Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 18 2022

Dear readers of Kobel's Art Week, yesterday was May Day and the working class' day of struggle was celebrated differently all over the world. In Germany, class struggle from the 19th century, decorated with fears of inflation and ideas of redistribution, is again on the table, and after the Popes, the trade unions in Russia are now also failing because there are so many Nazis in Ukraine! In return, all cultural sites there, including the people seeking shelter in them, can be mowed down. It is interesting that there are intellectuals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland who call on Ukraine to deny itself - just so that the Russian bear doesn't scratch the wealth they have acquired in the meantime. We are increasingly living in a value-free society that puts personal well-being above the principles of freedom. - Dictatorships do not understand freedom; on the contrary, freedom is a direct attack on their power base and must therefore be fought. That is why our freedom is currently being defended by the Ukrainians. So supplying weapons is the least we can afford.

In all this misery, there are artists who are highly traded on the market and who are willing to exhibit their works in Ukraine in order to send a signal. They realise that war risks cannot be insured, at least not where there is war - but there are plenty of other risks that exist independently of war and that should actually be insured as a matter of course. But it seems that the insurance industry's employed managers (of all genders) are unwilling to do the math, because they are of the opinion that new risks in Ukraine should not be insured at all. So there is no protection against theft (too few guards due to the war), fire (too few firemen due to the war), vandalism (due to the war, every act is automatically terrorist in nature) and the list goes on ... . The attitude is a destructive indictment: so please, dear risk carriers, more entrepreneurial heart and soul, most shareholders (again, of course, of all sexes) will thank you for it, and with the mutuals you don't have to worry because the board of directors chooses its supervisory body, as the example of the Volkswohlbund shows.

Our competitor Leue und Nill, which is also the regional branch of AXA in Dortmund and collects more than half a million premiums a year from us alone in this way, has offered Paper Positions a prize in which it selects a gallery and awards it a prize. Presumably the commitment is much greater than what Mannheimer or we have contributed to the success of the fair in the past. Congratulations.

This weekend, one could have been in Brussels (Art Brussels), Berlin (Galleryweekend) or Mumbai (Indian Art Fair) at the same time. I only managed Berlin and had the impression that the parties posted on Instagram were just as great as before Corona (was there something?) but in the end less people wandered the streets to see the challenging programme of galleries. Let's hope that new people interested in art warm up and start collecting.

In this spirit, we wish you a week stimulated by and with art.

Your Stephan Zilkens and the team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne