Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 6 2025

Matthias Sander's otherwise critical report on the Art Genève fair for the NZZ is a little too concerned with being witty: ‘Some would rather be would rather be somewhere else. Local artists are delighted to have Art Genève as a big stage. And thirdly, a few well-known galleries are absent, which raises the question of what makes Art Genève what it is, its raison d'être, its identity? There is a wide range of galleries on offer, but this also means a certain arbitrariness. Around eighty galleries are present, many from Geneva, some from French-speaking Switzerland and Zurich, others from Paris and London, and a few from outside Europe are also taking part. There is a lot of painting, a few sculptures, a little photography, and a lot of design, or more precisely: ‘wearable art’ – namely colourful belts.’ Lisa-Marie Berndt selects the six best stands at the fair for Monopol. I didn't notice many belts when I visited the trade fair for the Handelsblatt and the Tagesspiegel.

Maximilíano Durón from Artnews is full of praise for 1-54 in Marrakech: ‘The fair, which is spread across two venues, opened on a rainy Thursday morning. From its opening minutes, the intimate hall of the five-star La Mamounia hotel, which is host to 22 of the fair's 30 booths, was packed, with the aisles crammed with collectors, curators, critics, and more. [...] The fair attracts an international audience, with a significant amount of visitors hailing from Francophone countries, given Morocco's prior colonisation by France and given that French is widely spoken here.’

According to Clare McAndrew, the art market is not doing as badly as Mei & Moses claim, George Nelson writes at Artnews. Michael Moses and Jianping Mei have been tracking artworks on the auction market for decades, measuring their performance when they come up for sale again. This index turned negative last year for the first time in this century. McAndrew accuses them of sample bias because they disregarded other marketing channels. As is often the case when two experts in a field disagree, both parties are somewhat right. Since Mei & Moses have been using the only reasonably controllable sources for decades (the big three of the auction world), they do not actually represent the entire market. However, since they are consistent within their methodology, their results can certainly be considered valid.

dpa has good news from the auction market: ‘A rare 1954 Mercedes-Benz “Silver Arrow” racing car from Mercedes-Benz from 1954 has been sold at auction in Stuttgart for 46.5 million euros. At the auction held by RM Sotheby's at the Mercedes-Benz Museum, the hammer went down in favour of a bidder participating in the auction by telephone, as could be seen in a live stream from the auction house.’

Clementine Kügeler's review of the past auction year in Spain for the FAZ conveys tristeza: ‘The only living artists whose works in the six-figure range were auctioned in Spain were the British artist David Hockney and the American George Condo, a friend of Keith Haring. In January, Hockney's ‘Lithographic Water Made of Lines, Crayon and Two Blue Washes’ from 1978/80 fetched a proud 105,000 euros (86,000) at the Segre auction house. In October, Alcalá brokered the sale of Condo's 1990 oil painting ‘Abstract Child’ for 100,000 euros (60,000). The Spanish sale thus begins and ends with Anglo-Saxon stars.’

As part of the reorganisation of his corporate structure, Nathan, the son of Sotheby's owner Patrick Drahi, will move from Hong Kong to New York, reports Vivienne Chow at Artnet: ‘Talk of Nathan Drahi's relocation to New York began over the holidays. During his five years leading Sotheby's Asia, the house opened a new headquarters in Shanghai in May 2023 and expanded a ‘buy now’ program on its Chinese website and the super app WeChat. [...] In November, the house sold a storied Mark Rothko painting, the first major work by the artist to be sold at auction in Asia, but its price did not meet presale expectations. The past five years saw the departure of the house's top rainmakers in Asia, one after the other.’

The market for old masters is still alive and well, but it is shifting, observes art historian Brendor Grosvenor in The Art Newspaper: ‘What's going on? My market-observing friend blamed the departure of rich ‘non-doms’ after UK tax rules were changed. The art market certainly needs people who think nothing of dropping £100,000 on a painting. But I think there have been bigger changes since 2019: Covid and Brexit. Covid prompted more online sales, which create less of a buzz in central London. And Brexit has led to less art coming to London. For higher value items, London still offers sufficient access to collectors to make new customs complications worthwhile, but for mid-level pictures it is a different question. Anyone watching the sales in Paris will see where the market has begun to shift.’

Margaret Carrigan discusses the possible effects of Trump's tariff orgy on the art market at Artnet (possibly paywall): ‘Edouard Gouin, who runs the art shipping and logistics firm Convelio, said that any long-term impacts of the tariffs could ’unduly affect’ the art industry, given the U.S.'s outsized share of the market. “Tariffs would generally raise the cost of doing business, and I think galleries would be the most impacted,” he said. When it comes to art shipping, tariffs could have “Brexit-like implications” for U.S. trade, Gouin said, arguing that shipping costs, which have soared since the pandemic, would climb further.’

The dissolution of the Advisory Committee on the Arts and Humanities by the person who could make use of its services, reports Benjamin Sutton in The Art Newspaper: ‘US president Donald Trump has done away with the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), which advises the president on policy decisions and engagement with the philanthropic and private sectors. It also endeavours to boost support for the arts, humanities and museum and library services at the federal level. [...] The PCAH was established in 1982 under president Ronald Reagan and could include up to 25 people, among them the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the chairs of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).’

One regulation (PDF), three different interpretations: ‘A.I. Art Generated With Text Prompts Cannot Be Copyrighted, U.S. Rules’, headlines Adam Schrader at Artnet. ‘AI Art Lacking “Human Expression” Cannot Be Copyrighted, US Officials Say’, writes Tessa Salomon at Artnews. And Benjamin Sutton's article for The Art Newspaper reads: ‘Artists can copyright works made using AI as an “assistive tool”, US Copyright Office concludes’. This is why press diversity is so important.

Despite all the commotion in the Bundestag last week, agreement was reached across party lines on one point, as reported by dpa: ‘The Bundestag passed a law reforming the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK). In the middle of the night, the SPD, CDU/CSU, Greens and FDP voted in favour of the plan. The institutions of the foundation are to be significantly strengthened by the reform and given more independence, for example through their own budgets for the museums.’

Bank Austria's Kunstforum in Vienna has been granted a reprieve in its search for new sponsors, reports APA: ‘Although Unicredit Bank Austria will end its involvement with the year 2025 , but ‘for the second half of 2025, new financing models are being worked on with the support of the advisory board and in consultation with the new owner of the property at Freyung 8’’.

Anny Shaw reports in The Art Newspaper that there has been another change at the top of the British Art Market Federation: ‘Tom Christopherson, a lawyer and legal consultant to Bonhams, has been appointed chairman of the British Art Market Federation (BAMF). He replaces Martin Wilson who stepped down after just six months following the surprise announcement in December that he is joining Phillips as the auction house's new chief executive.’

Arrests in the case of a spectacular museum theft in the Netherlands, dpa reports: ‘A few days after the spectacular art theft from a Dutch museum, police have arrested three suspects. However, the stolen art treasures are still missing, police said. The suspects were arrested in Heerhugowaard, about 50 kilometres north of Amsterdam.’ Several – shall we say – unfortunate circumstances came together during the break-in at the Museum of Manching in 2022, according to a dpa report: ‘According to witnesses, the museum's video surveillance system had been out of order for months before the break-in . [...] In addition, the museum no longer had a direct alarm line to the police. The alarm connection to the police had been in place at some point, but was disconnected for cost reasons.’

I report on the current status of the Thomas Gallery insolvency at Monopol (paywall).