Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 15 2026

Our Christmas cards are meant to tell stories – at least, that is the wish of our photographer, Mike Christian. The latest one illustrates a generational change. We are delighted that Ole Petter Börgers, has been appointed by our shareholder Attikon AG Managing Director of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH with effect from 1 April 2026. As an art historian with additional training in insurance, he continues the tradition established when the company was founded. He now runs the business alongside the author of these lines. In these uncertain times, stability is much needed.

Which brings us to the state of the world, which is anything but rosy and makes it clear to state-worshipping interventionists that the market can probably sort out some things better than government-imposed intervention designed to keep the sensationalist potential of the domestic press in check, which then, in its thirst for sensation, turns into its opposite. Take, for example, the fuel price regulation – learning from Austria doesn’t always work out well. Art fairs just before Easter weren’t organized – it’s starting again this week in Paris and with art Cologne in Palma. Then comes Düsseldorf and, at the end of the month, Brussels.

Ms Meloni is currently sending positive signals to her own people by spending money on items that can be regarded as Italian national cultural heritage, such as a Caravaggio that has now been acquired outside Italy for 30 million. Meanwhile, the Uffizi Gallery had to fend off a severe cyberattack, in which it remains unclear what data was stolen and what security-related information was accessed or blocked. The attack shows that cyber risks lurk everywhere – it is like a fire that, despite all precautions, can break out and destroy valuables. Cyber insurance is the new fire insurance – and if you’d like to know more about it, you can find out from us too.

The cultural world in Germany has been shaken by a 2022 ruling from the Federal Social Court, which is slowly becoming known as the Herrenberg ruling and is beginning to deprive artists of their sources of income. In short: self-employed music teachers at music schools are no longer independent contractors but employees for whom full social security contributions and pension insurance payments are due. What happened to the Artists’ Social Security Fund? – In any case, museums have realised that they, too, employ freelancers. Otherwise, operations simply could not be sustained. Only Herrenberg is unsettling the administrations, and no one really knows whether to hire – or wait and see. The latter does, after all, fit with the initiatives to reduce bureaucracy: better to wait and see before anything changes! Thankfully, the German Museum Association is now offering an information session. On 20 April, the whole thing will be available online between 10:00 and 12:00, and it’s free of charge too. Bravo!

From 10–13 May, the same association is holding its annual conference in Münster under the motto: “Open museums! Diversity as an opportunity.” Sounds good at first – but it also presupposes that sufficient funds are made available for culture, including the costs of maintaining museum buildings. Not like what we’re currently experiencing in Cologne, or even more so in Berlin, where the new National Gallery by Herzog & de Meuron, with its damp foundations, is presumably yet another result of botched public tenders. They simply award contracts to the cheapest bidder and then wonder why it ends up costing considerably more. Incidentally, the same will happen in every state-funded housing programme if one looks only for the cheapest option. In Switzerland, as a matter of principle, they do not choose the cheapest contractor in the construction sector...

Last but not least, we hear that the man with the rabbit’s fur on his head in the White House is now also tinkering with his presidential library, which is to be bigger, gilder, more expensive and—heaven knows what other superlatives—greater than anything his 15 predecessors before him have put together (only Biden is the exception -no library plans at all). 47 storeys high and magnificently ugly, the building is set to grace Miami and cost over 1 billion USD, to be financed exclusively by donations. Presumably, all those insider traders who have profited from the gentleman’s erratic statements will have to chip in a little something – to ease the burden on their tax bills. And please don’t misunderstand the word Library: in this case, we’re talking about a temple of incense for the distortion of history, not education or literature.

Let’s despite all this look forward to the new week with optimism

Yours, Stephan Zilkens and the team at Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker in Solothurn and Cologne