Art fair
“You need the adrenaline” – Art Cologne is back
Daniel Hug (r) is director of Art Cologne. Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The corona pandemic has turned the art market upside down: trade fairs had to be canceled, instead of art to touch, there were photos on the Internet. Now the largest German art fair is celebrating its comeback in Cologne.
It hangs there in a black, heavy frame, not that big at all. But it works. In front of the painting on which Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) immortalized his then partner Françoise Gilot, almost everyone who strolls through the velvety carpet through Hall 11.1 of Germany’s largest art fair Art Cologne stops.
Gallery owner Daniel von Schacky knows how to provide the pleasant details from Gilot’s relationship with the painter: “She is actually the only woman who has left him.” Mostly it was the other way around. That alone can hardly explain the asking price of two million euros.
Look and buy, also up on the shelf – this is what Art Cologne stands for, which once emerged from the “Cologne Art Market”. However, this was not possible for two and a half years due to Corona. The fair had to be postponed several times after the last edition in April 2019. It opened again on Wednesday. And the gallery owners are relieved to meet people again. “You need the originals, you need the adrenaline to see the art,” says Gianfranco Schiavano from the Häusler Contemporary Gallery.
Enough of online pictures
A Picasso is iconic, explains Daniel von Schacky – you can recognize it from 100 kilometers away. Just looking at something like that on the Internet is just not the same thing. Online saturation has set in with collectors. “That is not the experience of art for her: to see any kind of picture on the screen. They say: I’m not here at Amazon, I don’t want to order anything. ” At the same time, the lockdown also aroused the desire to buy. After the long time in his own four walls, customers would have said to him: “There is still a picture missing on the wall. What do you have?”
That is the sound that Art Cologne director Daniel Hug should also like. At the opening he presented the numbers: around 150 galleries and dealers from more than 20 countries were there. The interest? As big as before the pandemic. «We had to postpone the fair three times. The galleries that had already been admitted therefore had the opportunity to withdraw from their acceptance. Very few really made use of this, ”says Hug.
Nevertheless, the director cannot elicit a specific forecast of how many visitors will come by Sunday. In 2019 there were around 57,000 people. “There will certainly be fewer visitors than in previous years,” says Hug. The list of highlights, however, is easy to read: next to Picasso there is a picture by August Macke that has not been on public display since 1968. Works by Andy Warhol and Georg Baselitz can be viewed at other stands. There are also established light artists such as James Turrell, or young talents such as Conny Maier.
The 3G rule applies
Those who come have to wear a mask because of the pandemic in the corridors – which have been widened. The 3G rule also applies: Only those who have been vaccinated, those who have recovered or who have been tested have access. The first impression is that it is not difficult for the quite distinguished art connoisseur audience to keep a little distance if necessary. Ecstatic scenes like the one seen in Cologne a week ago – keyword: the beginning of Carnival – are not to be feared at Art Cologne. Even if there is alcohol. A bottle of champagne at the stand costs 95 euros.
So everything as before? No, it is not like that either, most say. The pandemic has made the art market more digital, says the director of Berlin’s König Galerie, Anneli Botz. “That you were constantly on the move and that the works of art were constantly being shuffled back and forth” is no longer necessary. With a view to climate change, this is a good development. The demand for digital art is also enormous because there is now more understanding for it.
“You do not believe how many podcasts there are now from our ranks and the social media channels are used much more naturally by us,” says Karin Schulze-Frieling from the Federal Association of German Galleries and Art Dealers (BVDG). Work was also carried out in lockdown, just differently – sometimes not that digital at all. “Partly as before, with the phone in hand,” says Schulze-Frieling. They simply called the collectors.