The uncertain future of Art Cologne
Visitors are reflected in a work by Hans Kotter
Source: AFP / INA FASSBENDER
The last Art Cologne took place in 2019, almost three years ago. Now it is back – and the world is different. Americans are no longer coming, art is being sold as NFT, and the pandemic just doesn’t want to end. What can still be sold now.
Ka relief can be felt in Cologne. The Art Cologne art fair opened for the first time after 2019, but the exhibitors and visitors are suffering from great tension, given the pandemic situation in Germany that has gotten out of hand.
The bewilderment over this event is palpable – and only faded into the background for a few hours at the opening. It has to be said clearly: a hard winter is imminent and an uncertain future lies ahead. The masks were worn strictly, also because you don’t want to jeopardize the trip to Art Basel Miami – because hopefully all the collectors who no longer come to Europe are waiting there.
Director Daniel Hug intended the 54th international art market to be a liberation. While the live trade fair hardly had to fear competition in the pre-pandemic period, most likely the small kind of Düsseldorf, the lockdown world had shown how difficult the trade fair is in terms of digital communication. In the past few months, however, the art scene had reawakened with a lot of power. And now after Art Basel, Frieze in London, Fiac in Paris, it should finally be Cologne’s turn.
There is enough reason to hope. The art trade benefits from the fact that there is no lack of investment power – at least in established artists who guarantee a certain degree of security. And that can also be seen at Art Cologne with a decimated 145 exhibitors – mostly from Germany and neighboring countries.
The reduction involuntarily proves how high our quality is. To a large extent, it is a fair of blue chip names and museum works from Georg Baselitz with Michael Werner to Isa Genzken with Daniel Buchholz. Esther Schipper and Neugerriemschneider from Berlin are there for the first time and compensate for the cancellation by Hauser & Wirth and David Zwirner.
But do the dealers really expect to sell their works in the higher six-digit range up to the million mark here? It’s such an important show of strength. Sprüth Magers from Berlin sets an example with an iconic work by Barbara Kruger.
It says in white Futura letters on a red background: “My people are better than their people. We are more powerful and intelligent, more beautiful, more moral, more cultivated and cleaner. ”In this style, the narcissistic tension continues for a while and ends with the sentence:“ And we invented everything. ” Symbol for the great social challenges.
But did you feel these topics in the program? In the last few days one read and heard again and again that Art Cologne had become politicized. Indeed: You have seldom seen such a sales-oriented trade fair as this, and given the location, that is absolutely understandable. There is queer art from Hungary, but it is part of the accompanying program of the artistic direction; Performers dance very lonely on a full-size boxing ring.
Barbara Kruger’s statement at Art Cologne
Source: Courtesy Spritzt Magers
The visitors want to consume, and the galleries have adapted: A flood of marketable abstract painting has washed down this fair. There is hardly any sculpture (like the brown-gold trunk made of bronze by Ai Weiwei), you can count non-abstract photography on one hand (exception, for example, Valie Export at Ropac), almost no videos (among other things, Mischa Leinkauf’s fiction is interesting Non-entry with Levy from Berlin) can be seen. Every now and then NFT pops up somewhere, but never in such a way that one would make a recommendation. Pearl Lam from Hong Kong – along with a few like Nagel Draxler – is completely out of the ordinary. The dealer is dedicating a small show to the self-portraits of Zanele Muholi, who would like to be addressed as non-binary. The Sprengel Museum in Hanover is currently showing a great exhibition.
Photography by Zanele Muholi at Pearl Lam Galleries
Quelle: Zanele Muholi – Pearl Lam Galleries @ Art Cologne
And Christine König from Vienna also focuses on what is important. There Jimmie Durham’s tender deer head “Late Last Night” dreams of the last night: The “Cherokee” artist died at the age of 81. His gallery owner says goodbye: “He solved all problems with humor.”
It also becomes interesting if you take a closer look at the small-format works by Mary Ramsden at Wentrup. The abstract portraits of her friends “Viktor, Joseph or Mairi” were made from poor materials – because nothing else was available. And Axel Geis’ paintings have also shrunk because there was no canvas in the lockdown. The federal commission opted for the mini-pictures.
These traces of social conditions, even artistic reactions to changes, have to be meticulously searched for in this Art Cologne. Great discoveries are hard to find. That certainly didn’t hurt the sales figures.
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