Exhibition: Sheila Hicks – Thread, Trees, River

Dynamic, sensually enticing, infinitely colorful, delicately intimate, and often monumental and space-defining: the fabrics, sculptures, and installations of artist Sheila Hicks challenge traditional notions of art and explore new territories. Hicks is a virtuoso in textile vocabularies and their historical traditions, interweaving the fine arts with design, the applied arts, and architecture to create objects and environments in which materiality, tactility, form, and color – ranging from the subtle to the vibrantly luminous – become a fascinating language of their own.

Balta: Slight recovery in the third quarter

Balta reports a recovery for the third at least in the business units Balta Home (rugs and carpets, +11%) and Residential (residential, +0.2%) and sales above those of the same period last year. The situation remains unsatisfactory for textile coverings for contract business, where the Belgians continue to report a minus of 23.7%. In total, sales of EUR 144.4 million (-7.2%) were achieved between July and September.

XXXLutz opens its most modern store in Eugendorf (A)

The XXXLutz furniture store in Eugendorf has been open since 5 November 2020. It is the second largest XXXLutz furniture store in Austria and is intended to be a "best of" that combines all the Group's knowledge and experience from 13 European countries. Lutz invested around EUR 38 million in Eugendorf. The existing Möbelix furniture store at the location was also completely renovated. With its reopening at the end of the year, the XXXLutz Group will then have all its three divisions at the location.

Volker Heinrich: Hans-Hermann Schenk retired

The Hamburg oriental carpet importer Volker Heinrich announces a change in the management. After more than 40 years with the company, Hans-Hermann Schenk went into well-earned retirement on 31.10.2020. His tasks are taken over by Thorsten Heinrich, the 2nd managing director who is leading the company together with Volker Heinrich.

Steinhoff: Markus Jooste sentenced to millions

Former Steinhoff board member Markus Jooste has been sentenced to a fine of ZAR 162 million (approx. EUR 8.6 million) by a South African regulatory authority. At the end of 2017, Steinhoff's holding company, which at the time also included the furniture chains Kika/Leiner, Poco and Conforama, had fallen into a deep crisis following the reporting of irregularities in its balance sheet.

Anniversary: 75 years XXXLutz

The Lutz Group celebrates its 75th birthday. On 31 October 1945 Gertrude Seifert founded a cabinet maker's workshop in Haag am Hausruck in Upper Austria. The small craft business gradually developed into a furniture dealer, which began to expand strongly when her sons Richard and Andreas Seifert joined the company in the 1970s. Today, the Lutz Group, with its various distribution channels (including XXXLutz, Möbelix and Mömax), operates more than 320 furniture stores in 13 European countries and has an annual turnover of EUR 5.1 billion.

Six new XXXLutz furniture stores in Hungary

XXXLutz took over six Kika stores in Hungary last year. They were reopened on 15 October under the brand name XXXLutz, now offering completely new and larger ranges. During the conversions, special emphasis was placed on presentation and decoration. The new XXXLutz furniture stores were opened in Budaörs, Györ, Pecs, Debrecen, and two in Budapest.

New Ikea branch in Karlsruhe

For years, the furniture giants Ikea and XXXLutz have been competing intensively for market leadership in Germany, with the Swedish company still one step ahead. St the end of September, they opened their 54th German branch in Karlsruhe, in the immediate vicinity of a large Lutz location including Mömax and Roller markets, which also belong to the XXXLutz Group. In a survey conducted by the Karlsruhe online daily newspaper Ka-News, asking whether there were "too many furniture stores in one place" in the area now, over 50% of the participants answered "no".

Einrichtungspartnerring VME improves compared to 2018

The purchasing association Einrichtungspartnerring VME achieved a net profit of EUR 10.07 million in 2019 (2018: EUR 9.87 million) with a centrally regulated turnover of EUR 1.28 billion (2018: EUR 1.25 billion). "This is a very good result after a furniture year with ups and downs," Managing Director Frank Stratmann said at the shareholders' meeting. Founded in 1964, the group currently has around 200 member companies with a total of more than 400 furniture stores, specialist or cash-and-carry markets in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Exhibition "In Women's Hands", Milan

About a dozen female artists and designers were invited to exhibit their work in the exhibition "In Women's Hands". The show, curated by Gisella Borioli, according to the official press release, "brings together designers and architects of very different ages and backgrounds: from decorative items to sculpture to architecture, each woman presents her own being and her work."

The exhibit by Francesca Gasparotti from the SoFar SoNear design studio in Milan features a carpet from the "Ghashgha'i meets Bauhaus" collection. This collection was designed by SoFar SoNear for Zollanvari. The exhibition is open until 29 October 2020 in the MyOwnGallery in Milan.