assesses the market situation in Seoul for the WeLT: ‘The Asian art market remains dynamic. For years, Hong Kong was the most popular destination for international galleries to meet Chinese collectors, but the pandemic and the special administrative zone's political tensions with Beijing have damaged the art scene. In the current phase of the Chinese economy's slowdown, some Asian countries, including South Korea and the city-state of Singapore, recognise the potential to increase their influence in the art trade. [...] The importance of Seoul has become so pronounced that the fledgling location is already being challenged. In 2025, the Japanese art fair Tokyo Gendai will change its date from July to mid-September to take place immediately after Frieze Seoul. The competition will create even more momentum for the Asian art scene.’

Stephanie Dieckvoss outlines the commitment of the major auction houses in Hong Kong in the Handelsblatt: “The opening [of Christie's new Asian headquarters] is being watched with particular interest by the press from the wider region. Regional centres such as Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo and Singapore want to challenge Hong Kong's position at the top of the Asian art market. The many new art fairs that have been set up testify to this. But although some international galleries, such as Lévy Gorvy Dayan, have given up their presence, the big houses are holding on to Hong Kong and demonstrating this through major investments. With its free ports, tax-free import of art and strong financial providers, Hong Kong continues to offer locational advantages.”

Sotheby's cash injection from the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund should only give a brief respite, as can be seen from Madeline Fitzgerald's report for Quartz: “At Sotheby's, the situation is so dire that some executives questioned whether the auction house would be able to continue paying employees on time. Their alarm was not entirely unfounded: In the spring, some staffers received promissory notes in place of incentive pay. The auction house is also as much as six months behind on payments to art shippers and conservators, according to the Wall Street Journal [paywall] report. Since Drahi first purchased Sotheby's in 2019, the auction house's debt has nearly doubled – it ballooned from $1 billion to $1.8 billion.”

Hans-Joachim Müller has written a very personal preview of the auction catalogue of the Kasper König collection at Van Ham for the online edition of Die WeLT: “A magical smorgasbord. And it was best when Kasper König stood in front of the objects and told the old stories. Indeed, the collection was something like a diary for him, containing all the memorabilia of a highly motivated life with art. It is inevitable, after all, that in a long life so passionately spent following the trail of contemporary art, one or other of the found objects remains on one's own wall. Kasper König was always a hunter, but he was never a strategic collector. And now, leafing through the catalogue, the collection's innermost communicative structure becomes clear. Basically, collecting was like a continuous conversation with the artists for Kasper König.”

Florian Illies has provided a detailed guide “How to become an art collector with little money” for Die ZEIT (possibly paywall): “So ideally, this is how you should always start: with curiosity and passion. With the question: Who is this? And not with the hope of making a quick buck – that is, the greed to buy something cheaply that will later become more expensive. Also not because of a gallery owner's whisper that this artist is ‘on the rise’. Those who are ‘on the rise’ go down particularly fast. It's even worse when you buy something with the expectation of a profit: you then have to look at something at home all the time that you don't like at all and that you only bought because you hoped it would increase in value. Therefore: please only spend money on art that captivates you – and captivating can also mean provoking. This is often even better advice than simply liking something. Because there is always the danger of buying harmless, decorative art that you soon get tired of. But no one has ever grown tired of art that challenges or even overwhelms them."

At least this time it is not Germany that comes in last, but Austria. The reduction in the VAT rate on art will probably not happen there either, even if Eva Komarek at Parnass still whistles softly in the forest: “A change by the end of December 2024, before the Brussels directive and the lower tax rate in Germany come into force, seems unlikely. Austria currently has two reduced VAT rates: 10 per cent and 13 per cent. Since the directive from Brussels only allows two reduced VAT rates, except for covering basic needs, one of these two would have to be abandoned and the seven per cent would have to be introduced instead. Within Austrian politics, there are different views on the necessity of a tax reduction. At least until a new government is formed after the parliamentary elections, Austria will probably have to live with the tax disadvantage on the art market. Because nothing will happen before the election and such a niche topic is too uninteresting for the election campaign to take it on. It remains to be hoped that the new government will then show understanding for the importance of Austria as an art market place.” If a potential Chancellor Dollfuß was to put art in general, and not just patriotic art, on his agenda at all, it should be a cause for concern.

The Basel Art Museum has to take out a supplementary loan due to a surprising deficit of 2.55 million francs, reports Mirjam Kohler in the BaZ: ‘Even before the government provided information about the application for the additional loan, the museum parted ways with its head of finance, Tim Kretschmer. The separation was amicable, according to the museum.’

The studio house of Jean Dubuffet is said to cost 12.5 million, reports Bettina Wohlfarth in the FAZ: “Only an inconspicuous sign above the portal at 114 Rue Vaugirard announces the address. In the leafy backyard, several houses are grouped around the charming avenue. One of them is the former studio house of Jean Dubuffet, where the artist lived and worked for more than forty years, from 1944 until his death in 1985. The painter, sculptor and art brut collector, who was born in 1901, created almost all of his work there. Now the building is for sale – and with it a piece of art history.”

Monopol points out the call for submissions for the AICA Prize for Young Art Critics.