Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 3 2026

Ukraine continues to be attacked on a daily basis – it is clear that international law is being violated on a constant basis and that this is also being acknowledged in the West. Now Trump and his administration are violating international law, and some want to hear verbal condemnation from European leaders, because Russia and China are rightly pointing out the violation (in order to use it for propaganda purposes) – however, none of the states in the Russian camp are describing the attacks on Ukraine as contrary to international law. What can we learn from this? It's the same old story: he who pays the piper calls the tune – only the melody is a little more media-friendly.

In some places, there are statistical reviews of last year's achievements – including the attractiveness of museums as measured by visitor numbers. The Louvre in Paris remains the clear leader, with approximately 8.7 million visitors, despite a brief interruption due to a break-in. It is followed by the National Museum of China with just under 7 million, the Vatican Museums with 6.8 million, the Shenzhen Museum with a few less, and so it goes on until we finally encounter the Humboldt Forum with 3 million and the Deutsches Museum in Munich with 1.5 million visitors in the land of poets and thinkers. After that, it's downhill again. But wait, there's the Chocolate Museum in Cologne, which attracts more than 720,000 visitors a year – as many as all nine Cologne museums combined. (Admittedly, the city is allowing the buildings to fall into disrepair and is organising the near-closure of houses with important collections). Nevertheless, the whole thing is insured, and the risk carriers are gracious to the city, which, despite the city archives and theft from the East Asian Museum amounting to millions, pays approximately €70,000 in art insurance premiums for its entire museum holdings. This also includes small exhibitions. Converted to visitors, this means 10 cents per person for insurance, leaving €9.90 from an admission price of around €10... According to Adam Riese's simple arithmetic, all that is needed now is for more people to visit the museums, and then the proportion of insurance costs will plummet. These figures finally refute the myth that insurance is so expensive. Insurance companies may sometimes be unwilling to pay, but they are not expensive. Try to purchase the same service from a bank: you need collateral, you pay interest as a percentage, you have to pay back what you receive... And with insurance, you are compensated for the damage and have only spent a fraction of the amount beforehand.

There was once a Citroën production facility in Brussels. After much back and forth, renovation work began in 2019 to transform it into Europe's largest exhibition space in a museum covering 42,000 m². Headline: Kanal Centre Pompidou. France is not only exporting its cultural power to the United Arab Emirates. The game was originally supposed to cost €150 million and is now estimated to cost a total of €230 million. It is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026. The snotty hall being built next to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is considerably smaller and will end up costing more than twice as much. Now, however, the Belgians are in danger of running out of money because no local government has been formed for more than 500 days and therefore no budget can be agreed upon. The situation is particularly challenging for the follow-up costs, which were initially generously estimated at EUR 30 million per year – the combined annual budget of all museums between Bonn and Düsseldorf – and are now expected to shrink to EUR 12.5 million.

Perhaps the Centre Pompidou, which only wanted to lend its good name anyway, will be scrapped and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation will be asked to step into the breach. They know all about construction costs, and managing shortages is a matter of honour. Stefan Kobel has once again found a whole host of articles that only encourage those who acquire top works of art from an investor's perspective.

But perhaps reporters of all genders are observing other developments. Normal business is not sexy – but it is usually worthwhile for galleries, artists and those who enjoy viewing art.

With this in mind, we wish everyone a good start to the third week of the still young year.

The team at Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker in Cologne and Solothurn