Founded in 1967, and formerly the most important fair for contemporary art, today Art Cologne—the mother of all modern art fairs—finds itself in an identity crisis. In the course of a general globalization, which has not spared the art market as well, the German art fair has in recent years had increasing difficulty asserting themselves among many competitors for the patronage of international buyers and exhibition institutions. Thus the fair’s organizers must in the end be confronted by much —seldom unjustified—maliciousness, which does not appreciably simplify matters. Art Cologne is made fun of as the fair with the most beautiful views of the Cologne Cathedral in acrylic, the ugliest booths and the worst practical visitor services. It is not only a few of its previously faithful supporters that have seriously contemplated completely crossing Art Cologne off their travel calendars in the future. It is imperative to rethink the fair’s concept, in order to find ways out of the crisis that is evident to everyone.

Yet everyone who is somewhat familiar with Cologne knows how difficult it is to implement novelties in that city, a place which one values whose continually propagated “carnival statutes” go: 1) It is the way it is. 2) It happens the way it happens. 3) It is still going well—which is as good as saying in standard German that nothing will be changed, and not for the next thousand years either. Backstage one has already begun to mock Gerard A. Goodrow, the fair’s director since 2003, who will never in his life be able to hold his own against Colognese sophistry. Yet this year the quiet tactics of this American, born the same year as the Cologne Art Fair was founded, very gradually became apparent. Against sharp protests on the part of the fair’s administration as well as art dealers, Goodrow accomplished moving the Art Fair up into the early part of next year, so that it will take place again this coming April 18-22 in 2007—or before all the other international art fairs. Furthermore, not during the Cologne Carneval season, which can already be evaluated as a good omen.

In addition, the fair’s image has been refined: the hallways are wider and more airy, the booth- and rest-areas as well, and the entry zone is so extravagantly designed that Art Basel might be jealous of it. The space for new galleries and artists, presented in special shows called “Open Space”, “New Contemporaries”, and “New Talents”, has been expanded and on the other hand, even the oldies have been given their place in a “Hidden Treasures” area (among them for example William N. Copley, Valie Export, Auguste Herbin and Fred Sandback). Also the arrangement of the 185 participating galleries is perceptably unusual. Sixteen galleries from Austria are there among others, including fifteen from Spain; while Korea, France, and the Netherlands are each represented by seven, with only two from the U.S. (Leo Koenig and Margarete Roeder).

Thus one will not encounter many international art dealers with pop star status at Art Cologne. Not Claudia Schiffer nor Kate Moss either. But is that really a disadvantage? Or is Gerard A. Goodrow correct when he says: “We do not have Ropac? So what?”. With respect to the quality of an art fair, it does not play any role where the galleries are from, as long as the art on display is good. On the other hand, Goodrow also has no problem with presenting art from a gallery in hicksville. That it in any case attracts neither stars nor lesser starlets, these days presumed to be the indication of a good art event, is noticeable: the Frieze Art Fair has Schiffer and Moss, Cologne the German politician Guido Westerwelle and the former tennis star Michael Stich. Sex does not exactly sell here.

Therefore Cologne is pleasantly unexciting and visitors can finally pay attention to the art for a change, instead of having to crane their heads watching flashy new attractions and supermodels. Buying instead of gawking—if this motto took off, it could save Cologne. The quality of what is exhibited this year elevates itself above what was shown the previous one, the top name artists are well represented. One could almost get the impression that a few of the galleries have mustered their ambition, and want to demonstrate that they have something with which to oppose the super-duper galleries.

Tony Oursler’s new work Undle of 2005 shakes up the last bored ones at the Galerie Forsblom from Helsinki with repeated “wake-up” calls. A few booths further along, it is Shoichiro Satake from the Japanese gallery Sho Contemporary Art is apparently so shaken up, that he is consistently trying to attract attention on his unbelievable flash of genius concerning the stand architecture: In the middle of the booth, the art dealer has constructed a kind of witches’ circle out of limestone, in the center of which Andy Warhol’s Superman Collage, no. 15 from 1960 has found its place (280,000 Euro). This work is surrounded by large comic-book figures by Takashi Murakami—“so that Warhol’s influence can also come to be precisely evaluated”, as Shoichiro Satake explains. The rest of that presentation is dominated by an original mixture of works by Bettina Rheims, Helmut Newton, Yayoi Kusama, and Pierre Auguste Renoir (Roses Fragment, 240.000 Euro).

The CologneGalerie Benden & Klimczak also brought Andy Warhol along to the fair: a wrapping paper frieze unrolls itself across the wall, with Daimler Motorcoach (1886) and Benz Patented Motor Car, with People (1886). This gigantic work by Warhol was produced in 1987, on the occasion of the automobile’s 100th anniversary, commissioned by Daimler Benz and now supposed to be costing 3.5 Million Euros. Somewhat more substantial, is the Galerie Terminus’ Andy Warhol’s Absolut Vodka, also from 1987, which is to be acquired there for 1.6 Million Euro. The Munich gallery is also offering the most expensive pieces at Art Cologne, one of the last works from Roy Lichtenstein’s early Pop phase still available. Not necessarily for peanuts is his Woman with Peanuts from 1963 to be had, for which one would have to fork out 4.5 million Euros.

Other art dealers devote considerable one-person shows to their artists: thus Karsten Greve from Cologne has arranged a whole section for Louise Bourgeois, among which is her latest fabric collage from 2006, and many hanging sculptures (prices on request). Already sold during the opening were three of the five large-format works by the Greek Arte povera artist Jannis Kounellis, for whom Greve also reserved his own space. Kounellis, who will be 70 this year, is also honored with an homage at the Art Cologne. In a far, for the most part unobserved corner of one of the halls, one discovers rather unlikely participants in an art fair, whose strong smell is the only thing that gives them away to the uninformed: ten peacefully hay-munching live horses, which form a reconstruction of Kounellis’ installation Ohne Titel (Dodici Cavalli Vivi) first shown in 1969, with which the artist interrogates the art gallery’s function as an instrument of mediation. It still functions today: like the ox in front of a mountain, the viewers stand in front of the installation. So much real life in the midst of art seems uncanny to them.

To move on quickly to more transposed real life, only banned to behind glass: An Historical Lederhosen by Guillaume Bijl for example, which is supposed to have come from Herbert von Karajan and is to be acquired at the gallery Annie Gentils from Antwerp, as are many other ironical works by various Dutch artists as well. Or as the lifeless animal whose teeth are being operated on at lukasfeichtner from Vienna. In Deborah Sengl’s work out of the series Entarnungen (Degenerations) from 2006, in which a wild cat maltreats a stag lying in a dentist’s chair, human identity is revealed to be fragile. For in fact the centaur in reverse has a more-than-human effect in his fear.

Gerard A. Goodrow should not have any fear of the Colognese clique and the art coterie any more, that much can be taken as a fact. No phoenix out of the ashes may be present in Cologne to admire, but an improvement of the situation is clearly perceptible. Whether that will ultimately be sufficient for salvaging the good old bird Art Cologne remains to be awaited expectantly in the coming years.

Translation: Julia Bernard

Big Mama Colonia von Henrike Schulte (in German)