Zilkens'
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Zilkens‘ News Blog 14 2025

The Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne is currently hosting the last exhibition before the museum closes for about two years. The reason: a general renovation - the building is already 24 years old, and no maintenance was necessary in the meantime. One wonders whether the preservation of cultural heritage in municipal administration can still be justified - at least in Cologne. There are construction sites, temporary closures and not enough qualified personnel to cope with the actual tasks of a museum. The people of Cologne have an enormous capacity for suffering – but woe betide if any carnival is cancelled... By contrast, the Swiss treasures from the Museum Langmatt are well worth seeing. Combined with the WRM's own collection, the exhibition is very worthwhile.

The insurance monitor was interested in how we can insure exhibitions and art transport in Ukraine. You can find the complete report here (behind the pay wall).

Travelling broadens your mind if you keep your eyes and ears open and don't just lie on the beach. In Portugal, a rent brake was in force for a long time under Salazar - the consequence: the building substance fell into disrepair and new buildings were also rather rare. The Viennese knew the war shilling as a rent regulation. The apartment that a family lived in during the war was only allowed to cost one shilling per square meter. The nice thing about the regulation was that it was hereditary long after the end of the war. The tenants did some cosmetic work in the apartment from time to time, but there was no money for the maintenance of the substance. Decay continued into the 80s. In Germany, some political dignitaries of all genders are also talking about a rent brake - the effects: see above! and nobody is building anymore. The stupid thing about the human motivation is that it does not really tend towards altruism. To drive Homo homine lupus (est) out of him does not succeed in the long term, even if less animalistic behaviour would lead one to believe that it would be different.

In Myanmar, the 7.7 on the Richter scale is one of the most violent earthquakes that can be imagined on land. The victims and material damage are immense – but hardly insured. The most violent quake occurred off the coast of Chile in 1960, registering 9.5 on the Richter scale. Considering that the metro under the Bosporus is only safe up to magnitude 9, it is understandable why shipping traffic is still very popular. There are art warehouses in areas that have not historically experienced magnitude 5 on the Richter scale, which are designed to withstand magnitude 11. This does play a role in the risk management of collections.

ChatGPT is on everyone's lips – we tried it out with the question: ‘Name publicly owned collections that have sold artworks’ – it comes up with a clever article that says, among other things, that the Leipzig Art Museum sold a Beckmann for €20 million in 2020. The Würth Collection did buy one during this time, but according to our research it was not from Leipzig. On the contrary, the art collections there are trying to expand their collections. It is not possible to determine where ChatGPT got its information from. Probably the algorithm for art still lacks a sparring partner... .

Enjoy the week – and don't forget, Tuesday is April Fools' Day, when people are still sent pranks in some areas.

Best regards, Stephan Zilkens and the team at Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne