Essays

What remains is decided.

The essays approach artist and collector estates from five perspectives: orientation, structure, visibility, art market & institutions, and responsibility. They ask how estates become legible, who writes their history, and which decisions shape their future.

Orientation

Fundamental perspectives for a reflective approach to artistic estates.

01Help, I've Inherited Art. What Now?
02What an Estate Is — and What It Is Not
03Why Artists' Estates Are Not a Storage Problem, but Cultural Capital
04The Fallacy of Acting Fast
05Why Estates Need Time

Structure

How an estate is ordered, documented, and structured before it can become legible.

01When does a body of works become a body of work?
02Order as Attribution
03Why every catalogue raisonné begins too late
04Archives, Boxes and Hard Drives
05The Catalogue Raisonné as Intervention

Visibility

On publicity, attention, and the right moment to make an estate visible.

01Why many estates become visible too early
02Visibility Is Not a Beginning
03The Second Career of a Work
04Exhibition Is Not the Same as Recognition

Art market & institutions

On the relationship between estates and the art market, museums, research, and institutional recognition.

01Why Market Value and Cultural Value Are Not the Same
02The Estate in the Tension Between Market and Museum
03When the market matters – and when it doesn't

Responsibility

On family, decisions, and the responsibility for what is culturally passed on.

01Between Grief and Responsibility
02Who owns interpretive authority?
03Who decides the history of an estate?
04Inheriting Without Preparation