Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 35 2023

For 507 weeks, Stefan Kobel has been compiling and commenting on the most important articles on the art market.

One might think that London is the centre of art thieves. First the British Museum is relieved of about 1,000 works of art from its depots and then there are three people who stole a Ming vase worth about 2.5 million euros in Geneva and are now on the trail of policemen who wanted to buy it from them for 450,000. And all this under the eyes of the Art Loss Register - the central world register of stolen art financed by insurers. Swiss museums like to insure their holdings, so the insurance industry should breathe a sigh of relief at the London police's successful coup. In the case of the thefts from the British Museum, its director Hartwig Fischer has, most honourably, accepted responsibility for the organisational negligence of his predecessors and resigned. One Kraut less is heard from some British papers. After the successful Brexit, so much struntzing nationalism is no longer necessary - or was it a mistake? In any case, the risk carriers lean back in the corner - museum stocks are not insured in England, as in many other European countries - the citizen, to whichever gender he may belong, is the fool.

According to the legal understanding of some European countries, the syndicates of Lloyd's of London (those who insure the legs of Dolores but also those of some football players) do not form a legal entity of their own that one can drag into court in the event of a dispute in order to enforce one's justified claims. The only option is to name up to 500 individuals as defendants, depending on the syndicate. In Germany there is the GbR (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts) - but that is a German construct. This could already be difficult in Switzerland. Conversely, does this mean that many reinsurance covers in the English market are rather harmful for Europeans? Only as long as the risk carriers clarify their legal positions in court. But every case that is settled in court prejudices the next case that is similar but not the same. Sometimes it is better to settle - this also saves the trouble (and costs) in court and does not confuse the customers.

Austria, Switzerland and Germany can now party together. None of these glorious nations won a medal during the World Championships in Athletics in Budapest. Great Britain managed 10, after all. Jamaica, Kenya and Ethiopia are still ahead of the British in the medal table. Are the reasons for the lack of performance in the DACH region the same? No national youth games? Youth football without winners? Performance requirements destructive to young souls? How decadent is that? One feels a bit like in ancient Rome, before the Goths came and Petronius gave his insights. Only then there were less than 1 billion people in the world and globalisation had yet to be invented. It was the power of narrative and not the power of images that triggered the migration of peoples in late antiquity. But in the end, these people too only wanted better living conditions.

In between, the visual arts struggle for perception - A colourful and multimedia struggle for subjective truths. - and each work in itself a reflection of the time in which it was created. But recognising this is only possible without TABUs and well-intentioned references to a form of expression that may be irritating today. (the latter takes place just for that reason - only what seems forbidden makes us ... !)

A strong week to all - sometime it will be Christmas this year too

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