Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 15 2022

Dear readers of Kobel's Art Week,

as you know, we are now bilingual, in German and English. That's why gendering doesn't work so well any more, because English has a harder time with it. So we stay on the carpet and write like we used to:

About Art Düsseldorf, which in the light-flooded halls (when the sun was shining) gave 86 galleries the opportunity to show what they've got on large stand spaces, supported by 70% stand rental subsidies from the public sector. There were also almost 7-figure purchases - Polke, for example. But the galleries had to endure mood swings, depending on where they were placed. A huge Tony Cragg attracted attention and changed the direction of the walk. Four galleries were almost in a black hole as a result.

about paintings confiscated at short notice in Finland that belong to the Russian state or its museums because a customs officer (we already know their glorious work from the Bible) classified works of art under luxury goods - and these are generally subject to sanction rules to begin with. High diplomacy and the expertise of a Russian art forwarder brought the works back to the Pushkin Museum and the Hermitage.

about the Freeport in Geneva and the insurers who, nolens volens, have taken the sanctions in their stride. Actually, the accumulation problem in Geneva should be much more relaxed now that so many names are on the sanctions lists and their works have been suspended in the warehouses. But if the state intervenes and confiscates - as it did in the Gurlitt case a few years ago - it must still ensure that the values are preserved. Does this mean that the premiums previously paid by the oligarch must now be paid by the taxpayer? That would be something - and who would receive the compensation in the event of damage ... ?

about the presidential elections in France, which above all are fuelling disenchantment with politics. France is just a few more miles away from Ukraine than Germany. That's where the national spiesser shirt sits closer to the body. Chauvinism in its old meaning - still freed from gender mania - is, after all, an original French invention.

about the idea of the National Gallery in London to make Ukrainian dancers out of the Russian ones by Degas. To be honest, that sounds a bit deliberate. The war is being waged against a nation on the orders of those who are powerful at the moment. But the peoples themselves have no interest in fighting. Not every Russian is a devil and certainly not every Ukrainian is a saint. The problem is only the political leaders who indulge in fantasies that come from the depths of an ignorant historical litterature. If the Easter festival is any good among the Orthodox, it would be an opportunity to show the will for peace - but Easter is a few weeks later there.

about the next Art Week by Stefan Kobel, which will not be published until the Tuesday after Easter, because there will be a lot of searching for eggs before then.

We wish everyone a creative time before Easter in which somewhere face-saving insights mature that put an end to the murder and destruction in Ukraine. One can hope, and nobody really wants to smash Russia, no matter what Putin's propaganda machine comes up with.

Yours, Stephan Zilkens and the team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne.