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...
Mondrian: The Beyeler Foundation masterfully analyses the mystery of his move from figurative to abstract art
Dormant mystery In all major visual creation there lies a dormant mystery. Why does the artist decide to change style as if overnight? For the occasion of its summer exhibition, the excellent Beyeler Foundation in Basel has chosen one of the...
Kehinde Wiley ahead of his exhibition at Orsay: “At the Louvre the history paintings are made to physically dominate you”
Errors of judgment Writing about contemporary art also involves making errors of judgment on art that is currently being made. The creative output of the major protagonists is still in gestation and the viewer’s framework for understanding it...
Tefaf Maastricht: the fair of extraordinary objects
You are rich Imagine that you are rich, very rich, and that you love art. Another possibility: imagine you are a curious die-hard fan of things created by man, without boundaries of time or space. If you recognize yourself in one of these two...
Robert Storr: “the art world today is almost entirely commercial”. A meeting with the great American art critic capable of numerous premonitions
https://youtu.be/P3i5fvE8ti8 Media hype As the modern and contemporary art sales opened with the auctioning of a portrait of Marilyn from 1964 by Andy Warhol for 195 million dollars, we realize that the media hype surrounding works presented at...
Villa Medici: the art of doodling and scribbling from Leonardo to Cy Twombly
Suspending their attention The subject may seem trivial, but it is both unprecedented and fascinating how when the artist suspends their attention for a moment and their hand continues to work alone, it produces something unique. Gribouillis The French speak...
Maryan: the forgotten Polish artist’s “truth-paintings” at Moca in Miami and Kamel Mennour in Paris
https://youtu.be/tqRrN8CRO_E Zeitgeist Success in art is quite often linked to an element that may be considered superficial, and which is described in all languages using a German word: the zeitgeist. For a very long time Pinchas Burstein,...
The private life of Andy Warhol from T to V
https://youtu.be/aeC76ncf66w The Andy Warhol diaries It’s hard to find a more fitting idea than that of a TV documentary made about the artist who wanted to be a television star: Andy Warhol. Netflix has just released a documentary series made...
Boilly: the 19th century artist who fascinates the 21st century
It's just an illusion Seeking to create illusions is one of the great virtues of art. It is a process that is often practiced in current creation. Without mentioning the entire hyperrealist school, we might think for example of Gerhard Richter,...