Quietly wise young man Painting has a kind of magic: it can open onto other senses. This is the case with the canvases of Yu Nishimura (born in 1982), which almost always evoke silence—or sometimes the crackling of old screens that distort...
The little French Accent of Oscar Wilde, a Mythical Writer for Wealthy Collectors
https://youtu.be/zekRFFxbzN0?si=ff5Rg3Z-Zgd2TEnI A temptation worth €825,000 “I can resist everything except temptation.” When the legendary Irish man of letters Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) coined this famous witticism in the dialogue of one of his...
Berthe Weill: Why Was This Missing Link in the History of Modern Art—the First Dealer of Picasso—Completely Forgotten? It Takes More Than a Keen Eye to Succeed
https://youtu.be/_RXKYlw-rB8?si=KFONA8qg-OgYqWnS La Boheme At the beginning of the 20th century, Montmartre was a territory of poverty and bohemia, filled with shantytowns, inhabited by street performers, circus people, "grisettes" and other...
Meriem Bennani at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris: Do You Know the Very Serious Language of Flip-Flops?
https://youtu.be/51tTGSImc5E?si=nLdlkp3wRhBTZSm0 Sense of astonishment This group of silent, motionless people does not have the attitude one ordinarily observes in a museum setting. They are rather young, sitting close together, among friends,...
Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s CEO on the art market’s new trends: “I’m very optimistic about 26”
Bonnie Brennan has been Christie’s Worldwide Chief Executive Officer since February 2025. Closely tracking new market dynamics, she says she is “very optimistic about 26” . I interviewed her at the end of December. Christie’s communications...
London: Kerry James Marshall, one of the most important painters of our time
https://youtu.be/-pd-TWUaU24?si=lTTsXrJc7iOFXtVd Royal Academy In London, the Royal Academy is the country’s most renowned custodian of art. Inside, its neo-classical palace—with mouldings shaped like temples—fits squarely within the aesthetic...
Here Is the Testimony of Two Grande Dames of the Art World: Sheila Hicks and Monique Lévi-Strauss
https://youtu.be/3w93mVWNMJk?si=q5g1qmQ5fYn6dnxq Tristes tropiques In 1955, Claude Lévi-Strauss published a masterpiece that would change minds forever: Tristes tropiques (published in 1961 in English). Not only did he dare to take on a...
Paris: Pablo Picasso and Philip Guston— the grotesque as a political weapon, a subject of our time
https://youtu.be/Q2aiNu3nGIw The grotesque and Picasso In the vast landscape of exhibitions devoted to exploring the work, life and habits of the greatest painter of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, there is one obvious subject that had never...
The Great Magic of Wifredo Lam at MoMA: Where Trees Speak and Birds Are Gods
https://youtu.be/JlZFZgi-Jeo Magical beliefs It is an extraordinary world, steeped in magical beliefs and the polar opposite of a Western Cartesian mindset. It is inhabited by hybrid beings, stretched to the extreme, hidden within a...
Tribute to Frank Gehry: “I hope people will have loved what I have created. It was all done with a great deal of love.”
Seven years ago, I interviewed Frank Gehry for the first time. Since then I have seen him many times, notably for the opening of the Luma Foundation in Arles and, in the spring of 2025 in Abu Dhabi, when he was already frail, on the occasion of the Pritzker Prize...
Art Basel Miami Beach: a sublime Joan Mitchell, a coral reef, robot dogs with billionaires’ heads, and the great comeback of enthusiasm
Crisis or not? The United States is the epicentre of the global art market. In 2024, art transactions worldwide were estimated at 57.4 billion dollars, of which 24.8 billion were generated in the United States (1). The crisis, in step with all the economic,...
Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery: it all began when he was six
https://youtu.be/vdpZCn1LW8Q?si=jKoKnOtTDkVUtfaX To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Judith Benhamou Reports, I invited five leading figures from the art world to speak with us in public: Glenn Lowry, Maja Hoffmann, Rirkrit Tiravanija,...