Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens‘ News Blog 24 2023

Normally, tourism has its downsides for the country that is accordingly haunted for its attractiveness. The presence of museums does not lead to feelings of happiness in many a politician's brain, because good art is not to be had for free. Once again, Italy shows that there is another way: add a special tax to the entrance fee, which goes directly to Emiglia Romagna. This is the moment when one is happy about full museums and wishes that even more paying guests visit the museums.

Travelling sometimes leads to exciting discoveries: Jeddah, or old German Dschidda, on the Red Sea had 3 million inhabitants in 2007 and 4 million in 2014. Today, there are about 4.5 million, with 2.5 million immigrants for every 2 million Arabs. The area is about the size of Liechtenstein, with water in front of it and sand around it. Nevertheless, everything works pretty well and people feel safe. And now the first big biennial of Islamic contemporary art has just ended, with more than 600,000 people making their way there in three months. Needless to say, large halls were built out of the ground and roads were constructed for the event that are not being used today. The number of visitors, however, is more than remarkable in relation to the time of three months. The Venice Biennale, which lasted almost 8 months, had just 800,000 visitors. That is 35% more than in 2019, but it has to be put into perspective before the result in Jeddah.

Art Basel with its satellites will be exciting, also against the background of our ignorance of art developments from other zones of this earth. - or could you name 10 contemporary Islamic artists (of any gender - that had to be said again) off the top of your head? I can't - and neither can any Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Australian ones. And I'm probably not alone in this, because even the study of art history is generally not globally oriented. What remains is curiosity and the desire for new things, combined with an eye for quality that exists regardless of regional or religious origin.

We wish you a brilliant start to the week - Kobel's 500th Art Week will be published in 5 weeks' time.

The team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne