02.12.2024

#STAND WITH UKRAINE

Building design

The world is shocked by the war in Ukraine. The willingness to help is enormous. The Bundesarchitektenkammer e.V. (BAK) has listed help and support services for colleagues who have fled.

The world is shocked by the war in Ukraine. The willingness to help is enormous. The Bundesarchitektenkammer e.V. (BAK) has listed help and support services for colleagues who have fled.

The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine is causing enormous suffering. People are losing their homes and livelihoods are being destroyed. The Bundesarchitektenkammer e.V. (BAK) therefore offers concrete help in addition to expressions of solidarity and has launched the “StandWithUkraine” page. We briefly present the most important Ukraine aid and support offers here.

Refugees from Ukraine should be admitted to EU member states quickly and without bureaucratic hurdles and receive health insurance cover and access to the labor market in Germany. To this end, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs is currently setting up a first digital contact point with basic information for refugees: www.germany4ukraine.de

The Chamber of Architects of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Chamber of Architects and Urban Planners of Hesse present information on their websites on the recognition of foreign educational qualifications and certificates of qualification in the fields of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and urban planning. The PDFs for download are available in German, English and Ukrainian.

www.aknw.de

www.akh.de

Job exchange for Ukrainian architects

Eric Sturm initiated a job exchange for Ukrainian architects and civil engineers on his website “architekturmeldungen.de” at the beginning of March 2022:

architekturmeldungen.de/jobs-for-architects-from-ukraine-in-germany

Architectural firms can register English-language job offers there that are suitable for Ukrainian architects. “To create an uncomplicated, central point of contact – both for planning offices that want to actively help and for architects from Ukraine who want to get involved here in Germany,” explains Eric Sturm. “Because nobody knows how long this situation will last.” Recently, job-seeking planners from Ukraine have been able to submit their job title or the job they are looking for as well as links to their profiles on the site. The site is available in German and English.

Since March 16, 2022, planning offices have also been able to place free job advertisements on competitionline.com aimed at refugee architects and planners from Ukraine. Here, too, offices that want to become active and help can network with specialists from Ukraine who want to get involved in Germany. Find out more here.

Opportunities for architects and creative professionals from Ukraine

An initiative supported by CANactions, Kiev, is collecting opportunities (jobs, training, research, scholarships or accommodation) for architects from Ukraine who have found themselves in a difficult situation as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine. Suggestions are collected in this form.

Study support is available in Bavaria

The Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts has set up an emergency fund for Ukrainian students and researchers. “Bavaria is providing quick and uncomplicated assistance to Ukrainian students and researchers who are currently in Bavaria for research and study purposes and are in an emergency situation due to the current war situation,” explains Bavaria’s Science Minister Markus Blume. “We are making half a million euros available for an emergency fund.”

Anyone who wants to get involved privately

“Aktion Deutschland Hilft”, the alliance of renowned German aid organizations, is providing emergency aid to people in Ukraine and neighboring countries. You can donate online here.

Offer accommodation

The Bundesarchitektenkammer e.V. (BAK). is making its network available to the Ukrainian Association of Architects. If you can offer accommodation or concrete help, please write to info@bak.de.

21.12.2024

Product

Filigree fittings for all-glass doors

Building design

The “Tectus Glas” hinge system from Simonswerk offers a comprehensive hardware solution for all-glass doors. For the first time, the door leaf and frame are on the same level.

The “Tectus Glas” hinge system from Simonswerk offers a comprehensive hardware solution for all-glass doors. For the first time, the door leaf and frame are on the same level – creating a continuous and minimalist look. The patented hinge technology is barely visible and offers reliable and durable functionality thanks to the stable hinge kinematics. It is used for glass doors in the interior fittings of residential and commercial buildings on wooden, steel and aluminum frames.

A magnetic lock and several handles are available to match the hinge technology. The hardware components are installed using an easy-to-install clamping and plug-in system; no glass processing is required on the door leaf. Another advantage is the opening angle of 180°.

01.12.2024

Exhibitions, Industry news, Research

“Counterfeiting is a systemic problem” – Interview with Hubertus Butin

Building design

Art historian, art theorist, publicist and curator Hubertus Butin. Photo: © Christiane Haid, Berlin

Hubertus Butin is an art historian, art theorist, publicist and curator. In the 1990s, he worked in Gerhard Richter’s studio in Cologne and published his catalog raisonné of editions in 2014. Today, he works as an appraiser for Richter’s works and is an expert on forgeries. RESTAURO spoke to him about his experiences

Hubertus Butin is an art historian, art theorist, publicist and curator. In the 1990s, he worked in Gerhard Richter’s studio in Cologne and published his catalog raisonné of editions in 2014. Today, he works as an expert on Gerhard Richter’s works and is an expert on forgeries. RESTAURO spoke to him about his experiences

RESTAURO: Mr Butin, how did you come to specialize in this field?

There is no other artist about whom I have published as much as I have about Gerhard Richter. If you are also the author of one of his catalogs raisonnés, it seems obvious that as an expert you should write expert reports on behalf of private collections, art dealers, auction houses, museums and investigating authorities. This is because authors of catalogs raisonnés usually not only have theoretical expertise, but also in-depth knowledge of objects.

Restauro: Can you name a particularly spectacular case that you helped to clarify? How did you proceed?

Hubertus Butin. A fraudster had come up with a clever provenance story by writing the following dedication on the back of a monochrome gray oil painting that is not in the catalog raisonné: “For Armin (K 20)”. This led the Berlin dealers, through whose hands the painting passed in 2005, to believe that it was a personal gift from Gerhard Richter to Professor Armin Zweite, the former director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. But when I asked Armin Zweite, he said he knew nothing about this dubious gift. In fact, the painting was a complete forgery. Today, the painting with its supposedly respectable past is in the possession of a collector in Vancouver, who acquired it in 2006 for a large sum as a supposed original. Both a simple provenance search and a stylistic examination of the painting confirmed the fraud.

RESTAURO: Not all fakes are clever. Can you give us an example of a particularly brazen forgery?

Hubertus Butin: A forger who tried to sell oil paintings on cardboard as works by Gerhard Richter via various auction houses from 2008 onwards was particularly criminally energetic. The paintings were confiscated by the police, and Richter himself wrote an expert report in which he clearly classified the works as forgeries. Proceedings were opened against the alleged perpetrator, and the expert report was then handed over by the police to the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office. There, either the forger himself or his lawyer stole this expert opinion during a file inspection and reproduced it using a copying machine. The forger then manipulated the document with the artist’s original signature in such a way that the letter now appeared to be a confirmation of authenticity, which the fraudster then used for further offers to sell a new series of abstract oil paintings. This case illustrates very clearly that fraudsters not only forge or falsify works of art, but sometimes also written documents such as certificates of authenticity, which are then used as a tool to sell the forgeries.

Restauro: In 2019, a forged oil painting in the style of Gerhard Richter appeared at Christie’s in New York. Were you consulted as an expert in this forgery case, in which the then Berlin gallery Michael Schultz was involved?

Yes, I was asked to examine the painting at the Berlin State Criminal Police Office. At first glance, it appeared to be the colored oil painting “Abstraktes Bild” by Gerhard Richter from 1989 with the catalogue raisonné number 705-2, but a close comparison with the illustration in the catalog raisonné of the paintings, written by Dietmar Elger, quickly revealed that it was a copy, a so-called forgery. This was very surprising, as Richter usually creates his abstract paintings with a squeegee, and such works cannot be exactly repeated. With this long, narrow strip of Plexiglas, the artist can create streaky color structures that cannot be precisely calculated and thus deliberately incorporate chance. Although it is impossible to copy this painting process, the forger has attempted to do just that. He succeeded to some extent with the colors and the composition, but inevitably failed in the details.
A simple examination of the material then revealed further evidence. Among other things, the back of the wooden stretcher frame, to which the canvas is attached with staples, was conspicuous. The stretcher frame was stamped with the FSC seal by its manufacturer. This stamp in the form of a stylized tree is intended to indicate that wood from ecologically sustainable forestry has been used. However, as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) organization based in Bonn was only founded in 1993, the stretcher frame and the painting could not have been made in 1989. And there was nothing to suggest that the stretcher and the staples had been renewed at a later date. The forger also tried to remove the stamped batch number with a chisel, but was not completely successful. There is no reason for an artist to make this numbering disappear, but there is for a fraudster. Because this number can be used to determine the year of production of the stretcher frame.

The interview was conducted by Dr. Inge Pett.