Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 45 2024

There are no bananas here. If the big international auction houses believe they have to counter a structural crisis in the entire industry and their own business model with an ever-increasing infantilisation of the speculative commodity art, one can only hope they enjoy a happy market correction.

And finally someone, even in the finance department, is saying it: art is a bad investment (at least for amateurs). Christiane von Hardenberg explains in the FAZ (Paywall): “If you want a work of art purely from a financial point of view, I have an interesting study for you: the scientists Arthur Korteweg, Roman Kräussl [now in London] and Patrick Verwijmeren, who live in the USA, have examined the increase in value of 2.3 million works of art between 1960 and 2010. They came to the conclusion that the American stock market S&P 500 has performed significantly better. It should be noted that the scientists only examined works of art that came up at auction. However, only about ten per cent of all works make it to the saleroom. The rest disappear into basements because there is no market for them.”

A coherent concept secures Artissima's position in Turin in a tense market environment, explains Nicole Scheyerer in the FAZ: “Artissima's success is due to the consistently pursued strategy of its director Luigi Fassi. When selecting galleries from around 400 applicants, the fair's director is supported by around fifty curators throughout the year. ‘We favour ambitious projects that are willing to take risks, and we don't just want well-known names,’ says Fassi, proudly pointing to the 69 solo presentations at this year's fair. In view of the crisis in the art market, Fassi sees an opportunity for his fair in concentrating on middle-class collectors. Artissima once again lives up to its reputation as a fair for discoveries and offers affordable prices in its newcomer area ‘Present Future’ and in the ‘New Entries’ section.”

In the current difficult market situation, the fair is well positioned, states Devorah Lauter at Artnews: “But the fair, which held its preview for this year's edition yesterday, is not known for the ultra-pricey artworks that typically appear at Art Basel's various events. Instead, dealers told ARTnews that Artissima was well-reputed for attracting curators, mainly ones from Italian and European institutions. Plus, the relatively affordable cost of booths, about half the price of what it takes to exhibit at fairs like Art Basel or Frieze, allowed smaller galleries to experiment with lesser-known artists and provide them with greater exposure. [...] In today's slower art market climate, dealers said that Artissima's focus on exposure to institutions, as well as the fair's relatively lower pricepoints and its more relaxed atmosphere, hit all the right notes.

In connection with the fair, Kabir Jhala points out in The Art Newspaper that changes in VAT may also be pending in Italy: “Italian lawmakers must decide by the end of this year on a proposition to lower taxes on art, prompted by a new EU regulation to simplify VAT structures by 1 January 2025. This could see VAT on primary market sales and also on art imported from outside the EU drop from 10% to 5.5%. Meanwhile, VAT on secondary market sales could also be lowered, from 22% to between 10% to 5%. ‘The new regulations could have a transformative effect. We are waiting in hope,’ says Luigi Fassi, Artissima's director since 2022. Fassi's words are echoed by many Italian dealers at the fair”.

I was in Turin for Handelsblatt and Artmagazine.

The small art fair Art Collaboration Kyoto is becoming more and more attractive, says Payal Uttam at Artnews: “This is the fourth edition of the government-backed event, which has a distinct model in which a Japanese gallery acts as a host, inviting one or two international galleries to share their booth. Going against the grain of most international art fairs, ACK doesn't feel competitive. Instead, it appears deliberately intimate and slow-paced, prizing thoughtful connections over commercial activity.”

Shanti Escalante-De Mattei sees the Art Show at the New York Armory as a phase of orientation in Artnews: “So while some exhibitors at The Art Show are catering to the tastes of an older generation of connoisseurs, the ADAA has been adding more primary and younger dealers to the association in recent years, meaning that there is now both historical and contemporary work on view. While that mixes up the offering, it now feels more unclear what kind of collector the fair is for. Something for everyone, perhaps? The Art Show has shifted into a more regional fair, according to some dealers at the fair, largely due to its isolation in the social calendar. Prior to the pandemic, the fair historically led into the Armory Fair in New York, and all the assorted events and openings that happen alongside it. That helped draw an international crowd of collectors and curators. That's trickier now”.

Art Lagos still seems to have a long way to go, as can be seen from Gameli Hamelo's report for The Art Newspaper: “In 2023, ten galleries were presented at Art X Lagos, billed as West Africa's leading international art fair, down by about two-thirds compared to the prior year. At the time, the fair's founder Tokini Peterside-Schwebig said the decision was based on a desire “to be part of a solution-oriented society” in response to challenging economic conditions. The number of exhibitors is the same this year, and—while it might raise questions regarding the state of the fair from a distance—it appears to be having a positive impact on the ground.”

In an article for Handelsblatt: “Even the big galleries saw a sharp decline in sales after the pandemic spending spree. Marc Glimcher, president and CEO of the international Pace Gallery, put the decline at 20 to 30 per cent at Christie's ‘Art+Tech Summit’ in New York in the summer, and the previous year was not that good either. The solution? For Jeff Poe, co-founder of the California-based Blum & Poe gallery, from which he retired last year, it's clear: tighten your belt. To everyone's surprise, most galleries have been immensely successful during the pandemic. But only because expenses were eliminated, the former dealer said on the ‘Baer Faxt’ podcast. ‘Galleries have learned nothing from the pandemic. They immediately returned to their old habits.’’

Susanne Schreiber in the Handelsblatt in the low estimates: “But you can also measure the success in Lehr's above-average sales rates or in the impressive rates of increase of artists who rarely stand in the spotlight. Once again, it was private collectors who vehemently championed remarkable paintings by Franz Xaver Fuhr, Paul Fuhrmann and Frans Masereel. Dealers and museums are currently holding back. With a total turnover of almost 2.2 million euros, excluding post-auction sales, Irene Lehr is ‘really satisfied, because the currently propagated reluctance to buy in the general art market has had only a very slight effect on us’.”

Christian Herchenröder reports on the mixed results of the auction of a private collection at Lempertz in Cologne in the Handelsblatt: “The same fate befell Friedrich Nerly's evening view of Venice, which had fetched 567,500 euros at Van Ham in Cologne in 2003 and now failed to find a bidder at 230,000 euros. Even Carl Spitzweg's ‘Kanonier’, a Biedermeier anti-war idyll, was withdrawn at 220,000 euros. It had been valued at one million German Marks in Neumeister's post-auction sale in 2001. However, it is possible that these top lots will still find buyers in retrospect. All four paintings by big game painter Wilhelm Kuhnert, which were bought by American collectors, fared much better. They bid between 100,000 and 156,000 euros, the latter for the painting of a lion couple resting on a hill and picking up the scent.”

In a remarkably dry review, Nikolaus Lehner presents the certainly important volume ‘Der Kunstsachverständige’ (The Art Expert) by Bernd F. Holasek at Artmagazine: “The present examination of complex questions about art and its valuation by experts is important for both the art world and the legal professions. Here, general questions about valuation, claims arising from them and their pre-litigation or judicial enforcement intertwine with art-specific aspects. A thorough analysis of the individual topics is therefore important for the entire field, because the general principles are the same for all experts – official experts, those registered on court lists or appointed on an ad hoc basis.”

The Kulturgutschutzgesetz, which in theory is a bureaucratic monster, is in danger of being tightened in practice to such an extent that it could bring the art trade in Germany to a standstill, warns Christiane Fricke in the Handelsblatt: “The problem remains with the reversal of the burden of proof imposed on the art trade. If it is not possible to determine whether the cultural object was transferred after [recte: before] 26 April 2007, it will be assumed that it was exported thereafter and that there is a claim for restitution. The authorities can then seize the cultural object. However, such a procedure based only on a presumption would contradict the principles of the rule of law.”

In the New York Times, Colin Moynihan reports on an international arrest warrant against an antiquities dealer: “The 80-page warrant for Mr Almagià's arrest describes a debonair figure who sold and donated prized artifacts to important museums and collectors, but who also operated under a cloud after the Italian authorities came to suspect decades ago that he had dealt with tomb raiders. In a telephone interview the day after the warrant was issued, Mr Almagià broadly denied wrongdoing and responded to the charges by saying: ‘I do not deny them but I do not accept them’. He went on to say that he had always acted within established traditions in Italy, where dealing in antiquities had been long tolerated. Things had been more just, Mr Almagià said, before what he characterised as overzealous prosecutors had begun investigating antiquities sales.”

Martin Conrads (born 1969) is this year's recipient of the ADKV-Art Cologne Prize for Independent Art Criticism. The press release states: ‘The jury was particularly impressed by the fact that his texts achieve an unusual depth even in short formats, while remaining readable, approachable and unpretentious.’ Congratulations!

Since this is not yet an obituary, Olga Kronsteiner is also able to mention the difficult sides of the Viennese auctioneer Wolfdietrich Hassfurther in her portrait of him in the Standard: “He was one of those people who studied obituaries in order to pay his respects to the widow with a bouquet of flowers the next day at the latest, and to take charge of any collections the deceased might have had.’ auctioneer: ‘He was one of those people who studied obituaries in order to pay his respects to the widow with a bouquet of flowers the next day at the latest and to position himself to sell any of the deceased's collection items – in his case often with a persistence that was either intimidating or convincing, depending on your point of view. ‘You don't have to be that clever as an art dealer, just persistent,’ he once told the Standard, his maxim, which certainly brought him success in the more than five decades of his career. The 83-year-old no longer has any memories of this, not even of his last appearance as an auctioneer in March 2022.”