Kobel's Art Weekly

Kobel's Art Weekly 27 2025

Jonathan Guggenberger attended the unofficial Art Basel after party on Hydra for the FAZ newspaper on 29 June: "What attracts sales managers from the Swiss art fair to the Greek island? “We are finalising sales projects that we started last week in Basel,” says gallery owner Julia Gardener. And why Hydra in particular? Because the atmosphere is particularly relaxed, the buyers more generous – and perhaps also a little less careful. Above all, however, it is easy to get in touch with everyone. And that's true."

The CAN Art Fair in Ibiza still seems to have a long way to go, according to Alexandra Wach's report for the FAZ: "During the preview, one sometimes got the impression that the casually dressed visitors – many accompanied by their dogs – were more interested in the DJ creating a party atmosphere than in visiting the next gallery stand. However, this should not detract from the fair's ambition to appeal to serious collectors, even if more established exhibitors such as Galleria Continua from Italy and Xippas from France did not return this time and a major international gallery such as Hauser & Wirth, which has a branch in Menorca, was absent from Ibiza. This could be because wealthy families who retreat here to their second homes remain the fair's most important target group, rather than globally experienced connoisseurs. Decorative textile works, ceramics, design objects and figurative painting dominate the offerings."

Werner Remm reports in Artmagazine on the relocation of the Vienna edition of Paper Positions from the Kursalon Hübner am Stadtpark to the Semper Depot of the Kunstakademie.

No disaster is already considered a success. Stephanie Dieckvoss reports on the London evening auctions in the Handelsblatt: "Christie's is cancelling its evening auction for the second time. A daytime auction on 26 June will offer 97 lots, none of which are estimated to fetch more than a million. Phillips is offering 130 works on the same day with a total estimate of only ten to 15 million pounds. Only Sotheby's made an exception and organised an evening auction and several daytime auctions. With success: around 230 lots brought in £75.7 million. The evening auction sold a respectable 83 per cent of the 48 lots, with proceeds of £62.4 million." Anne Reimers writes enthusiastically in the FAZ: "Sotheby's strategy of being the only auction house to hold an evening auction with high-priced blue-chip lots in London in the summer proved successful. A total of £62.4 million was realised, with 40 of the 48 lots on offer sold, a third of them above their upper estimates. Irrevocable bids had already been submitted for 19 lots in advance." Only one house is holding an evening auction that is generating a mid-double-digit million turnover at the lower end of the estimate, with half of the sales already bagged in advance. If that's not success, what is?

As a pioneer in online bidding at art auctions, Christiane Fricke presents the portrait of the Wendl auction house in Thuringia for the Handelsblatt: "When Wendl made live bidding on the internet possible via the Lot-tissimo portal in 2010, it was a pioneering achievement. Sotheby's short-lived partnership with Amazon, which began in 1999/2000, had been history since 2001. In the same year, the two auction houses Nagel and Bergmann tested portal-independent live bidding. In 2006, the platform The Saleroom was launched in London with live bidding. This technology has been available in Germany since 2010 through a partnership with Lot-tissimo. […] Today, nearly 20 percent of successful buyers come from other European and non-European countries. Their share was negligible in the 1990s, before the introduction of the first online catalogue (2001) and online submission of written bids (2002).

Anny Shaw reports in the Art Newspaper on the founding of a new consulting firm by Brett Gorvy, Philip Hoffman, Ed Dolman, Patti Wong and Alex Dolman: "As opposed to traditional art advisories, the new consortium—called New Perspectives Art Partners—is planning to work with clients on a case-by-case basis. “We are offering a white glove service, dealing with every aspect of someone's particular needs,” Gorvy says. That might include buying and selling art—whether at auction, via galleries or privately—estate management and the financing and insuring of a collection. The group's approach will be whole-of-market, and not limited to their own existing advisory services and galleries."

Italy is significantly reducing VAT on art to 5 per cent, reports Werner Remm in Artmagazine: "At 22%, the VAT rate payable on the purchase of a work of art in Italy has been one of the highest in the EU for years. Just like galleries in Germany, which achieved a reduction from 19 to seven percent at the beginning of the year, galleries in Italy had also been fighting for a reduction for years. The high tax rate was all the more unpleasant given that artists were only allowed to tax their studio sales at 10%.‘ However, Ursula Scheer takes a critical view of the accompanying jubilation from Italian politicians in the FAZ: ’It sounds as if Italy is a world power in the art trade. In fact, according to the Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report, less than one per cent of global art sales are made in the Belpaese, a country rich in cultural assets that hosts the Biennale di Firenze, an international fair for ancient art. In Austria, however, the originally announced reduction is off the table and the need is great, writes Olga Kronsteiner in Der Standard: ‘The economic consequences are foreseeable,’ warns the Austrian Gallery Association in a press release, because ‘sales to Italian collectors will in future be invoiced directly to Italy, with five per cent VAT, which will no longer be paid in Austria but via the EU-wide OSS procedure.’ The same applies to sales to Germany and France. This means “not only a loss of revenue for Austrian galleries” and artists, “but also a loss of income for the state – and a cultural bloodletting”, predicts the gallery association.

Creative solution or fall from grace? The state-run Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin is sponsoring the exhibition ’Chanel Commission: Klára Hosnedlová. Embrace‘ by a luxury brand. In WeLT, Felicia Okçu discusses the pros and cons: ’The Hamburger Bahnhof is cooperating with the Chanel Culture Fund – prominently marketed in the exhibition title ‘Chanel Commission: Klára Hosnedlová. Embrace’. It is unusual for a public institution in Germany to grant its sponsor such visibility. In fact, the partnership begins at a time when Berlin's cultural policy is dominated by one concept: cuts. Berlin's cultural budget has already been reduced by 130 million euros for 2025, and according to the responsible Senate administration, a further 15 million will be cut in 2026 – prompting the senator to resign. But state museums are also coming under pressure. Although the Hamburger Bahnhof, as a museum of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), is jointly financed by the federal government and all 16 federal states, the museum of contemporary art is indirectly affected by the Berlin cuts. For example, free museum Sundays, an important measure to open the museums to a wider audience, have been cancelled. At the same time, despite a recent increase in the federal budget for the SPK, there is a lack of funds to realise exhibitions on the usual scale.

One collector is a guest with his collection at another's. Timo Miettinen from Berlin is making a guest appearance at Gil Bronner's Philara Collection, which Christiane Fricke visited for the Handelsblatt: ‘For him, art is “a great journey of discovery”. He wants to see and learn as much as possible. This is how Finnish collector Timo Miettinen tries to explain why his collection brings together so many divergent artistic voices. The venue is the private art gallery ’Sammlung Philara" in Düsseldorf, where the highlights of the Miettinen Collection are on display until the end of September. The spectrum ranges from geometric concrete art and poetic explorations of nature to flower pieces and figurative paintings."

The Collection888 of Hamburg-based collectors Julia and Oliver Herrmann aims not only to bring art together, but also to promote its creation, reports Johannes Wendland in Handelsblatt: ‘The collector couple is looking for art that does not lose itself in self-absorption, but seeks to connect with current social issues. This is also in line with the social commitment of Julia Herrmann, who is one of the partners in the “Arztmobil” project in Hamburg. It organises medical care for homeless people. The Herrmanns not only want to collect, but also actively promote the creation and dissemination of art.’

Ursula Scheer reports on the insolvency of porcelain dealer Röbbig München in the FAZ a week after the WELTKUNST, without mentioning the latter's research. She even uses the same image, but with an incorrect attribution. The photo, which is licensed under Creative Commons, shows a trade fair stand of the gallery, not the gallery premises.