https://youtu.be/0uN8ADoYC5c Having the eye To describe the relevance of an art collector, dealer or curator we tend to say they have “the eye”. There’s only a very small number of figures in the current art world who belong to this category....
Venice Biennale (2): extraordinary collateral exhibitions at a prison, a palace and a little house
Strong impact Venice’s impact during the period of its Biennale is inimitable. These days the 60-year-old art showcase attracts visitors in such large numbers over the course of its vernissage that all the various strata of the art world now...
Venice Biennale (1): looking at human history differently to discover some new art
330 artists, 82 offsite exhibitions This year the Venice Biennale is a very "serious" show. Serious because the world is in crisis and contemporary art is reflecting this. The most colossal global showcase of contemporary art, which this year...
Bracquemond: The works of the forgotten impressionist couple at auction
1874: Inventing impressionism In Paris until 14 July one of the most popular exhibitions is being held at the Musée d’Orsay. But “Paris 1874: Inventer l’impressionnisme” (Paris 1874: Inventing impressionism) is not what you think.(An entire...
Only in Paris. Brancusi’s ever so beautiful universe
https://youtu.be/Z4wy_oPCLcY?si=X2ESoaoV22ygyXdA The myth of the artist's studio The artist’s studio is a world of its own where they can make and unmake their great universes of visual art. From Rembrandt to Lucian Freud, many of them...
Sugimoto/Giacometti: a meeting in the land of the great spirits
https://youtu.be/l7qyp412eE8?si=WlLIiKJNgqHyevMF Here’s a little gem of an exhibition, all delicacy and spirit. Moma sculpture garden The story starts like this. There was once, in 2013, a famous Japanese artist who spent most of his time...
Nathanaëlle Herbelin at the Musée d’Orsay: a marriage of love between the young artist and the Nabis paintings
https://youtu.be/QhVRXoLlB9s?si=PLUioEweUbp4cvry True love There are practical marriages and there are love marriages. The second category includes the exhibition by the Franco-Israeli artist Nathanaëlle Herbelin, born in 1989, whose forty-odd...
Art Basel Hong Kong is back in force with Chinese artists in fashion as far at the West
Political context Since Covid, the art world has changed. 2024 is the first year that Art Basel Hong Kong (ABHK) has readopted its habitual format following the pandemic, featuring 242 exhibitors who are showcasing their finest wares at the...
Richard Serra: death of a giant of contemporary sculpture
https://youtu.be/7uMTM02GFTI?si=ra6dXYWo9XBtRPxp Brancusi's studio At a time when the Centre Pompidou is organising a retrospective of the great sculptor of the first part of the twentieth century, Constantin Brancusi, just after closing the...
Pierre Huyghe at Punta della Dogana invents a technological romanticism
French touch The story often goes (in France) that French artists aren’t internationally successful. But there are at least two artists who contradict this theory. They represent a contemporary “French touch” that’s as ambitious as it is...
Léonce Rosenberg in his flat in 1928 with its De Chiricos, Picabias, Legers… “A dealer with great taste and a terrible head for business”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7LAKrSwfDI Léonce Rosenberg The idea of reconstructing the interior space of an art collector has several advantages. Not only does it showcase artistic dialogues rather than individual artworks but it also...
Arco Madrid: making a case for less expensive contemporary art
Average and exceptional art There isn’t just one art market but many – and they meet different demands. They are stratified with distinct ways of being and rules of functioning. It is common to say, for example, that during times of crisis only...