Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 44 2024

It was hard to believe when the French president announced after the 2019 fire at Notre Dame in Paris that the church would be reopened to the public after five years. At least in Germany, people have become all too accustomed to drastic budget and schedule overruns on public construction projects: the Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Airport, Cologne Opera House... to name just a few. On 8 December, Notre Dame is to reopen and Paris is expecting 14-15 million visitors a year to see the cathedral. That is why the French Minister of Culture is now considering charging for visits to the cathedral. A tidy sum would be collected if only 5 euros were charged. Apart from the fact that the remaining churchgoers would no longer have free access to their church, the EU's ban on discrimination may also stand in the way of the idea if the entrance fee is only charged to non-French people. At least the residents of EU countries must be treated equally, even if they rarely pull together. Incidentally, many experts from Europe helped with the restoration of Notre Dame – all the better that there is a happy ending after five years.

As is well known, a few months ago valuable pieces from the collection at the Cologne Museum for East Asian Art were stolen. The insurers have since paid up, but the money is going into the general budget of the ailing city instead of being made available to the museum for new acquisitions of comparable quality. The payment is larger than the entire purchasing budget of all nine municipal museums combined. However, the holes in the budget are much larger due to the addition of more than 5,000 new employees in the administration over the last seven years. The incoming payment evaporates instantly in the general budget – it would have a significantly greater and more lasting effect in the museum's budget.

Without private initiatives, not much would be left of European cultural life. Museums benefit to a particular extent from the collections of richer citizens, whether it be that significant donations are made privately for new buildings and conversions, or that entire collections are bequeathed to museums. Mostly from people who, in absolute figures, also contribute significantly to tax revenues. Now it is easy to demand, especially of charitable distribution artists of all genders, that special taxes be levied on those who already pay more than the rest. In France, parliament has now decided in favour of a tax for the rich. It is questionable whether after the Louis Vuitton foundation there will be any other generous foundations in the country in the future if the initiative really does go through. Capital is a shy creature and in a time of changing world orders, you have to deal with the top performers (again of all genders) in a motivating way, because there are enough states that are happy to take on production and trade without such excessive tax demands. Hungary, for example. But that's where the evil Orban lives and nobody wants to go there! Or do they?

This week, Artissima opens its doors in Turin and next week, on Thursday, Art Cologne opens in Cologne. On that day, we are hosting a small, non-public symposium with ARTE GENERALI on the topic of inheritance and foundations, at which Isabel Boden – art historian, sworn expert and art consultant, and Benjamin Weber – attorney, partner at Deutsche Stiftungsanwälte GmbH, will speak on the topic from 4:00 p.m. We still have two free places that we were able to reserve for last-minute visitors. If you are interested, please register at info@zilkensfineart.com.

Have a good start to the winter season – stay calm even if it gets dark an hour earlier now.

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