Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 50 2023

There are twice as many private flights to and from Miami as in other weeks this year for Art Basel Miami Beach, according to our Viennese colleague Michael Huber found out from the local airport. Susanna Petrin paints a picture of the mood of ABMB and its environment in the NZZ: "So is the global situation not, as many feared, depressing consumer sentiment after all? Peter Blum, who once began his art career as Ernst Beyeler's assistant in Basel, says that it is somewhat noticeable. His gallery has been there without interruption since the first Miami edition in 2002. Most gallery owners probably wouldn't openly admit it, but they have to work harder than ever before and there are fewer quick purchases, which probably has to do with a general sense of insecurity." Nicole Scheyerer also took a look at the art in Miami Beach for the FAZ
(paywall or free for a data donation at Microsoft): "Even if time-critical questions about ecology, racism or colonialism run through the fair, colourful flatware dominates. Painting is the trump card, immaterial media such as video or the NFTs that were highly acclaimed just two years ago are missing. The fact that Black Art or art by women is presented less aggressively can be read as an overdue normalisation. Or is the trend towards diversity already on the decline? Anyone expecting politically offensive statements in times of crisis will hardly find what they are looking for in the tame fair programme. The two-day preview was very crowded and the dollars were loose." Karen K. Ho has compiled an illustrated list from the sales reports of the major galleries for Artnews has compiled an illustrated list.

Miami was the physical hotspot of the NFT hype. Two years later, Shanti Escalante-De Mattei explores for Artnews explores the current situation: "Artists and institutions who were involved in NFTs during that 2021 peak are also starting to pivot. The point now, they say, isn't to flood the market with NFT collections but to offer works that are more considered and often have a physical component to them."

Shanti Escalante-De Mattei laments the absence of the one artwork that usually goes viral from Miami Beach on Artnews: "While other artworks at the fair walked the line, none took the bold step to try to get all of Miami's attention for themselves. This in-between vibe fit the character of this year's fair, which, all things considered, appeared a little slow. Before I left for sunny Florida, many people in New York told me they wouldn't be going this year. They'd just been 'so many times before. When I mentioned this to a gallerist friend at the fair, they fact-checked me: 'They just don't have the money right now,' the gallerist said. In these financially unimpressive times, in this year's subdued market, Miami's charms are subdued. It's a place made alive by excess and the lack of spectacle this year, I'll admit, brings a tear to my eye. Maybe next year will bring back the $120,000 bananas."

In her first text for Artnet, Shanti Escalante-De Mattei devotes herself to the flowers of Miami: "Across the fairs at Miami Art Week is an abundance of works featuring flowers: big, small, in colour, and greyscale. It seemed that every other booth across Basel, NADA, and Untitled Art Fair had a painting or a sculpture featuring a flower-whether it was a large Kusama sculpture of a dotted daisy at Victoria Miro's booth at Art Basel or the decorative still lifes on offer at other fairs (as one art advisor said, 'Lots of living room art!'). These floral works, most seem to agree, appeal to Miami's already lush landscapes and vibrant sensibilities. But there are more flowers now than in years past, and it might be a sign of a struggling market, though gallerists seem reluctant to speak to that, preferring to highlight their own attraction to the specific bodies of work they've brought to Miami."

Silly glitter news about the Florida art festival can be found at NAU.ch (Shakira), Glamour (Louis Vuitton / Frank Gehry) or BILD
(Niclas Castello), while the online department of SRF wonders how much Switzerland is still involved in Art Basel Miami Beach.

Design Miami seems to be on the way from being a glitzy booth to becoming more serious, according to William van Meter at Artnet:
"The theme this year is 'Where We Stand,' which is described as 'a celebration of design inspired by place, community, and heritage-and the beauty and power that can be drawn from our most intimate, rooted connections' in the press materials. Themes at fairs often seem superfluous-galleries and designers are going to exhibit what they're going to exhibit anyway. But it seems most everyone really got the memo from Design Miami's new curatorial director Anna Carnick and took it seriously."

I was at the ABMB for Handelsblatt and Monopol, and I also visited satellite fairs for Artmagazine.

Younger collectors are also differently positioned in terms of charity than the ageing boomer generation, Anny Shaw found out for The Art Newspaper: "The major auction houses, as well as galleries and the charity industry, have adapted to this and developed suitable models: "New financing models that support social causes as well as the art ecosystem could provide a much-needed framework for long-term sustainability. Coupled with the great wealth transfer-with an estimated $100 trillion being transferred from the baby boomer generation to their more left-leaning heirs, who are generally considered to favour redistributive justice over wealth creation-the trickle-down effect to the art market could be considerable."

In Switzerland, the auction market still seems to be intact, according to Susanne Schreiber in the Handelsblatt: "There were no spurned works of classical modernism in the higher price range here, as was recently the case in Germany at Van Ham, Lempertz and Grisebach. Bidders at Koller were particularly selective when it came to contemporary art - especially in the less prestigious price range up to 30,000 Swiss francs, but not in the much more valuable range of Swiss art and Impressionists."

Susanne Schreiber followed the most high-calibre German auction of the year at Ketterer for Handelsblatt: "There was more uncertainty in the air than twelve months earlier. On Friday evening at Ketterer Kunst in Munich, art lovers and collectors from many different countries competed for the best auction offer of this season among German auctioneers with more deliberation and longer than usual. There were an unusually high number of six-figure hammer prices, both above and below the reserve price. However, not all 78 lots received bids and at least 16 met with no interest. Nevertheless, the rarest and best works with wall power, aura and rarity value realised top prices. The thoughtful auctioneer Robert Ketterer was able to sell Wassily Kandinsky's colourful view of Murnau well above the estimate. A bidder was prepared to pay 3.9 million euros with buyer's premium for the small painting from 1909, which is of art-historical significance. The expected price was 1.5 to 2.5 million euros."

The auction at Lempertz went less smoothly, as Chriatian Herchenröder reports for the Handelsblatt: "There's no sugar-coating it. The evening auction of modern and contemporary art at Lempertz, like other relevant auctions this week, suffered from weak consumption. More than half of the lots remained unwanted, although the overall quality of the consignments was by no means mediocre. Despite this limitation, 7.5 million euros were realised, thanks above all to a hotly contested star lot: Max Pechstein's 1909 'Selbstbildnis liegend'. [...] Following an agreement with the heirs of the first buyer, newly raised provenance issues were completely clarified. The buyer of the museum painting is a German collector who wants to make the painting available to the Wiesbaden museum. 'The Pechstein really saved us,' commented auctioneer and managing director Henrik Hanstein on the evening auction. Hanstein puts the total turnover of the three auctions of modern and contemporary art at 13 million euros."

With more or less humorous arguments, Annegret Erhard comments in the WeLT on the whereabouts of Caspar David Friedrich's sketchbook, which has just been auctioned by Grisebach for 1.45 million euros: "Of course, the unsubtle question ultimately arises as to whether such restrictive care of cultural assets does not also contribute to fuelling the imagination in favour of fewer public trade routes." Of course, this way of thinking ultimately raises the question of whether laws really should not be passed because they could be circumvented.

Bettina Wohlfarth explains the more rigid approach of the French state in the FAZ of 9 December: "Such state intervention in the auction market in the name of cultural property protection is not uncommon in France. There, the underlying law, which was tightened in 2008, distinguishes between 'bien culturel' (cultural property) and 'trésor national' (national treasure), which is particularly worthy of protection. For relevant works, an export licence must be granted from a certain market value - 300,000 euros for works of art, 100,000
euros for furniture - an export licence must be applied for. However, such an export licence can also be withdrawn after a sale. Museums and state cultural institutions can then assert their right of first refusal. In the case of high-priced top works, the decision on a purchase and the clarification of financing issues can take years."

Trust, look who! Olga Kronsteiner traces a case of pawnbroking by means of supposedly posh household liquidation in the Standard: "How the system works was recently discovered in Linz, where Peter Lindenfeld set up his sales warehouse with his goods in an 'exclusive villa (...) Dießenleitenweg 39'. He had received an enquiry about a high-end property some time ago, and within four days everything had been moved into the vacant villa, says estate agent Diether Raffelsberger (Mangoni Immobilien), impressed. He does not know how much the owners receive for this form of interim utilisation. Lindenfeld does not want to say. In Linz, too, a 'total liquidation' is advertised, except for the date and address with the same offer. From the point of view of competition law, 'this presentation is classically misleading', as a lawyer confirmed to the STANDARD. This is because the average unbiased observer expects special conditions in the form of a price advantage that is only valid for a short time."

Kenny Schachter uncovers a real art market scandal at Artnet: "At the heart of the scandal is the Dynamic Art Museum/DART (if ever a name that would give rise to cause for concern!), founded in 2020 by one Pier Giulio Lanza. This is a 'museum' based in Milan, with tentacles spanning half a dozen countries, boasting that it was the first museum to exhibit NFTs (not true) and that it 'always shows new artworks', eschewing a permanent collection. It seems it also has tens of millions of dollars of art that has been put up as collateral with upstart Art Lending, Inc., a 2019 offshoot of an alternative asset investment boutique, Shinnecock Partners."