Big numbers The Indian Ambani family is famous for various reasons. Firstly due to the father, Mukesh, an astute businessman who is largely responsible for growing his own father’s textile business, to the point of turning it into a...
Warhol/Basquiat: the Paris exhibition that does justice to the collaboration between two geniuses
https://youtu.be/JUWPy3kMnGA Once upon a time in New York Once upon a time there were two New Yorkers of different ages, races, and careers, who would produce over a short time period – between 1984 and 1985 – extraordinary paintings made in...
Raza: the first substantial exhibition of a great figure in modern Indian art at the Centre Pompidou
Centre of the art World For a long while it was Europe, then the United States, that were at the centre of the art world’s preoccupations in terms of modern artistic creation. But gradually, spurred on by new, less self-centred notions, and -...
Art Basel Hong Kong: the great return to the international market
Draconian isolation Times have been hard. For three years draconian isolation measures have been imposed in China and, to a lesser extent, in its commercial forward base, Hong Kong, while the effervescent city has also been the site of marked...
Marcel Proust: how the cult around the author of La Recherche has produced a booming market
I used to go to bed early “Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure” (“For a long time I used to go to bed early”) … So begins the extraordinary story of a young boy on the verge of falling asleep, immersed in darkness, having to wait for his...
Faith Ringgold and Picasso: little-known connections, excellent exhibition
https://youtu.be/-4Stf0ELfDU Moma, October 2019 In October 2019, when Moma reopened after carrying out extension works, the most striking gesture in the vast rearrangement of the permanent collections was to place right opposite the treasure of...
Tefaf Maastricht: Adam and Eve in 1500, Chagall in 1917, Annette Giacometti in 1966… When art history meets the art market
Disruption There’s disruption across the entire planet. China-US relations are tense. A war has been raging for the past year on European soil, social movements shake the continent. The climate threat is closing in on all sides... But the art...
Art Dubai: a fair with promise in a buzzing city
Covid impact If Covid has had a positive impact on any country in the world it is surely Dubai. In the city in the United Arab Emirates, famous for its leisure and entertainment, life didn’t come to a standstill during the public health crisis....
Zanele Muholi: if you had a child like me, what would you say to your homophobic friends?
https://youtu.be/QQDpTPz3CFM Self-portraits For a few years now her very dark self-portraits, in black and white, depicting endless variations on the image of an artist who accessorizes her apparitions with the aid of objects from daily life,...
Contemporary art effervescence in Madrid during the ARCO fair
Global fairs The global art fair calendar is looking very full. Just after the Californian version of Frieze, which took place in Los Angeles in Santa Monica’s former airport, and just before Art Dubai (from 1 to 5 March 2023), the Arco fair is...
Poussin obsessed: an exhibition reveals the erotic side to the 17th-century painter
https://youtu.be/K8ekvjgV9MA No taboos Super-erotic and without taboos. Nicolas Poussin(1594-1665), an artist’s artist favoured by art historians, considered to be the most austere of his era, had a period that was decidedly risqué. The...
Sugimoto’s foundation in Japan: where he honours the sun and awaits the end of our civilization
https://youtu.be/5QDiYUJoRuY Enoura Observatory Odawarra, in the province of Kanagawa, is a coastal town 73 kilometres from Tokyo. It is here that the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto (born in 1948), who lives in New York, decided to open a foundation...