Jeff Koons (born 1955) is one of those artists who inspires fascination and revulsion in equal measure. On the occasion of his 2014 retrospective at the Pompidou Centre, I was astonished to find myself subjected to vitriolic online attacks after I defended his show,...
Until 5 June, the Grand Palais in Paris has a lavishly produced exhibition featuring 278 extraordinary treasures belonging to Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al Thani, son of a former Qatari prime minister and cousin of the current Emir. In France, this family is also known...
New York’s most stunning exhibition right now is dedicated to a complete unknown – or near enough. His name is Hercules Segers (circa 1589-1638), he’s a Dutchman and he was best known for his prints. Don't be put off by the austerity of the subject matter. Segers is...
This is the tale of an artist who for ten years has been very secretly working away on a repertoire of works that will reinvent his creation. This is the tale of Damien Hirst (born 1965), who is attempting a resurrection in Venice by way of a sprawling and...
Because in this early part of the 21st century, Marcel Duchamp (born in 1887) is the patron saint of contemporary art. All artistic practices poking fun at the world take the works of this facetious artist as a springboard (and Picabia's too). Every artist who...
The Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery in Paris is showing the early works of Robert Mapplethorpe. Each is unique and made in his own hand. Some pieces incorporate photography, but not all of them. It’s proof – if proof is still needed – that Robert Mapplethorpe was not simply a...
Who among us hasn’t felt at least once, while walking by the sea, through a forest, or in the mountains, a kind of mystical impression, a communion with the sky and the earth, a sensation of being drawn towards the sublime absolute. To relive that experience, but...
When François Mitterrand discovered he had prostate cancer and opted not to make the information public, this powerful politician who had a remarkable talent for manipulating other people suddenly had nothing to lose. When the economist and the ex-IMF chief Dominique...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJC9wbiKeV8 You can’t mistake her. She is coiffed like a contemporary Capuchin monk with her two-tone haircut, white at the roots, burgundy at the tips. She walks slowly but her spirit fizzes like lightning. Agnes Varda is...
‘Asia’s Precarious Rise’ was the headline the Wall Street Journal ran across its front cover not long ago (1). In fact, the eyes of the world are turned towards the great Chinese Leviathan to see whether this boom is not in fact a mirage, none more so than the art...
In Paris, a stone’s throw from the Boulevard Saint Germain, an exceptional new show has just opened that looks into the creative process behind Dutch masterpieces of 17th century. It involved a police-like investigation of history to locate the drawings that helped to...
In this age of political upheavals, with possible economic reverberations, the major art market trend is identifying any artists from our recent past that have been unfairly skipped over. It’s a sensible decision. Their careers are already established and their artist...