Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 47 2024

First things first: the White Cube party, which used to ring in the Miami season every year, is no more, as Annie Armstrong of Artnet (paywall) and a few other things that you might have preferred not to know: "The event was notorious for letting the more buttoned-up patrons of the art world let their hair down. Marc Spiegler, former director of Art Basel, waxed poetic to me over WhatsApp, about the vibe: ‘Feeling the wind come off the Atlantic thirty feet away, dancing to a real band, sensing the market's kinetic energy build, luxuriating in the last relaxed moments before the tumult engulfs us.’” And out of the gently rolling surf gracefully emerges Ursula Andress... or rather Pamela Anderson. Or Stormy Daniels.

The Bank of America Art Market Update sees investment opportunities in view of falling prices in the secondary market, as art and collectibles are becoming more important as an asset class in the long term: "According to the 2024 Bank of America Private Bank Study of Wealthy Americans, 56% of collectors now consider their art as a part of their wealth management strategy, including 98% of younger collectors (millennials and Gen Z), who are, at higher rates than ever before, integrating art into their charitable giving (52%), tax planning (48%) and liquidity strategy (28%)." Summaries of the report's findings (which are not particularly extensive anyway) are provided by Maxwell Rabb at Artsy and George Nelson at Artnews.

According to a study by Bain Capital and Altagamma, the luxury market will stagnate this year: ‘Global luxury spending is expected to reach nearly €1.5 trillion in 2024, remaining relatively flat compared to 2023, with an estimated growth rate between -1 and 1% year over year.’

Art lending, on the other hand, is booming, according to George Nelson at Artnews: "Among the big bank lenders, the largest, by far, is Bank of America. While a source speculated to Maneker that the bank's $10 billion loan book had dropped to $8 billion over the last 18 months, Drew Watson, the head of art services at the bank, said the bank's book was actually up 10 percent this year. That growth, Watson told ARTnews, is tied to a long-term trend possibly more vital to the art world than interest rates: collectors are increasingly incorporating their art holdings into their ‘overall wealth strategy’."

Sotheby's auction debut at its new Hong Kong location did not go particularly well, reports Margaret Carrigan at Artnet (paywall): "A Mark Rothko painting that once belonged to the fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong this week for HK$252.5 million ($32.5 million), including fees. That figure is roughly 30 percent lower than its previous auction price a decade ago. [...] The Rothko was not the only disappointment at Sotheby's first marquee sale in its new Hong Kong headquarters. Of 35 lots on offer, seven were withdrawn in advance, suggesting a lack of buyer interest, and another five went unsold, yielding a sell-through rate of 65 percent."

There is an inherent farewell to every auction report, in particular the auction preview by Christiane Fricke for the Handelsblatt of the Luxembourg photo gallery Clairefontaine: “The reason for the consignment is Marita Ruiter's withdrawal from business due to illness. This is a painful loss for the international photography scene, with which the attractive gallery owner was closely networked. For 35 years, she was one of the top addresses in Western Europe. Ruiter opened the photography gallery in 1989, just a few metres from her contemporary art gallery, which had been founded a year earlier. There she began with Kokoschka, Klimt and Schiele, only to soon open her programme to protagonists of contemporary art that had not yet been shown in Luxembourg; among them Gerhard Richter and Jochen Gerz. This was possibly also a reason for her success: an eye trained on contemporary art that was also open to photography that transcended conventions.”

Nina Schedlmayer summarises the results of the Hassfurther auction in Vienna in the Handelsblatt: “If you set your goals modestly enough, you will exceed them more easily. The Vienna auction house im Kinsky showed this on 6 November 2024. Some of the items from the Wolfdietrich Hassfurther estate sale started at ridiculous prices. As so often at the auction house, the auction was a cause for celebration: with a sales quota of 76 per cent of the lots, the press release stated that 141 per cent had been achieved ‘in relation to the limit’ – before the post-auction sale, which may still yield a considerable amount. It is hardly surprising that the 431 lots achieved a total that was considerably higher than the sum of the starting prices. This is because in many cases these were set at an almost grotesquely low level.”

Susanne Schreiber points out the upcoming auction round in Berlin and Cologne in the Handelsblatt: ‘The most outstanding work in the Grisebach offer of 28 November 2024 is once again a painting by Max Beckmann. “Quappi with a Green Parasol” was created in 1938, the first year of the Amsterdam exile. The vendor considers it to be ‘one of the most beautiful and erotic portraits’ of Beckmann's much younger second wife Mathilde, known as Quappi. The beach painting, delivered from Switzerland, is expected to cost between four and six million euros. The other lots in the evening auction are significantly lower, at least in terms of their estimated prices. A number of consignors are currently holding back and hoping for a better mood for the sale.”

Ursula Scheer also looks to Cologne for the FAZ: “At Sotheby's, it's fashionable: a pop-up store by Berlin designer William Fan, a rising star on the German fashion scene, brings a touch of Fashion Week to the Palais Oppenheim – and illustrates on a small scale the interweaving of lifestyle, luxury and art that could recently be seen in exemplary fashion at the Art Basel fair in Paris. In Cologne, Sotheby's has maintained a branch on the banks of the Rhine for three years, which now also hosts auctions. The event on 12 November, featuring ‘Modern & Contemporary Art’, will include just 28 lots. Three paintings by Max Liebermann will be centre stage.”

For Artnews, Daniel Cassady tries to identify prominent consigners to the New York auctions: "Further investigation has revealed more names of collectors that we believe to be unloading while interest rates are (relatively) good. And while high-net-worth individuals have cut back their spending over the last 12 months, we are in a ‘collector's market,’ according to many market-watchers. If the work is good enough, the bidders are sure to raise their paddles."

Sotheby's will have to fork out a pretty penny to avoid being taken to court for abetting sales tax fraud, as Daniel Cassady reports at Artnews: “Sotheby's has agreed to pay the State of New York $6.25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Letitia James that alleged the auction house helped collectors in avoid sales taxes on high-value art purchases. The New York Attorney General's office claimed that from 2010 to 2020, Sotheby's accepted fraudulent resale certificates from at least eight collectors, enabling them to skirt New York state sales taxes on artworks worth tens of millions of dollars."

Christiane Fricke wonders about the future of art collecting and the traditional programme gallery when walking through Cologne galleries in the Handelsblatt: “Galleries with a permanent address that take a long-term approach to building up their artists are becoming increasingly rare. The old guard of collectors, who observed and supported their artists over long periods of time, hardly exists anymore, observe Cologne gallerists Sylvia and Thomas Rehbein. A young generation, whose passion for collecting would also be of interest to museums in the future, is not growing back or collecting ‘like weeds’. [...] It is not yet clear what should take the place of the traditional programme gallery. Because with the numerous off-spaces that have appeared on the scene in Cologne – without a permanent group of artists – the question is whether they will survive.”

Sabine Spindler presents the market for New Objectivity works in the Handelsblatt: “Many of the artists exhibited at the time, such as Otto Dix, George Grosz and Christian Schad, have earned millions in recent decades. However, many others, especially female painters, were overlooked at the time. That is why this market continues to surprise with unknown masterpieces that have considerable potential for appreciation.”

The British Museum has received a gift worth one billion pounds, reports dpa: “The collection of businessman Percival David (1892-1964) consists of around 1,700 pieces. According to a report by the PA news agency, it is the most valuable donation in British museum history. The valuable pieces from the tenth to the 18th century have been on permanent loan in a special room of the well-known London museum since 2009.”

Just before the curtain falls, the reform of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is to be implemented after all, reports dpa: “On 13 November, the Federal Cabinet approved the government draft for a new law on Germany's largest and most important cultural institution. It is to replace the previous law from 1957.” Now all that remains is for the opposition in the Bundestag to go along with it.

On Friday, the Bundesrat will pass the Annual Tax Act, provided nothing unforeseen happens. The reduced VAT rate of seven per cent will then apply to art again.

Artnet AG has cancelled its Annual General Meeting scheduled for today.

Ursula Scheer reports in the FAZ: ‘Thousands of works of art allegedly by Banksy, Andy Warhol or Pablo Picasso – and all fakes: Italian police have uncovered a large-scale, Europe-wide network of art forgers who are said to have produced and sold imitations of works by well-known modern and contemporary artists. A total of 38 people in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium have been arrested for handling stolen goods, forgery and the illegal sale of works of art, according to a joint statement from the Italian police department responsible for art crime and the Pisa public prosecutor's office.