Zilkens'
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Zilkens' News Blog 34 2026

There’s a lot going on in the Ruhr region – no, not the organised gangs involved in welfare fraud, although they’re there too – but far more importantly, the nomadic Manifesta (16) biennial, which is being held in Germany for only the second time. Duisburg, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen and Essen are the cities where 12 former churches serve as exhibition spaces, in which curators of all ages and genders are showcasing their selection of artworks, among which there are only a few well-known names. Luc Tuymans, Katharina Fritsch and Alicja Kwade are probably the best known. Many have their roots in the countries from which guest workers came in the 1950s and 1960s to help rebuild the Ruhr region. Manifesta addresses a wide variety of themes. The common thread, however, is the search for new uses for disused churches, most of which date from the 1960s. The buildings themselves highlight a fundamental shift – increasing prosperity and saturation with electronic and other stimuli are alienating people from their original religious roots. Hardly anyone goes to church anymore. Empty places of worship are being abandoned, are listed as historic monuments, and are seeking a new purpose. A trip to Manifesta is worthwhile not only for the architecture, but also – and perhaps especially – for the various artistic positions (as they’re so nicely called these days) that one can rediscover.

Large corporations have to employ many people who actually contribute little to the business model. They work in legal departments or compliance units, or are tasked with various important matters for which the bureaucracy requires someone to be appointed. As a result, one must continually assess where the marginal utility of each client lies for the company – and this is often expressed in monetary terms. For us insurance brokers, it is a client’s brokerage volume that determines whether they are still of interest to the company in question. The basic administrative cost per client is always the same (liability, annual review, information provision, claims handling, etc.); however, the lower the turnover, the less interesting the client is to the big players. The giant Marsh has now decided in Germany that clients with a commission volume of less than EUR 10,000 (with a corresponding proportion of motor insurance, we might be talking about a premium of EUR 100,000 per client) are better served by the brokers of the ATTIKON Group. Our colleagues at the ATTIKON Group are delighted that their medium-sized business approach suits these clients well, and Petter Börgers and Stephanie Oeing from Zilkens Fine Art are on hand to offer the right solutions for these clients in the art sector. Incidentally, you don’t necessarily have to have been a Marsh client to be of interest to the Zilkens Fine Art team. Feel free to put their expertise to the test – they know a thing or two about art (and insurance).

As we’ve written before: fear is a poor guide when it comes to making choices. Sometimes people romanticise a past that was far from glorious, perhaps because the sense of community (despite the Stasi and informers) was reasonably good, whilst the rest was in a right state. In 1982, I travelled through the north of the GDR and saw for the first time people walking through fields after the potato harvest to gather the crops that the harvesters had missed. In the Eifel region, that sort of thing no longer happened at that time. In Stralsund, we visited Gothic brick churches whose windows couldn’t be fitted for months because of a shortage of small change (i.e. items costing just a few pfennigs), or rather because they hadn’t been allocated. But apparently, one forgets such things when the fear of loss dictates one’s emotions. Freedom is essential for art, no matter where it is created. Artists therefore often have to leave their homeland or hide behind motifs that keep them alive but do not foster their creative potential. There are many initiatives, and in the run-up to the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the Pampin Appeal has now been published, which anyone who wishes to support artistic freedom in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Angela Merkel’s home region) can sign. Click here to view the appeal and sign it.

Elections are also taking place in Berlin – though there, other enemies of freedom are at work and currently leading in the polls. The city is preparing for Art Week, during which the ‘Positions’ international art fair – held at the former Tempelhof Airport – will take place once again. Zilkens Fine Art is sponsoring the project and, through its Swiss subsidiary, is awarding the prize for the best stand – known simply as ‘Best Booth’. For the second time, young artists will be honoured with the Academy Award by Cologne-based Zilkens Fine Art. Petter Börgers and Stephanie Oeing will present the prizes, which are selected by a jury.

Get the new week off to a flying start

Stephan Zilkens with the team at Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne