Coming from the sky Didn’t you know? Everything comes from above. In the 1940s watching the sky meant looking for planes that were going to bomb you. That’s where the H-bomb came from, which reduced people to human torches and annihilated all...
Rem Koolhaas: the architect’s great cultural revolution fills the whole Guggenheim in New York…Finally
There was a very short window of opportunity to visit the Countryside , the future exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York last February, thanks to Covid. The show, which is more theoretical than aesthetic and is overseen by the Dutch...
Palazzo Butera: one of the most beautiful palaces in Sicily is all about Art and … immigration
City of migration Palermo is a fascinating city, and one that’s sparked a lot of conversation in recent years. Firstly, this is due to its current international relevance as it’s one of the major sites of migration from Africa to Italy, where its mayor Leoluca...
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris: Cindy Sherman, artist of extremes
https://youtu.be/FE3wDrJqe5o 170 arworks Too much is never enough. The Fondation Louis Vuitton is dedicating a retrospective of 170 artworks to the American artist Cindy Sherman (born in 1954). Overdose There is a risk of it...
Paris: The former Biennale des Antiquaires is hosted by Christie’s
The end of the operating rules Nothing in the art market works as it used to. The great operating rules which once governed it have all been thrown into disarray by the Covid-19 crisis. Competition between dealers and auction houses The art...
Rirkrit Tiravanija: the new exhibition “featuring” Marcel Duchamp, John Giorno, Jasper Johns and the shadow of Donald Trump
Heir to Marcel Duchamp https://youtu.be/X-HI9Kl7qAA He’s one of the most natural heirs to Marcel Duchamp. Rirkrit Tiravanija (born in 1961) is an extraordinary free and playful artist. Dematerialization of art In a world overwhelmed by...
Up to more than 5 million dollars for an etching. And Picasso was a prolific creator of prints
https://youtu.be/T43ZyK5DrCM The visionary Ambroise Vollard Art history is fuelled by certain myths that ignite collectors’ imaginations. One of these is the “Vollard Suite”. The visionary Ambroise Vollard, one of the great dealers in the...
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza has created a new frontier for art: the Ocean
https://youtu.be/XPCRNcp-bh4 Seal levels One of the barrage of threats to contemporary mankind is the threat of rising sea levels. Threat in Venice They say this will be such that by the end of the century it is due to trigger the...
From the Whitney in New York to the Pompidou in Paris: the delicate yet significant marriage of art and politics
Cancel culture At a time when art which addresses societal issues has never been so relevant, exhibiting it in institutions has never proved so difficult. In late August in New York, at the epicentre of what is known as “cancel culture”, a...
Bernar Venet: the artist whose work has been blessed by the pope
From a little village In a little village in the Alpes de Haute Provence called Château-Arnoux, the ten-year-old son of a school teacher once had the wild dream of becoming the pope. Tens of tonnes of steel Fast-forward 69 years and...
Le Petit Palais in Paris: the far-reaching project of a private collection of French drawings
Drawing specialist Louis-Antoine Prat is a drawing specialist who happens to be very French. Firstly because the Parisian taught the subject of French drawings at the École du Louvre for no less than 40 years. And secondly because he decided...
Centre Pompidou: Why did Christo wrap things?
Thanks a to a hairdresser There are many smaller stories within the larger sweep of history. Christo, the Bulgarian-born artist who died on 31 May 2020, famous for his gigantic wrapping works at the scale of Paris’s Pont Neuf in 1985 and the...