Art Cologne focuses on painting

Trump, Putin, Israel, Ukraine? At this year’s Art Cologne there is no risk of being bothered with political crisis scenarios. And if so, then hidden in the “New Positions” segment, where Fabian Knecht in the Alexander Levy gallery, for example, points out the impending danger of a shift to the right with blue and brown cables sticking out of the wall.

Return of the 80s

However, history is more present thanks to the return of the 1980s in the exhibition halls. It becomes visible through pictures of Mülheimer Freiheit, for example at the stand of Berliner Michael Haas, where a “Man with a Candle” (1982) by Walter Dahn with a stretched physique causes irritated looks. The Sprüth Magers gallery is also following the trend and is showing Walter Dahn’s spray work “Baselitz-Pop”. The ex-Cologne artist Michael Werner, whose pool of “wild” painters is likely to be enormous, shows himself to be compatible and has Jörg Immendorff represent the decade with the painting “There is no hell” from 1982.

With so much nostalgia, one cannot help but think of the glory days of the longest-running fair for modern and contemporary art in the 1980s: an era that did not yet have to contend with global competition. As the leading trade fair for the German art trade, the Art Cologne but continues to be indispensable and defends its position with reliable quality, even if internationally renowned participants such as Hauser & Wirth or David Zwirner are again absent.

More young galleries

To achieve this, trade fair director Daniel Hug has expanded the “Neumarkt” section to 26 young galleries. There was no sign of a gloomy mood among the around 170 participants at the opening. Safe “flatware” dominated; video art was something to look out for. After all, many galleries stocked their stands with shaped, cast or sewn objects, such as Berman Contemporary South African Art from Johannesburg, which focused on textile art by women.

In the lower hall, with its offering of post-war art and classical modernism, which is getting smaller every year, the Vertes gallery from Zurich shone with works by Erich Heckel, Alexej Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter and Emil Nolde. The Dortmund gallery Utermann also relied on Nolde. She created the painting “Autumn Evening on Alsen” from 1903. The price is 1,350,000 euros, which is now a rare category for Art Cologne. The frontrunner is Frank Stella’s double painting with concentric squares for $5.9 million at Galerie Samuelis Baumgarte.

Important collectors and institutions

The Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, top dog in the contemporary segment, is satisfied: “We look forward to Cologne every year, because important German collectors and institutions are always among the visitors to Art Cologne. Here we have repeatedly been able to place works in different price ranges.” The first sales included the work “Before and Now” by Georg Baselitz for 850,000 euros as well as a sculpture by Jack Pierson (150,000 euros), a ceramic by Miquel Barceló for 65,000 euros and one Drawing by Marc Brandenburg (33,000 euros).

At Karsten Greve, the successful mix at the spacious stand was convincing. Delicate drawings and colorful large formats by Leiko Ikemura as well as a monumental Zen picture by Qiu Shihua are grouped around the huge terracotta “figure” by Norbert Prangenberg. Anne Imhof then had the huge mushroom cloud meditated away at Daniel Buchholz’s stand. It comes from the series that were shown in the exhibition “Wish You Were Gay” at the Kunsthaus Bregenz this year.

The 28-year-old Paul Henkel, grandson of the Düsseldorf patron and collector Gabriele Henkel, was met for the second time in the Contemporary sector. With his New York Palo Gallery, he relies on a program rich in contrasts. At his stand, the paintings by the Liberian-born painter Lewinale Havette catch the eye. And lo and behold, the expressive style of the portraits is reminiscent of the Young Wild Ones. And that at a comparatively modest price of around 35,000 US dollars.