Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 36 2025

MTAB, the Scandinavian specialist logistics provider for art and special transports, has a new minority shareholder. Hasenkamp in Cologne has acquired 25% of the company, thereby strengthening its presence in the Scandinavian countries. This will benefit all Hasenkamp customers who handle loan transports with Scandinavia. In addition to his extensive duties as CEO of the Hasenkamp Group, Dr Thomas Schneider will also join the MTAB board of directors.

The enormous national cathedral of Ghana, which has been under construction since 2019, was supposed to cost only 85 million euros. In the meantime, construction costs have at least quadrupled and only 8% of the total project has been completed – but the population of this country, which has been ravaged by economic crises, was unwilling to approve further funding for the construction of this prestige project. The result is now a construction freeze and decay. Even though a museum was also planned for the cathedral, it is probably better to call off this gigantic project. This is sometimes what people in Europe would like to see, where, for example, in Germany, some parties believe that excessive social systems can only be expanded through higher and new taxes – performance principles do not apply, or, as in the case of the Left Party, as an invitation to help themselves to society's top performers by exploiting the primitive and base instincts of journalists of all genders and the population in order to sow envy and resentment, instead of clearing out the bureaucratic control regulations and encouraging people to create and promote things themselves – even if it means jobs.

Galerie Brigitte Schenk becomes Galerie Schenkweitzdörfer and the daughter takes over. Brigitte Schenk has cultivated relationships in the Arab world in particular and was an early advocate of contemporary art in Sharjah and Dubai. Her daughter is taking over – it will be interesting to see whether the generational change will be successful.

What is a market-changing event? In 1988, the Piper Alpha oil platform exploded in the North Sea, killing numerous people and nearly bankrupting Lloyd's of London because there was insufficient accumulation control between the primary insurance and reinsurance of individual syndicates, which ultimately led to a complete restructuring of Lloyd's, in which private liable capital became rare and corporate capital became the norm. Now, a warehouse containing gas cylinders in Hamburg Veddel has been ablaze for several days, followed by several other industrial complexes, storage facilities and container depots. Let's hope that art wasn't affected, but who knows, with the increasing preference for saving costs through sea transport, that would also be conceivable. Ultimately, several property and liability risks, as well as transport insurance, are affected. The amount of damage is still unknown. According to some large brokers (whose business is often driven by price, even if they claim otherwise), the market was just beginning to soften – will this change now that the insurance industry is once again facing a major challenge to its raison d'être? Liability is joint and several – Purchasing egoistic?!

Kobel's Art Week reports on many galleries in America that are closing or downsizing because they are selling less. This is not really a drama, but rather a sign that the products they offer are no longer in demand to the extent necessary to operate successfully. The product is ‘art’, which does not exist in such a generalised form. There are millions of artists, including those who are extremely successful and whose works are rare and in high demand (very few), and then there are those who, generally speaking, cannot make a living from their work, or can only do so on a very modest scale (the vast majority). The situation is similar with galleries – you have to go with the market or your niche, or be a great idealist with even greater resilience, especially financial resilience, to stay afloat outside the mainstream. This is not specific to the art market, but to the market in general.?

This week, primary insurers and reinsurers are meeting on the Côte d'Azur to sound out what might lie ahead. Some reinsurers are suspicious of private investors because they fear that major claims will cause them to reduce their exposure again. Claims that are realised are the obvious justification for the insurance business model. Investors should also be aware of this.

Here's to a good start to the last month of summer, which heralds the arrival of autumn – and perhaps to the Düsseldorf/Cologne Open at the weekend – the galleries would be delighted.

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