Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 46 2023

For many visitors, Paris Photo is a temporary museum, explains Freddy Langer in the FAZ: "No art gallery could present such a wealth of material, and it is obvious that most of the 40,000 or so visitors see the fair as a temporary museum. 'At most one per cent of them,' says one gallery owner, 'are potential customers. He adds that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find collectors. This makes the curators of the photography departments of all the world's major museums, from the Albertina to the Centre Pompidou to the Museum of Modern Art, who buy here on a grand scale, all the more important for the fair. Private customers today are more art collectors than pure photography collectors. Their interest is focussed on pictures close to classical art." Susanne Schreiber visited the most important trade fair for photographic art for the Handelsblatt: "The proportion of female artists has grown and currently stands at 36 per cent, according to the trade fair organiser. Photography always conveys an image of the time in which it was created. Nowhere is the selection in all varieties of photographic art as large as at Paris Photo, a discovery fair not only for connoisseurs, but also for beginners."

On her first visit to Luxembourg Art Week, Brita Sachs is impressed in the FAZ: "In addition to locally anchored galleries such as Zidoun-Bossuyt, which focuses on African art and also works in Paris and Dubai, the number of international players is set to increase in the medium term. The prerequisite for this, however, is likely to be a change of dates with more distance to Art Cologne, Paris Photo and other fairs. [The new director] Caroline von Reden is focussing on cooperations involving the wider region, which should not be limited to the days of the fair." I visited the fair for Artmagazine.

Judd Tully, Tim Schneider and Carlie Porterfield capture the mixed signals emanating from the New York evening auctions for The Artnewspaper. The New York evening auctions are also a show, writes Barbara Kutscher in the Handelsblatt: "However, a whole series of lots only had one interested party. Nevertheless, Sotheby's was pleased with a hammer price of 100 per cent. The house had been able to acquire the estate thanks to a guaranteed sum and then offloaded the risk for 24 lots onto third parties through 'irrevocable bids'. The works had therefore already been sold in advance. For some observers, the actual auction is just theatre or a private sale that takes place in public. For David Galperin, Sotheby's Head of Contemporary Art in the Americas, however, risk management is also an effective strategy that not only protects against the reserve list, but can also motivate collectors and successfully set prices."

Ursula Scheer comments in the FAZ on the withdrawal of two of three works by a Palestinian artist from a Christie's auction: "The news agency Reuters writes that it has received emails stating that the auction house was reacting to complaints and wanted to avoid 'bad press'. When asked, Christie's let it be known that, as always, it had acted in confidence with the consignor; the artist, on the other hand, spoke to Reuters of 'discrimination', which was probably in the context of the new Middle East conflict. However, it cannot be said that the art trade spontaneously sympathised with Israel after the Hamas massacre a month ago. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the flags were yellow and blue".

It is not possible to spontaneously join an online auction and bid, explains Susanne Schreiber in the Handelsblatt: "This is because it can take up to two working days to activate the customer account. The leading auction houses in Germany all organise online-only auctions. The initial registration procedure is similar everywhere, as the Money Laundering Act has required extended due diligence since 2020.

Ben Lewis at Monopol explains how Damien Hirst's mediocre work benefits from the art market, which he himself partly helped to create: "Hirst had the grace of timely birth; he became known at the exact moment when art was discovered as an object of speculation in the early noughties - but he also played a decisive role in making this speculation possible in the first place. Prices had already risen in the 1980s. However, this was due to people's attitude towards canonised artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso, who were offered at comparatively low prices. The boom in the art market that began in 2003 is not so much driven by aesthetic appreciation, but by a registered volume of demand, a presumed future value and a financing model, in other words everything that characterises commodity speculation - plus a bit of PR."

Basically, it's a non-news: Leon Löwentraut receives the Ernst Barlach Prize, announces Monopol in a takeover of a dpa report, whereupon two older texts miraculously appear in the current top ten articles. The prize is rather insignificant, as a look at the previous winners shows. It is awarded by the Ernst Barlach Gesellschaft e.V. The professionalism of the organisation can be seen not least from its website. Not only is the current awarding of the prize not mentioned there, the imprint also lists a board member who left over a year and a half ago. In the meantime, both board members have the same surname, as a brief search in the commercial register reveals. The Barlach Association has nothing to do with the renowned Ernst Barlach House of the Reemtsma Foundation. At best, the whole story is based on an unfortunate mix-up. Or was someone (dpa?) possibly only interested in headline-grabbing outrage journalism? Or perhaps we are only being treated to such malarkey because practically all media outlets have long since switched to flushing unchecked PR reports disseminated by dpa into their portals? Incidentally, this pseudo-journalism can often be recognised by the fact that even the media with the strictest paywalls make it available free of charge. However, it is questionable whether users can be convinced of the value of a medium in this way. The association and the honouree can be pleased about the free publicity, which should at least contribute to the awareness of the latter among the general public. A side note: the first reputable auction house to auction an object by this artist-impersonator can be sure of a mention here.

Georg Imdahl mourns the death of the late collector Harald Falckenberg in the FAZ: "The opinionated and controversial interlocutor on podiums about contemporary art, whose appreciation lives more than ever from the autonomous judgement of those who deal with it, will also be missed. Harald Falckenberg has impressively demonstrated how passion and a clear view, economic reason and reliable criteria can be harmonised. In this sense, he always saw his collection as a social statement; it is his legacy." Frank Kurzhals also honours the collector in detail in the Handelsblatt: "In art, he found an ally against the many forms of structural violence. Attacking the "society of the spectacle, the globally organised exploitation of people and a culture industry subject to the imperative of smooth functioning and undermining it with humour" became one of his goals, which he pursued with dedication. This quickly made him and his collection unmistakable in the art world. He recognised that 'the decisive decisions in art are not made on command bridges, cocktail parties or golf courses'. It is still necessary to roll up one's sleeves and go to where the real work is done, 'freely, experimentally, in the double act of passion and regulation'."