“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Ernest Hemingway. A moveable feast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIJjB_dyP0 When Paul Gauguin went...
There is a unique sensation one feels at sight of a rare few old master drawings, to be found more often than not in museums. It is a beguiling emotion born from the impression you have of a life pulsating behind those drawn faces. They’re by Leonardo da Vinci, or...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2slfSt8OJYw For the past few years, it’s been a thing for museums to show artists in pairs. This often involves some stylistic affinity that shines a light on their respective works. For the new major exhibition at the Picasso...
The world’s most prestigious museums, the likes of the Louvre and the Metropolitan, fill entire rooms with uncommonly intricate works of art from the Medieval and the Renaissance period. For a long time the great European and American families, banking dynasties such...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaHUv_Ytr2g If there's one artist you have a hard time equating with sequins, bikinis, fake boobs and Miami beach parties it’s Mark Dion. This American artist (born 1961) is known all over the world for his cabinet of...
Everyone in Miami, from the taxi drivers to the sales associates in the fashion stores, know all about it. During the week they call ABMB for Art Basel Miami Beach, this modern and contemporary art fair imported from Switzerland, the entire city undergoes a...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDCmQEFk6Y Nobody can emerge unscathed from this exhibition. Mounted with exceptional skill by the Pompidou Centre curator Jonas Storsve with the collaboration of Nicola del Roscio who worked with the artist during 48 years ( he...
I’ve told this story before. In the French charming provinces, in a place known for its Medieval kings, its snails and its wine, is a small town. There, in one of its working class neighbourhoods is a building designed by the Japanese starchitect Shigeru Ban that...
To mark the exceptional Picabia retrospective at MoMA in New York (from 21 November to 19 March), I’m reposting my article about its earlier incarnation this summer in Zurich, featuring an exceptional account by specialist Alain Tarica. As the Zurich curator Catherine...
Art which is political to the exclusion of all else is pointless, regardless of how human its message. Art demands the foundation. It demands the form too. Otherwise you simply end up with illustrations. The greatest shock that I had the chance to experience recently...
The history of art spends its time righting past wrongs. The most recent case comes in the shape of a stunning exhibition on an Impressionist artist at the Musée d’Orsay, which runs until 5 March when it will travel to the National Gallery in Washington. Through the...
‘It is essential for the sensual element to be included in some way or another in any work of art.’ These words were written by Mark Rothko, the most sensual of abstract artists (in his paintings, at any rate). The sensual dimension is vitally important to art...