Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 7 2025

In two weeks we will know more about the political mood in Germany. Last night two women interviewed two men. One of them, with a lot of ‘me me me’ and not always very appropriate interjections, was surprisingly keen to boast and the other, with more objective ‘we’, promised more economic development. The latter is more beneficial for the art trade and the cultural sector.

The highest auction result in the German-speaking world to date, the Klimt at the Kinsky auction house in Vienna for 30 million euros last year to a bidder from Hong Kong, was not paid, if the FAZ from Saturday can be believed. The consignor and the buyer had apparently reached an agreement outside of the auction house. It doesn't sound quite the right way – from either side.

The Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten in Marl, which is currently housed outside of its glass case, is showing an exhibition of early video art in Ukraine from 1990 to 2005 until the end of March. One of the artists still known today is Olexandr Roitbjud – the other artists are being rediscovered through the exhibition. There will be a catalogue and the hope for further exhibition venues in the world. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

We do talk from time to time about bureaucracy and its costs. For 2(?) years now, smaller companies in Germany have also been obliged to precisely record the working hours of their employees. Excel spreadsheets are not allowed. So they are pleased to have an app that can be used for time tracking and holiday planning in growing organisations. However, this is not a charitable act, but an additional factor in non-wage labour costs. It doesn't achieve much – but Saint Controllazius is pleased with the offerings.

Stefan Kobel has again covered a lot of ground – the least of which concerns the German art market, which is preparing for Art Karlsruhe as the first important event of the year.

The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas Chiefs 40-22 in the Superbowl. Now we have another year of peace from this American media export. Perhaps it's time to take a more critical look at opinion journalism in public financed broadcasting. Structural distributors are not insurance brokers and to derive from the misconduct of a few the justification to want to abolish the earning opportunities of more than 200,000 people, as WDR has once again done, is more than questionable.

We wish everyone a good start to the week – it can only get better.

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