Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 30 2024

Stefan Kobel is back from France and has compiled and commented on a great deal of information about the art market. You can read it right after this.

On Friday, the world realised how even the most simple disruptions in data networks can have an enormous impact on many areas of life worldwide. This could be the accumulation that the insurance industry does not actually want to cover because it exceeds its global capacity for cyber insurance and internet-related liability risks. The maximum losses assumed by some underwriters in these areas could have been exceeded, because the losses occurred because the customers had complied with an obligation: to keep their security software up to date. As is so often the case, some shady lawyers of either sex will now presumably come along for some insurers and find reasons why the losses were sudden and unforeseeable and therefore actually indemnifiable, but that there is no liability because it was not a malicious attack by a third party and the errors in the security software are part of the normal operating risk. You don't believe that? Then let something be stolen from you in Poland during transport from the Ukraine to somewhere in Europe, after the goods have already been in Poland for over 30 hours. There are insurers who refuse to pay out because the transport comes from a war zone, is therefore war-related and cannot be paid out on the basis of the war exclusion clause. It will be interesting to see how the courts will assess this anti-consumer attitude and the abandonment of the Causa Proxima principle.

Sculptors have a hard time of it, especially since the invention of social sculpture by Joseph Beuys, when everyone and everything can be a three-dimensional work of art. When markets are going sideways – and that seems to be the case in the art market at the moment – people tend to focus on the familiar and the tried and tested. Sculptures are not usually among them. All the better, then, that a triennial for sculpture is taking place in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland, which is showing some interesting positions. Each sculpture can be purchased. The leporello for the tour (unfortunately not very well done) contains prices and contact details for potential buyers. And, as an added bonus, the place no longer seems quite so provincial.

KUNST IM KONTEXT is a series of events organised by the Society for Modern Art at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. On 30 September 2024 at 7 p.m., Susanne Schreiber from Handelsblatt will talk to Stefan Kobel and me about the different aspects of our Monday activities in the museum's cinema. We are looking forward to it and if you have time, please come and join us.

One of the old men who keep the world in suspense seems to be capable of recognising the situation and is withdrawing from the battle before it has actually begun. His previous opponent has now achieved a godlike status among his supporters, and as a German with a bit of history behind him, one is reminded of demagogic times that have faded and been mitigated in many minds, although they have cost millions of lives. The background to the attempted assassination of Trump will never be fully explained – the perpetrator is dead, and that too is fuelling conspiracy theories. We can all look forward to seeing who the Democratic Party in the USA will put forward as its candidate.

Have a good start to the new week

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