Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 5 2025

Christiane Meixner is delighted with Brafa's 70 years in the Tagesspiegel: ‘Financial resources have never been an issue at Brafa. Its audience is interested, knowledgeable and willing to invest large sums. There is no other explanation for the long history of the Brafa or its renowned exhibitors. [...] And yet the current distribution of art dealers in the halls of Expo Brussels is confusing: the traditional dealers such as Heutnik Ikonen, J. Baptista from Lisbon with his historical silver or Lowet de Wotrenge (Antwerp) with a classic genre painting of Venus and Cupid from 1670 are located in the last aisle of the second exhibition hall.’ Julia Stellmann sees the fair in a good position in the FAZ of 25 January: ‘The new management team wants to bring a breath of fresh air. The BRAFA, formerly known as the ‘Foire des Antiquaires’, is to become more attractive for young people. However, this should not be at the expense of the niches, for example by pushing icon galleries into the background. [...] A return to this could be the unique selling point that sets BRAFA apart from its competitors, who are also vying for the public's attention with contemporary art.’ I argued and formulated a similar case in Artmagazine two days earlier.

Ursula Scheer presents the premiere of the new House of Galleries format in Frankfurt in a preview in the FAZ: ‘The 43rd and 44th floors of the crisis-stricken Trianon high-rise, which until recently served as the headquarters of the Deka-Bank, will be transformed into the ‘House of Galleries’ for 28 art dealers from 24 to 26 January. Each participating local gallery was able to invite a partner gallery from a different city.’ For Monopol, Katharina Cichosch has taken a look at what's on offer. The Frankfurt initiative fits with the picture of changes in the gallery business painted by Margaret Carrigan at Artnet (possible paywall): ‘There is a generational shift unfolding in the gallery sector, driven by changing art-buying habits, Johnson added. Younger collectors, more comfortable with buying online, have reduced the ‘urgency’ of selling at gallery shows. At the same time, more dealers are open to experimenting with new approaches. ‘When you are a small business in a niche sector, you're better off working together,’ she said. ‘More opportunities will occur for all of us. Just because things have always been done one way doesn't mean they need to be done that way.’’ The seventh edition of Condo in London is announced by Stephanie Dieckvoss in the Handelsblatt.

‘First!’ is how Ursula Scheer titled her commentary for the FAZ on the somewhat sobering annual figures of the major auction houses, with a view to Sotheby's: ’ is the amount that the auction house owned by the Israeli-French telecom entrepreneur Patrick Drahi will achieve in sales revenue in 2024. Christie's, the company in the Artémis universe of the French businessman François Pinault, reported that it had achieved 5.7 billion. Accordingly, Charles Stewart, CEO of Sotheby's, has plenty to report in the annual financial statement. He talks about a solid result in uncertain times, which positions the company at the top of the market, about investments in the future with glamorous new branches on three continents, a sales rate of 85 per cent at auctions and many new customers. But the bare figures also reveal that the business is not a sure-fire success. Sotheby's auction revenues are down 28 per cent from 2023. Christie's revenue decline was 22 per cent in the first half of 2024 and is expected to shrink to six per cent by year end.’ But there is no sign of any broad-shouldered approach if you look at Sotheby's year to date, as summarised by George Nelson at Artnews: ‘Sotheby's had an especially difficult year, after conducting multiple rounds of layoffs in New York and London and announcing a revamp on its buyers' fees that it then did an embarrassing U-turn on less than a year later. And that's not even getting into the macro-economic environment wrought by multiple geopolitical conflicts, the US presidential election, and high interest rates. Still, Stewart told reporters Thursday that he remained optimistic.’

Grisebach co-head Daniel von Schacky talks to Elke Buhr for Monopol about the prospects for his company and Germany as a location: ‘The positive thing is that we have a very lively domestic market in Germany, with many sellers and buyers. This is a big difference compared to many of the other European individual markets. The fact that Germany is one of the largest countries in Europe means that it has a vibrant consumer market. But it does not have the same internationality as the still most important trading centre London, or as Paris, which is gaining in importance due to Brexit. This is also because Germany is not as centralised. If you go to East Westphalia or the Swabian Alb, you will find amazing collections and great little museums. That is the strength of our country, and that is why we have such a lively national art market. But the global market will probably not find a home in Germany.’

In the Handelsblatt, Sabine Spindler asks whether the end of the inheritance dispute over the works of Oskar Schlemmer is really good news for the artist's market: ‘Nevertheless, with the spring auction, Lempertz will auction as an important Schlemmer hub. As the art market expert in the Schlemmer proceedings, he has perhaps the best overview of the available works in the estate, alongside Raman Schlemmer, who has moved many works to an unknown location in the years before. He is in close contact with both sides. The proceedings have also put Raman Schlemmer in the delivery situation. The legal costs must be paid. Henrik Hanstein has made a clever move by triggering the debts with the litigation cost financier.’

In a favourable press article about the art collection of the club chain Soho House, shortly before its sale to investors, George Nelson questions the decision at Artnews: ‘The December announcement of the buyout offer sent the stock price skyrocketing by over 50 percent. However, the company's market cap is still far down from its IPO valuation of $2.8 billion. Is the focus on the art collection a distraction from the financials—a signal to the market about a valuable asset the club could eventually sell? Or is it an effort to burnish the club's reputation as a place for top creatives rather than mid-level bankers, aspiring startup founders, and the laptop class?’ For once, Artnews did not participate in the usual round of content on the relevant art portals.

The across-the-board cuts in Berlin's cultural budget are failing in part due to reality, according to a commentary by Rüdiger Schaper for the Tagesspiegel: ‘But it doesn't work that way. The Senate is contractually obliged to the federal government, which co-finances the artists‘ programme: one of many mishaps and embarrassments of the black-red coalition's policy of cuts.’ Senator for Culture Joe Chialo should consider answering the question of what he actually does for a living.

Francesca Aton denounces Russia's looting of museums in occupied Crimea at Artnews: ‘A Russian military officer and three Russian-appointed officials from occupied Crimea illegally removed more than 33,000 historical artefacts and artworks from two museums in the Ukrainian city of Kherson in the fall of 2022, the Kyiv Independent reported Thursday, calling it the largest museum theft in Europe since World War II.’

The sale of the only high-rise building by Frank Lloyd Wright, partially stripped and ruined by its previous owners, is reported by Cal Day on the Oklahoma regional News9 station. Richard Whiddington tells the story of the scandal in detail at Artnet.

According to Brian Boucher at Artnet, art insurers have to deal with the compensation claim of the owners of a whole series of fake Basquiat: ‘The owners say that they should get the payout because they acted in good faith and because the insurers did not verify that the works were authentic when the owners were added to the museum's insurance policy. The insurers say in court documents that ‘coverage is unavailable because the property alleged to have been lost does not constitute covered property inasmuch as the property was inauthentic,’ adding that the works ‘have no value, or only nominal value, and should be destroyed, subject to FBI and [Department of Justice] protocols.’’

I report on the interim detention of Silke Thomas in Weltkunst Insider (free for 60 days, then paywall). In addition, the former gallerist Eckart Lingenauber, who is mentioned there, has asked me to spread his call for creditors to join forces: ‘I have already started asking all my former customers and colleagues which account they used to pay for a work purchased from Galerie Thomas. [...] However, my options for investigating this are limited. A commercial detective agency could help here, by tracking down possible secret accounts of Raimund Thomas and perhaps also his current whereabouts. However, a commercial detective agency is not cheap, and I could imagine that we private creditors could more easily shoulder such expenses together. Therefore, please contact me so that we can establish such a community of interests. E-mail.

Anne Küper and Alicja Schindler have been awarded the Young Art Critics Prize, endowed with 12,000 euros, by the German section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). This is the first time the prize has been awarded, as reported by Artmagazine. Congratulations!