A new market place

At a time when auctions, galleries, art dealers, art fairs, and increasingly online galleries dominate the market for art buyers, an arts journal has found a way of building a reputation for selling conceptual art by established artists at an affordable standard price to an international audience of art collectors and investors. ‘Texte zur Kunst’, an academic, contemporary arts journal based in Berlin, is defying the art world with a concept benefiting the artist and the buyer. As a medium, it serves as a platform for established and emerging artists to show new work to an international audience of art lovers and collectors, as well as allowing buyers to explore new artists or invest in artworks by highly esteemed names.

Established in 1990 by art historians Stefan Germer and Isabelle Graw, whose interest and ambition was to provide critical and controversial discussions on the evolving art scene, it has promoted paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures by the likes of Gerhard Richter, Raymond Pettibon, Julian Schnabel, Fischli & Weiss and Wolfgang Tillmanns. The quarterly publication incorporates reviews of national and international exhibitions, academic essays and the marketing of artists’ editions.

The artist, once commissioned to produce a limited edition exclusive to the journal, goes on to finalise the product and then receives an exhibition space within the publishing house where subscribers, customers and those curious can visit.

Prices vary, depending on the artist’s prestige, the austerity edition (where the price depends on how scarce the edition is) and the value of artists’ previous works, between the standard rates of €245 and €980. The current special edition by Gerhard Richter, anticipated to be in high demand due to the seven-figure sums his works have reached at auction, is offered exclusively to subscribers, who can purchase the artwork ‘40.000’, at a price of €2,800. Richard Prince, whose untitled cowboy photograph in 2005 set a record for the most expensive photograph sold at auction, was also commissioned by Texte zur Kunst for a photograph entitled ‘Madame Butterfly’ in 2006. Raymond Pettibon contributed an edition to the latest issue, whilst his other paintings recently went on auction for more than $50,000 at Sotheby’s New York.

The ‘Junge Edition’, showcasing work by emerging artists, includes artwork by Nairy Baghramian, Michaela Meise and David Lieske. If young artists benefit primarily from exposure, established artists can claim an academic status to their work shaped by intellectual, scrutinising discourse on their own work and that of fellow artists. The publication acknowledges media relevance and often recognises a conceptual approach by the artist; conceptual ideas are deconstructed for the aesthetic, socio-political and historical value of a work to be critically determined.

By promoting the work of world artists, often represented by galleries in New York, London and Berlin, the journal attracts a similar international interest, with buyers coming as far as the US and Canada to purchase an exclusive artist’s edition. The key market involves art historians, artists, curators, art lovers, investors and collectors. Although the journal is available at selective bookshops only, and costs €15, the fact remains that prestigious art is made accessible to a vast audience.