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 -...
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...
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...
Vermeer in Amsterdam: the beautiful record-setting exhibition
https://youtu.be/BxboiI3WV3E All about intimacy Talking about the great Dutch painter Vermeer (1632-1675) in terms of numerical data seems like a misinterpretation. This art legend, all delicacy and detail, known for his descriptions...
Ugo Rondinone in Geneva: love and death shared with Hodler and Vallotton
https://youtu.be/ZXcus1rGJxQ Global Ugo Rondinone (1964) is one of the star artists on the global contemporary art scene. The Swiss national is represented by six galleries around the world. He works primarily in the fields of sculpture and...
Louis XV is back at Versailles
https://youtu.be/zVnd6yDx_co The death of 3 generation It is a very French exploration in that it is the stuff of legends: the childhood of a king. It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like during the early years of the life of Louis XV...
Tate Modern: this is how art history is made. Cézanne’s influence from Gauguin to Lucian Freud
Visual gust of wind Seeing a substantial exhibition of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is like being caught up in a visual gust of wind. There’s the beauty of the reddish and green hues that caress you, but also the simplified or even crude forms, the...
Centre Pompidou: the beautiful people of Alice Neel
https://youtu.be/wYDfZVjsCBg Immortality Without wanting to resort to big words, having your portrait done is a good way of attempting to achieve immortality. In New York it was Andy Warhol who, in the 1960s, brought the discipline back in...
Paul Allen Collection: he was passionate, he bought masterpieces and the sale is entirely guaranteed so it cannot fail
https://youtu.be/YjkhT5Pues4 1 billion Rarely has a sale been kept secret for so long. On 9 and 10 November Christie’s will be selling 184 lots in New York taken from the collection belonging to the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, who died...
Kokoschka: A modern artist who foreshadowed the painting of today
https://youtu.be/_BT4Hum8Tm0 A life- size doll He was no stranger to heartbreak. The painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), also known as “Kokoschka the madman”, embarked upon a tortured relationship between 1912 and 1914 with one of the mythical...