More than half the year has already passed – and with temperatures in Europe currently racing from one record high to the next, there’s only one thing on everyone’s mind: a break from the heat! Stefan Kobel begins his half-yearly review of art market reports with the market itself – next week he’ll look at the art fairs, and finally at the auction scene.Very few ... read more
I’ve never taken so few photographs at Art Basel and its satellite events as I did this time. A mere five pictures made it onto the roll. Is it because I’ve already seen quite a lot in my life? Or is it because pictures costing 35 million USD fail to hold any general appeal? Or is it because the selection offered few surprises and hardly ... read more
Some exhibitions are worth a second look. That certainly applies to this year’s Venice Biennale. A month ago, I had questioned it because video art seemed to dominate. Now, on closer inspection of the main exhibition – which featured a fair amount of derivative yet little-known work – one feels as though one is witnessing a confrontation between the Global South and the absent North. ... read more
More good news from our company: Bastian Bauer will join Petter Börgers on the management board of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH. Bastian Bauer, who is responsible for finance at Attikon and also serves as managing director for other group companies, will oversee accounting and financial reporting, whilst Petter Börgers will manage client and insurer relations – without whom our business simply wouldn’t run.The ... read more
For our newer readers: you are currently reading the 650th edition of our news blog and Kobel’s Art Week. Twelve and a half years of working together to report on the art market seem a good reason to take a brief look back: what was the world like when we started?The FAZ was still organising an art market symposium in the heart of Berlin, where ... read more
Last Wednesday was the big day: the first scholarship holders from Support Artists in Exile Cologne e.V. presented their works in a moving exhibition. Anas Kahal from Damascus has captured his memories of the civil war in Syria in film sequences that bring home the anonymity of the hordes shooting wildly, countered by a poetic work by Majd Suliman from ... read more