Strong, Fast Sales at Art Cologne Mark New High Point For German Art Fair

Alexander Forbes, Friday, April 11, 2014

A hulking pair of Joel Shapiro sculptures flanks the entryway to Art Cologne’s 48th edition. Pristine examples of his Elevation series from 1996, minimal and of a grey that nearly disappears against intermittently overcast skies they set the tone for the fair overall. Subtlety and quality, and not flash, proves paramount across the fair this year. It’s a place for connoisseurs, not those looking for a shiny statement piece.

Art Cologne requires a slower gait and more patient eye than its brethren. But then, that’s already the style of the assembled (mostly European) collectors that fair director Daniel Hug has been on a mission to attract back over the past six years. “We needed a good German fair and we have that now,” one prominent Rhineland gallerist told artnet News. Many more echoed the sentiment during Art Cologne’s first two days.

Lack of flash may separate the fair. But at this year’s vernissage, the bustling halls could well have been those of Armory, Frieze, or Basel. Dealers were inundated with collectors, sometimes lined up to get a word (or offer) in edgewise. Sales were swift. That’s all glad news.

On another level, though, Art Cologne remains a regional affair, attracting deep-pocketed buyers from the Rhineland, Germany’s south, and the Benelux countries. Anita Zabludovicz from London was present and buying. Americans also held a presence at the fair, highlighted by the return of Don and Mera Rubell as well as Michael and Susan Hort.

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On the first floor, home to established galleries peddling mostly blue chip contemporary or secondary market work, energy was steady throughout the first day, with a slight calm setting in on Thursday before the Belgians were set to arrive in hordes over the weekend—school holidays kept some of the country’s prominent purchasers at bay during the preview.

David Zwirner once again outperformed the competition. Two works by current art world darling Oscar Murillo—one painting and a sculpture from his A Mercantile Novel series, which will premiere in New York on April 24th—were first to be nabbed by collectors. A series of ten drawings on hotel stationary by Martin Kippenberger, collages by Marcel Dzama, photos by James Welling also sold during the preview. By Thursday evening, a large photogram byThomas Ruff was also sold. And sales of works by Michael Riedel and Christopher Williams that had been put on reserve the previous day also went through.

Adjacent to Zwirner, German mega-collector Ingvild Goetz could be seen chatting with Karsten Greve. The dealer had two exceptional works by Pierre Soulages, ahead of the opening of the 94-year-old artist’s Musée Soulages in his birth town of Roudez in southern France. Three paintings by recently deceased painter Gotthard Graubner also attracted interest. (Dierking, Sundheimer was also showing one of the artist’s largest works.)

At Milan’s Cardi Gallery, owner Nicolò Cardi was beaming after a successful return to Art Cologne after years away from the fair. “Art Cologne is such a strong, good quality fair,” he said, explaining that their return was due to, “the extraordinary work the new director is doing.” Within the fair’s first hours Cardi sold a Jannis Kounellis piece from the 1980s for which he was asking €100,000. He had further works by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giuseppe Penone on hold with confidence they would sell by fair’s end.

Many of the first floor’s other galleries reported strong sales. Most galleries reported selling small paintings or works on paper but were holding out for the weekend for more significant results and confirmations on early holds. Art Cologne is notorious for its collectors’ reticence to pull the trigger on high priced pieces.

Upstairs, sales for contemporary and emerging galleries were slightly slower at the fair’s start but soon overtook their more established colleagues. At least in volume, that is. A layout change is potentially to blame. For the previous two years the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) had a separate section of the fair. For visitors, that allowed a partial compartmentalization of the already smaller and more numerous booths on the second floor. But for the NADA dealers, it meant sluggish sales at best. This year, the NADA galleries who chose to return have formed the Collaborations section, along with others from Art Cologne proper. It’s a great opportunity for galleries to show more ambitious or experimental work.

Overall, the quality of work this year far outshined that of Art Cologne’s 2013 edition. That’s partly due to some key additions. Contemporary Fine Arts (CFA) is back in Cologne after over ten years and has the fair’s most audacious presentation: two full 50 square meter booths showing solo presentations of Tal R and Gert and Uwe Tobias. Two Tal R works sold within the first hour for €33,000-54,000. Several more were on hold. Four of the Tobias twins’ works had also sold by Thursday afternoon for €38,000 each.

London and Berlin’s Sprüth Magers was inundated with collectors during the vernissage. A large Sterling Ruby sculpture topped their balance sheet by Thursday afternoon, having sold to a German collector for $150,000. A large wall sculpture by Cologne-based artist Michail Pirgelis sold for €40,000. A painting from their recent Berlin exhibition of Andreas Schulze and “a lot of works from storage” rounded out a solid performance.

In their second year at the fair, Peres Projects moved from the fair’s perimeter to a much larger stand in the heart of the second floor. The gallery had placed two paintings from David Ostrowski’s F series with prominent collectors from the Rhineland. Peres still sells the works at €10,000-25,000 despite a comparable painting’s recent sale at Phillips for £86,500 and has been extremely attentive to which collectors are purchasing the work. A mirror painting by Eddie Peake had also sold by Thursday afternoon. Two prime examples of Dorothy Iannone’s work from the 1960s were viewer favorites and had attracted serious institutional interest. Iannone currently enjoys a major retrospective at the Berlinische Galerie. The works were priced in the realm of €65,000.

In terms of sheer sales volume, Johann Koenig was unmatched. In the first day alone, the gallery sold over 30 works from nearly every artist on their booth and several whose work they hadn’t even brought to the fair. “It was a bit like [Art] Basel,” Koenig said of the preview and vernissage. He sold to major institutions like Munich’s recently reopened Lenbachhaus and Christian Boros among other prominent and “mostly German,” collectors. Interest was heaviest in Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade, a Boros favorite. Others included a large, bench sculpture by Jeppe Hein, paintings by Katharina Grosse, and a sculpture by Tatiana Trouvé.

Perhaps most surprisingly, success befell young galleries with unprecedented pace this year. The region typically demonstrates conservative buying habits. And previous editions of Art Cologne were marked by a tense air at the second floor’s perimeter—the location of New Contemporaries, Hug’s section for galleries under ten years old.

Smiles replaced those furrowed brows this time around. Nearly all galleries asked had sold something by Thursday afternoon.

Berlin’s Klemms hand a strong first day, selling several drawings for €500 a piece. Two large photographs by Adrian Sauer sold. One painting by Bernard Piffaretti had sold by Thursday afternoon for €14,000 with another on reserve. Stopping to catch his breath near the end of Wednesday’s vernissage, Sebastian Klemm noted how essential Art Cologne was to his ability to survive the crisis years and Berlin’s still-sluggish market.

Soy Capitán’s Heike Tosun said she was slightly nervous for this year’s fair, after deciding to bring only one of the artists that had seen a flood of sales hit her booth in 2013. Fears were quickly averted. Tosun had sold four paintings by Henning Strassburger and Matthias Dornfeld priced between €6,000-10,000 each by Thursday afternoon. “I even sold something at the party!” she exclaimed, referring to a post-vernissage fete thrown by a group of young galleries on Wednesday night.

To an extent, the increase in sales at the young galleries is also structural. Collectors apparently were scared to even talk to a gallerist about an unknown artist when Hug took over the fair in 2008. “They thought that they would be obligated to buy,” he says.  Clearly, they have no more fears.

Largest outdoor art show Five U.S. museums unite for Art Everywhere

By Deborah Vankin

April 6, 2014, 4:15 p.m.

Among the denim-clad glamour girls and blockbuster movie stars staring down from the billboards of the Sunset Strip, images of great American artworks will be displayed this summer in what organizers are calling “the largest outdoor art show ever conceived.”

Five museums — the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York — have come together with the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America to execute Art Everywhere, a sweeping, interactive art campaign.

Along with billboards in Hollywood, the images will be displayed in Times Square and bus stops, subway platforms and signs around the country.

ART: Can you guess the high price?

Starting Monday, the public will be invited to vote on its favorite American artworks from a master list of 100 that the museums have curated from their combined collections, the frenetic color-drippings of Jackson Pollock and the fluid curves of Georgia O’Keeffe’s oil blossoms among them. The 50 most popular images will then be featured throughout August on about 50,000 billboards and signs in select U.S. cities.

The campaign, which follows a similar progam in England last year that was a collaboration between Innocent Drinks co-founder Richard Reed, arts fundraiser the Art Fund, Tate, and the U.K. out of home advertising industry, may be a publicity play for the museums, but it’s also an effort to raise awareness of art nationwide.

“Images out of sight may be out of mind,” LACMA Director Michael Govan said. “Art Everywhere puts marvelously diverse American ideas and stories told through images in the open air with public involvement — reminding us of the many more great images that are accessible in our museums.”

Voters will be asked to consider not just paintings but photographs, multimedia works, drawings on paper and decorative objects from the 18th century to 2008. Grant Wood’s now-iconic “American Gothic,” of a rigid-looking farmer clutching a pitchfork beside his daughter, was nominated by the Art Institute of Chicago. LACMA’s black and white John Baldessari photograph from the mid-’60s, “Wrong,” is also in the mix.

CHEATSHEET: Spring 2014 arts preview

“In a way, it’s a mini history of American art — and an opportunity for people to identify which works resonate for them personally,” said Dallas Museum of Art Director Maxwell L. Anderson. “I hope families and individuals will have a fresh look at our collective cultural heritage and see the potential in their lives of visiting museums and appreciating great works of art.”

Voting will take place at ArtEverywhereUS.org, where the final list of artworks will be announced June 20. Among the artists whose works are on the ballot: Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Ed Ruscha, Catherine Opie, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman and Frank Lloyd Wright.

“The beauty of this project,” Govan said, “is that we can share these masterpieces of American art with people all around L.A. and the rest of the country — no admission necessary.”

Austria decides not to buy the Essl collection

Austria is not going to buy the Modern art collection of the entrepreneur Karlheinz Essl, the country’s minister of culture announced yesterday, 2 April. He had offered to sell his 7,000-piece collection, most of which is housed in the Essl Museum near Vienna, to raise money to inject into his struggling DIY store chain bauMax.

See also:

• Austria considers bailing out collector

“We discussed every opportunity in depth and have concluded that there will be no acquisition by the Republic,” said Josef Ostermayer, Austria's Minister of Culture, at a press conference that followed a roundtable discussion between Essl, representatives of major Austrian banks and the Ministers of Culture, Social Affairs and Finance.

“The state has no money, so I withdrew my voluntary offer. I don't want to sell the collection to anyone else,” Essl said, adding he was able to reach an agreement with his creditors that will see the museum “secured for the coming years”.

When the government said last week that it was prepared to buy the collection to save jobs, it was criticised by the directors of state museums including the Belvedere and Mumok in Vienna, institutions that have faced a drop in state support. Political parties, such as the right-wing Freedom Party, also spoke out against acquisition by the government, which they argued would be too expensive in a time of budget cuts.

Essl’s collection includes works by major Austrian artists as well as international ones, such as Gerhard Richter, Anish Kapoor and Anselm Kiefer. The collection has an estimated market value of €250m. Julia Michalska 

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Flea market Renoir returns to the Baltimore Museum of Art six decades after its theft

By Ian Shapira

The tiny Renoir that was supposedly purchased for $7 at a flea market and captivated art mystery lovers around the world went back on display Thursday at the Baltimore Museum of Art, more than 62 years after it wasstolen from the building.

BMA officials unveiled “On the Shore of the Seine,” a 51 / 2-by-9-inch oil painting, as part of its newest exhibit, “The Renoir Returns.”

“It’s a moment we’ve been looking forward to,” BMA Director Doreen Bolger told a media horde, many of whom wielded cameras larger than the painting.

The museum is hoping to capitalize on the stolen painting’s improbable saga, which generated headlines far and wide and even inspired an episode of “The Simpsons” this month. As part of the fanfare, the BMA launched a blog in which readers are invited to invent fictional chapters about the painting’s theft — the first of which was penned by a renowned Baltimore crime writer, David Simon.

The impressionist landscape, which Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted on a linen napkin for his mistress at a cafe along the Seine in 1879, was originally purchased by longtime BMA donor Saidie A. May at a Paris gallery and donated to the museum in 1937. While it was on exhibit on Nov. 17, 1951, the painting was somehow spirited out of the building. The thief was never found.

Decades passed, and the BMA forgot about the Renoir. The museum lost track of records showing that it had reported the piece stolen, and an insurance claim had been paid.

But in 2012, the Renoir suddenly vaulted into the news when Martha Fuqua — a driving teacher in Loudoun County, Va., who initially concealed her identity with the alias “Renoir Girl” — said she had unwittingly bought the painting at a West Virginia flea market. The Potomack Company, an Alexandria auction house, was scheduled to sell the flea market find for as much as $100,000, which attracted buyers from Japan, China and Europe.

Days before the auction, however, a Washington Post reporter discovered documents at the BMA’s library showing that the museum had once owned and exhibited the painting. Armed with the paperwork, the BMA found records showing that its staff had reported the painting stolen.

The news prompted the auction house to cancel the sale. The FBI seized the Renoir, and questions about the painting’s murky provenance began to mount.

Friends of Fuqua’s mother, Marcia Fouquet, told The Post that they had seen the Renoir hanging in the mother’s Fairfax County home during the 1980s and 1990s. Fouquet, a painter, attended art college in Baltimore at the time of the Renoir’s theft.

Fuqua’s brother, Matt Fuqua, said that before their mother’s death last year, she told her daughter to “return the painting to its rightful owner — the museum — so all of this goes away.”

Martha Fuqua, 52, declined to comment. She battled in federal court to hang on to the painting, arguing that she was an “innocent owner” who could not have known that the painting was stolen. In January, a judge in U.S. Eastern District Court in Alexandria ordered that the painting be returned to the museum.

The FBI said this week that it has closed its investigation into the theft. Gregg Horner, the special agent in charge of the Renoir case, said it was too difficult to track down anyone who might have known about the painting’s theft because so many people who worked at the museum in the 1950s are dead. Horner said he interviewed Fouquet before she died but did not ask her whether she’d had a role in the painting’s disappearance or had the painting hanging in her home.

“She fell ill quickly, and I didn’t feel [asking those questions] was appropriate,” he said.

On Thursday, the painting’s strange journey was part of its appeal.

“The Renoir Returns” features more than 20 artworks May donated to the BMA, including an oil sketch by Georges Seurat she had purchased with “On the Shore of the Seine” at the same Paris art gallery. The exhibit is open only to museum members until Sunday, when it will open to the public. One display case features May’s diary entry in which she writes about having purchased the piece, as well as the $2,000 receipt for the Renoir and the Seurat.

Susan Helen Adler, one of May’s great-great-nieces and the author of May’s biography, said she was grateful that the museum was honoring her ancestor and the Renoir.

“Recognition of what Saidie May did for this museum is long overdue. It’s fantastic,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that it had to be this way, that it took a stolen painting and the publicity around that painting to bring [attention to] what May did for the museum.”

Katy Rothkopf, the museum’s senior curator of European painting and sculpture, said that the Renoir needed only a light cleaning when it was returned. “It was an absolute thrill to finally be able to get it here,” she said. “It’s such a lovely painting, and it really sparkles. It’s going to play such a great role here because it fills out our collection of Renoirs.”

It may also serve as a marketing tool to boost museum membership. In the days leading to the opening of “The Renoir Returns,” the BMA blasted out e-mails with a picture of the gold-framed Renoir. “Join today!” the e-mails urged. “Receive a free Renoir magnet. Plus save 50% on a mug or a print featuring the Renoir.”

A Renoir mug that, no doubt, will wind up one of these days in a flea market.

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