Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 32 2024

Only 20 weeks left and then this year will be over. The art market will be quiet for the next four weeks, apart from a few local events. The opposite is true for seasonal business, if you compare it to tourism. After these four weeks, elections will be held in three eastern German states - and everyone will be staring at the oracles of the augurs, who are painting a big warning sign on the wall without explaining the causes. Some are still trying to jump on the bandwagon in order to give the rich a good thrashing. This includes the public media, which are obliged to maintain a balance – in particular, the programme Monitor, which unleashed a diatribe against the wealthy in its last programme – without critically questioning its dubious and one-sided sources. The one-sidedness of this programme was enough to call the entire public broadcasting system into question as a construct. And it is by no means not the only one that tries to stir up emotions against the system's top performers under the guise of alleged objectivity. Salem, the boarding school known worldwide for its educational concept, was also used for this purpose. At the end of the programme, it was claimed that 3,480 private school pupils were compared to 8,700,000 pupils in public schools. This figure does not include the approximately 800,000 students who currently attend private schools - and the number is rising, which is probably due to the ever-weaker school system in Germany. Unfortunately, the same is also true in large part for the changing demands on students at German universities. The acceptance of the French system at the European level has led neither to more international permeability nor to more scientific creativity and achievement - Little Boxes everywhere, Pete Seeger is turning in his grave.
The aforementioned has nothing to do with art and culture - except that education lays the foundations for it, and it's stupid to have only thin-skinned people on all fronts in times when you have to drill thick boards.

The more dynamically the stock markets plunge, the more problematic it is for the art market. Some thought that cryptocurrencies would help them over the hill. Russia is now showing that these currencies are wonderfully suited to undermining political will, as it will allow its companies to conduct international business on a cryptocurrency basis in order to circumvent sanctions.

Mund und Fester, a company that has been involved in the insurance business as a quasi-insurer since 1874, is no more. After being sold, it belongs to the GGW Group, which is growing extremely quickly through acquisitions. And in order to bundle the underwriting activities, the whole thing has now been given a new name: WECOYA - which is supposed to mean We cover your assets. If you leave out the last three letters, you get what is common among managers in top positions today: SYA = Safe your ass, because the framework guidelines determined by politics are developing more and more unproductive bureaucracy , the non-observance of which, however, can result in rather harsh penalties. Schumpeter, who died in 1950, would probably be pleased to see that his predictions seem to be coming true worldwide. This is not a hopeful sign for the classic middle class, which brings us back to art: who buys art, who has the desire, time and passion to devote themselves to art without considering economic risks? As a rule, it is not employed managers in large companies - that was slowly coming to an end in the 1990s - for some, that meant embezzlement - God forbid.
Please stay with us and enjoy the new week
Stephan Zilkens and the team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Cologne and Solothurn