Mr. Boll, knew Helga and Edzard Reuter, who died in 2024, personally? Yes, we met again and again, but it was not a close friendship. What was important in her assessment as a CEO, but also for the art collection of Mercedes-Benz? In the Stuttgart, in which I lived in the nineties and early two thousand years Edzard Reuter an incredibly influential personality. From 1987 to 1995 he was CEO of Daimler-Benz AG-one of the largest German companies and probably the most important thing in the Stuttgart region. Reuter was highly respected and very visible in the art scene. The company collection founded and built up his friend Hans Baumgart. She received great impulses from Edzard Reuter, central works were purchased as CEO during his time. He was very important for the perception of this group in the cultural world. What concerns the Reuters pursued as private collectors? They were very intellectual collectors of purely contemporary art. The works of her collection date between the middle fifties and middle nineties. The Reuters come from this intellectual school of the post -war period, for which the expression of western modernity was an abstract. In the nineties with reunification and the new enthusiasm for the figuration-i.e. the discovery of the Leipzig painter school or the School of London-the pendulum hit again in a different direction. The Reuters did not support this movement. Rather, her basic philosophical idea was that democracy expresses itself abstractly: one is contemporary in the cultural statements, has modern architecture and does not go back in historicism. For example, they found the reconstruction of the Berlin city palace interesting or contemporary. It becomes understandable that the Reuters were interested in the question of how artists deal with the challenges of their time, but of course also with the inheritance. The conclusion was to collect European and abstractly abstract. Helga and Edzard Reuter lived with their art. How can you imagine your private house in Stuttgart-Schönberg? It had nothing pompous, but it was a generous house of the post-war house with a concrete house in the style of brutalism. The light -flooded rooms were equipped with art until the last corner. This house lived, with many books and newspapers, the lying around, it was by no means a showroom. What art movements and artists fascinated the couple? Firstly geometric abstraction, op-art, kinetic art of continental artists, also some South Americans such as Carlos Cruz-Diez or Jesús Rafael Soto, but they lived in Paris and were very European. The German painters were less interested. And if German art, then from the zero movement: Heinz Mack, Günther Uecker, Otto Piene. It is rather exotic that Peter Roehr is represented in the collection. He died very early and remained an insider artist, which shows how the Reuters were networked with the art world of time. In the garden there was a large sculpture by George Ricey and a Norbert Kricke inside, which is also interesting. There are two obvious positions that symbolize the old European-American axis. The collection shows a strong French presence, next to Yves Klein, François Morellet, who has now come back into fashion, was collected, Jean Tinguely or the Belgian Pol Bury. Italian artists occupy a considerable space, such as Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, Francesco Lo Savio, to name the big names. It is a collection that was relatively typical for this generation. How many works will be auctioned on May 28th? The catalog for the Paris Collection Auction includes fifty works. Another 26 works come to auction in the regular Paris auctions in October and December. You can call some topless ones? From Yves Klein, the highest rated work comes with a tax of 600,000 to 800,000 euros. “Relief Planétaire-Terre, Marseille/Aix” from 1961, entirely in Klein-Blau, was very important to the Reuters and had a central place. A hole image from Fontana is the most expensive under the Italian artists, estimated at 400,000 to 600,000 euros. A black work by Enrico Castellani, which is rated 200,000 to 300,000 euros, is also important. The German artists and works are all compiled very precisely, with the three Uecker nail plants with taxis between 80,000 and 200,000 euros are the most valuable. There is also a particularly beautiful relief work from Tinguely that moves. It has a black background, and white structural elements cut made of metal sitting on axles that can be rotated a small engine. It looks magical. The taxes are 100,000 to 150,000 euros. More on the subject of further ads, which is why the collection is auctioned, and why not in Germany? The couple died last autumn and had no children. Many years ago, the Reuters had decided to found a foundation to stand up for their sociopolitical concerns. She is devoted to questions of international understanding and cultural exchange. The proceeds of the collection – we expect three to five million euros – benefit from this foundation, as provided for. The auction takes place in France because it has a fairly large proportion of French artists. Since Brexit, the demand for Italian positions of the post -war period in Paris has re -located. The highest prices can be achieved there for these two parts of the collection. We are now seeing enthusiasm for the post -war art of our continent, especially in Europe, after we have looked at the figurative schools for decades. I believe that the collection could catch a good moment for your market appearance in Paris. Boll is the board of the auction house Christie’s and responsible for art from the 20th and 21st centuries.
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