SPIEGEL: When I bought a picture of Katharina Grosse at the König Galerie five years ago, an artist whose prices have risen immensely since then - should I have it auctioned off profitably today in the auction house Ketterer Kunst?
King: No, they should sell it to me.
Ketterer: That's exactly how I see it ... if you want to get less money for it.
King: You'll get your money from me right away, and you do not have to wait for the next season. After all, auctions take place only twice a year, in spring and autumn.
Ketterer: You can also auction the picture on my online auction, this is every month.
King: I sell it discreetly, not everyone gets it.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Ketterer, you bought your first Picasso at just 12 years old. You, Mr. King, lost their sight at the same age. They played with blank cartridges of a starting pistol, thereby causing an explosion that severely injured their eyes.
King: I wanted to rearrange my baseball cards and put the black powder pellets into another can. They must have heated themselves and exploded. I had to go to the hospital for almost a year, could not see anything. Nevertheless, I bought my first artwork at the age of 19. A picture of Carsten Fock. It costs at that time 3000 marks. I sold cell phone contracts on the Blind Board and financed the picture.
Ketterer: I bought my first artwork, the Picasso, at my father's auction. For 560 marks. I was totally fascinated by the picture, because it was painted with so few strokes and still a face was recognizable.
King: Do you still have the picture? You're a notorious art dealer.
Ketterer: Three years later I sold it again because I got 100 marks more.
King: I still have my first picture.
Ketterer: Just because you have not got rid of it yet, because you've bought it too expensive!
SPIEGEL: They both come from important art clans, but initially did not want to continue the family tradition. Why did you finally change your mind?
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King: Because at that time I did not know what to do. I could not do an internship because of my blindness. Then I looked for a job myself and opened a gallery at the age of 21. With an assistant, which was approved by the social welfare office, as an integration aid for the severely handicapped.
Ketterer: I was an associate at my father's auctions and always had to whisper to him about football and Formula One. One day he nudged me and asked if I wanted to pass on the auction. I stammered, he said to those present in the hall: "Well, I may now hand over to my son Robert." Then he got up and just went ... I was only 25 when he handed me the company. That was too early.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Ketterer, your auction house recently made the largest sales of contemporary art. Mr. King, your gallery also buys works of art to resell them.
King: We are competitors, of course. A collector of mine has just bought a work by Swiss artist Claudia Comte from Christie's. Although she currently also has a solo exhibition in my London gallery. The collector liked the grain of the sculpture that was in the auction better. But the auction result was good, it was above the gallery prices. Now the prices for the artist have risen overall.
SPIEGEL: Are prices so priced? A gallery owner sets the value of a work of art as high as possible. Later, the work will be auctioned at an auction even more expensive, then the gallery owner can sell the new works also expensive.
King: Everyone believes that when an artist scores high, he simply paints 40 more pictures a year. But that's not how it works. Successful artists become more self-critical and suddenly produce much more slowly. Most of them are not about money.
Ketterer: When the work of an artist achieves a record at an auction, everyone runs to the gallery for his new work. But only to then resell them more expensively at the earliest possible opportunity. Of course, this is only possible as long as the artist is in demand. Eventually the art speculation bubble bursts. This damages the artist's career without him being able to do anything about it.
King: That's day trading , like on the stock market. But if there was no secondary market, then as a gallerist I would not do business anymore. No one spends 50,000 euros or more on a work of art without relying on it to increase in value over the years.
SPIEGEL: Who actually earns the most money? Gallery, auction house or the artists themselves?
Ketterer: Collectors who made the right purchasing decision 20 years ago.
King: They have the least cost. Okay, they have to buy a plant first. But they pay nothing for trade fairs and marketing to eventually make the picture money again.
SPIEGEL: Do not I really have to be ashamed if I blow a fortune for a work of art?
Ketterer: With art you buy a piece of quality of life. She is a mirror of her own personality. Auctions are an experience, because you do not know if you get a work in the end. If you buy the work in a gallery, you may have previously spent evenings with the artist in his studio to get to know him.
Valentina von Klencke / Ketterer
"Ship containers and aircraft cargo rooms full of works of art"
König: The prices for art are so high because everything is so expensive: catalogs that we print, the participation fee for fairs, the costs for our employees, the production costs of the artists. But they are right that the sustainability debate in the art business is not already louder, I am also surprised.
SPIEGEL: What is your own commitment?
König: I decided this year, because of the eco-balance, not to fly to Art Basel in the future in Miami or Hong Kong ... You have to imagine there are 500 galleries from all over the world. Hundreds of shipping containers and aircraft cargo rooms full of works of art are transported there for just five days of the fair. We have to become more regional again, also in the arts. The Art Cologne will become more important again.
SPIEGEL: Mr. König, you used gender justice in your gallery program. However, things look different in the auction market: According to a study by Artnet between 2008 and the first half of 2019 to auctions over 196 billion dollars were implemented, but only two percent came through works of art artists.
King: Artnet has also released another study. It says that if you want to make money with art in the future, you have to buy works by women. They are notoriously undervalued and that will change over the next few years. I am also in favor of a women's quota on buying works of art for public museums.
Ketterer: I am against any odds, because then the quality is no longer decisive for whether a piece of art comes to the museum.
Exhibition "Szene Berlin October 19": König Galerie visits Ketterer Kunst ; until October 25, 2019, Munich