Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 50 2024

Exhibitors and visitors at Art Basel Miami Beach experienced a better mood than recently on the art market, but remained cautiously optimistic in private conversations. Since Art Basel has been stingy with invitations for international art market writers for some time now because it wants to focus more on regional reporting and because of the ecological footprint and such (it also costs less), they depend on the US correspondents of the German-language media. Susanna Petrin from the Basel-based bz has even identified a new seriousness at the fair: ‘What is also striking is that the Art subsidiary, infamous as a superficial beach party fair, is more serious and profound this year. Less nonsense, less kitsch, more content, more quality.’ In the FAZ of 7 December, Frauke Steffens largely confines herself to conveying the usual dealer prose and platitudes: ‘Collectors are spending more money again, the mood is improving. Last year, the global art market still recorded a four percent decline in sales. Alexander Forbes of the sales platform Artsy also believes that the wealthy are now spending more again. He says that the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the US election has dampened sentiment. However you feel about the result, the end of the uncertainty will boost the mood for buying. The aim is for more than just the individual stands to whet visitors' appetite for collecting in Miami Beach. This time, too, there will be curated sections.” Yes, who would have thought... In the NZZ, on the other hand, Christiane Schaernack complains: ‘After disappointing New York autumn auctions, gallery owners came to Miami this year with a sluggish tailwind. And here, too, similar to the visitor profile in New York during the auction weeks, the weak presence of Europeans is striking. As a result, sales during the first hours of the Art Basel show in Miami Beach were correspondingly slow. Admittedly, this may also have been due to the range of art on offer. After all, the structural problems include not only a generational change among collectors. The market is simply flooded with trivialities, especially in the area of often tiresome young painting.’

The relevant English-language online media often report in a more differentiated way, but they also have colourful items on offer, such as Artnews with Francesca Aton for Artnet with Annie Armstrong's gossip column. Katya Kazakina's report for Artnet is also instructive: ‘Suffice it to say that the international, highly respected gallery Sprüth Magers didn't sell a thing on the fair's second day, after reporting nine sales on day one. Senior director Andreas Gegner shared that with me Thursday evening on the 14th-floor terrace of the still-fashionable Soho Beach House in Mid-Beach, which overlooks the tent where White Cube used to throw its famous annual party. It seemed quiet down there, like nothing was going on. I was happy to make it to Soho House after an hour-long, bumper-to-bumper taxi ride. It was just past 7 p.m. when I got there, and I braced for a long wait to enter, but—gasp!—there were no lines. I breezed through. Cecconi's restaurant and pool were eerily empty. Where was everyone?’ Arun Khakar at Artsy: The $4.75 million [David] Hammons sale is a far lower price than the leading sale reported at last year's Art Basel Miami Beach VIP day, a $20 million Philip Guston painting (also sold by Hauser & Wirth). Dealers struck an optimistic tenor despite a more measured pace to dealmaking. ‘After a dark and nervous season, it feels like the clouds have broken and the perfect blue-sky weather here in Miami is reflecting the art world's mood––buoyant and fully engaged minus the overly frantic energy of the past,’ said Hauser & Wirth president Marc Payot. Mega-dealer Larry Gagosian also noted that ‘collectors are taking their time,’ but said that his gallery enjoyed ‘a great start to the fair and sales have been strong.’’

As in New York, the German auctions also showed light and shadow. At least the million-dollar lots were sold at least at their estimated prices almost everywhere. Christian Herchenröder reports for the Handelsblatt from Lempertz in Cologne: ‘Many hammer prices remained at the lower estimates, but there were encouraging telephone and online bids in the well-attended hall. According to the auction house, 77 lots raised 9.4 million euros. Together with the day auctions, the total revenue for photography, modern and contemporary art was 12.5 million euros. Henrik Hanstein describes this as ‘a good result in view of the world situation. Buyers are going for safe bets that have international standing’.’

According to Christiane Fricke in the Handelsblatt, for Van Ham in Cologne, probably not least due to some over-optimistic estimates: ‘According to our own calculations, the hammer prices for the 39 lots add up to 3.8 million euros. It should have been more. If you add up the lower estimates, you get 4.6 million euros. The auction house reports a gross turnover of 5.2 million euros for the evening sale. It looks better that way, of course. Van Ham reports a total turnover of 10.2 million euros gross, including the day auctions, i.e. with a premium.’

The market for old masters is still a buyers‘ market, but it is showing signs of life, as can be concluded from Stephanie Dieckvoss’ summary of Classic Week in London in the Handelsblatt: ‘All in all, the week of old art has had encouraging results. The appetite for old masters and antiques has been reawakened, and rare and unusual objects are in demand. Conservative estimates favour buyers. Depending on the price range, you can either land important works or affordable bargains.’

George Nelson reports on the auction of the first artwork authenticated solely by AI at Artnews: ‘Germann Auction House in Zurich partnered up with Switzerland-based AI authentication company Art Recognition to confirm the provenance of a watercolour by Russian artist Marianne von Werefkin. It sold for just under $17,000, almost double its high estimate of $9,000, on November 23.’ This will continue until the first work authenticated in this way turns out to be a fake.

The Artreview Power 100 has been published. Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi is at the top of the list. Michael Huber has gone through the list for the Wiener Kurier: ‘The once mighty of the Western art world rank at the bottom of ’ Art Review' on the rear seats, the mega-gallerists Iwan Wirth (28th place) and Larry Gagosian (35th place) are still ahead of super-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist (59th place) and MoMA director Glenn Lowry (64th place). There are no Austrians in the list, but the recently replaced trio of curators of the Kunsthalle Wien, ‘What, How & for Whom’ is ranked 89th – probably because they will soon be curating the much-acclaimed ‘Skulptur Projekte Münster’.

And now there are also the Artnews Awards, ‘a new editorial project honouring excellence in art achievements at US arts institutions.’

In Berlin, a competition for the most cynical cultural philistine trophy seems to have broken out in the CDU. Currently, the governing mayor Kai Wegner is ahead of ‘culture’ senator Joe Chialo, according to a report by Rainer Rutz in the taz: ‘Specifically, Wegner mentioned the allegedly too low ticket prices. He at least wonders “whether tickets to certain theatres have to be offered so cheaply”. Whether it is right that ‘the supermarket saleswoman, who probably rarely goes to the State Opera, is subsidising all these tickets with her tax money’. [...] According to reports, at the beginning of the negotiations, Chialo is said to have offered more than double the amount of the reduction under discussion. According to the coalition, even the chief negotiators, who are not particularly culturally minded, found that too harsh.’

An ‘art collector’ has been given a suspended sentence for fraud because he passed off an original Andy Warhol screen print to a gallery, which sold it together with a fact sheet to a ‘collector’ in Berlin for 770,000 euros, was sentenced to a suspended sentence for fraud, reports dpa. Anyone who spends three quarters of a million euros on the basis of a verbal promise and a worthless piece of paper without doing further research should also have to ask themselves questions.

Oliver Koerner von Gustorf pays tribute to Friedhelm Hütte, the long-standing head of the Deutsche Bank art collection, in an obituary for Monopol: ‘Friedhelm Hütte loved art, travelling, good food and parties. He was esteemed for his kindness and generosity. He still had many plans, including the public showing of his private collection, which he had built up over the years. Last week, at the age of just 67, he died suddenly and unexpectedly.’ Susanne Schreiber emphasises his modest appearance in the Handelsblatt: In a scene often characterised by chatter and self-promotion, Friedhelm Hütte was a personality who did not push himself into the foreground, but developed and increased the reputation of Deutsche Bank in the art world through acquisitions and exhibitions. In the FAZ, Ursula Scheer sums up: ‘His professional life became his life's work: for more than three and a half decades, Friedhelm Hütte was responsible for the art collection of Deutsche Bank. During this time, he expanded the initially comparatively small collection of works by German-speaking artists into an international ensemble of around 50,000 works.’