https://youtu.be/RLKOwokicu4 Son of a giant How to exist in your own right when you’re the son of one of the giants of 20th century painting? To put it another way, how do you “kill your father” when your father is Henri Matisse...
In Venice at the Prada Foundation, Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grimani: the three most beautiful exhibitions on show
https://youtu.be/6MAhlc0J7Uc Not the architecture Biennale No, it wasn’t the architecture biennale that made me rush to Venice. I initially found it intellectually stimulating, with all the societal and ecological questions it...
Bazille: artworks by the legendary impressionist painter who died at 28 miraculously appear on the market
A legendary artist For those who are truly interested in impressionist art, Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) is a legendary artist. He only painted for a period of seven years, before dying aged 28 after enlisting in the French army in 1870 during...
The Black artistic renaissance. The phenomenon takes different forms in the United States and in France
Heritage of the traumas https://youtu.be/okH5n9CZbx0 For some time now colonialism, slavery and the heritage of these traumas has been at the centre of an unusual kind of attention, giving rise to what was once called “history painting” up...
Francis Bacon and Peter Beard: an unlikely friendship that takes the form of an exhibition in London
https://youtu.be/ELj2brIz4OA An Irishman and an American dandy Take an American dandy who liked women, wild animals and photography. Then take another dandy, an Irishman who loved men and made paintings depicting torment and suffering with...
1932: Picasso’s most fascinating year is even attracting crypto-investors . Christie’s pushes up his value
The ultimate art-market star Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is the 20th century’s star painter, but he is also the ultimate art-market star of the early 21st century. Looking at the numbers, according to the Artprice database 100 euros invested on...
Sex and painting: the great art of love. An exhibition and a book that could only exist in France
Mass sanitization These are times of mass sanitization. Long before we wore masks and handwashing justifiably became a global obsession, in another field the presence of sex in art was banished from the major themes of exhibitions in the...
Munch at Sotheby’s: the master of anguish and solitude also had a huge talent for self-promotion
https://youtu.be/9X-BYm0iWxk The scream “The Scream” by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is a bit like the tree that conceals the forest. Or the story of how a painting conceived in four versions – which has become a cultural touchstone in...
Louvre Abu Dhabi: what does the future hold for the spectacular museum with no Leonardo and the withdrawal of French museums in 6 years’ time?
https://youtu.be/LxH6-D2iYKA Appeared like by magic Contrary to the situation in France or in the United States, the Louvre Abu Dhabi closed its doors for only 100 days while the world was shaken by the pandemic. The museum appeared as if by...
Grenoble, Beijing, New York: Giorgio Morandi is the subject of worldwide fascination
https://youtu.be/RqF3Z5EjvpM Morandi mystery There is a sense of mystery about Morandi. For an artist who seems to have painted the same subject his entire life – carafes, bowls and vases in muted colours – from his tiny bedroom in Bologna,...
Anselm Kiefer’s spectacular renaissance and his installation at the Panthéon in Paris
https://youtu.be/7Ytoz98rzSk Gagosian Le Bourget It’s probably the biggest aesthetic show of emotion in France right now. At Gagosian’s space located in Le Bourget, at the heart of the air terminal complex for private jets, which is...
Christo lives on in Paris: auctions, an exhibition and the soon-to-be-wrapped Arc de Triomphe
https://youtu.be/vmxWq4ukJrI Immortality Great artists never die. This illusion of immortality certainly applies to the Bulgarian-born, New York-based creator Christo, who passed away on 31 May 2020 at the age of 84. (See here the...