Poor war hero The first thing that draws you in is his steady, clear gaze. In this image his face is tilted to the side because his head rests on a pillow. Then you notice his shaved head, marked at the top by a bloody swelling. In...
Is the art market resilient or not? The Fisher Landau collection goes to auction as the world worries
Andy Warhol diaries “I did her portrait but it never really looked good, and the reason I wanted to do it again was because she has all these great paintings like Rauschenbergs and Picassos and I didn’t want to have mine looking bad there.” On...
Art advisors: whispering “secrets” into the ears of collectors
A colossal amount of money There has never been such a large number of contemporary art fairs in the world. Auction sales of current artistic creation bring in a colossal amount of money. Artists who are in fashion – thanks to social media –...
Paris+: The augmented reality of Paris’s contemporary art scene
Emily in Paris+ There’s a Paris+ by Art Basel effect just like there’s an Emily in Paris effect. In the entertainment world, the sentimental and irreverent TV show has brought about a renewal of mass tourism to the French capital and we might...
Frieze Art Fair: the art ecosystem in London is still making sparks fly
At auction in Hongkong Despite what Sotheby’s is shouting from the rooftops, the Hong Kong sale from 5 October 2023 of a small part of the collection from the Long Museum in Shanghai – China’s most famous private museum – which acted as a test...
Art Basel: changes in the market at the world’s foremost art fair
Slow down The art market always has a few surprises up its sleeve. While at the New York auctions in May prices showed a certain degree of slow-down - naturally enough, given the global context - at the opening of the Art Basel fair on 12 June...
Three disappointments that reveal new contemporary art market trends in New York
https://youtu.be/X9D_UNm5uDA Disappointments always There are always disappointments at auction: idolized artists whose works sell for lower prices than expected, or even go unsold. It’s this element of uncertainty that lends everything its...
Basquiat is still the star of the New York contemporary sales but so is Rubens…
Increasingly expensive Against all odds the market for 20th and 21st century art is becoming increasingly expensive. This is what we learn from observing the recent results in the auction rooms of New York and London. We recall that in November...
The Marcel Broodthaers sale: the artist who has challenged the value principles of contemporary art
https://youtu.be/EHhigM53ILw Anton Herbert “It was in 1968. We were very conventional. We didn’t understand much at the time. Thanks to Broodthaers we received an electroshock. He was a fascinating man, a poet. He gave us his vision. He...
Berlin: Ulysses Jenkins, the first African American video artist. History’s missing link
The history of African American art https://youtu.be/DRwS_JCxbl0 He’s the missing link in the history of African American art: Ulysses Jenkins (born in 1946). We could locate him within this chronology between Charles White, a chronicler of...
Venice: The melancholy of the 20th century told in 407 images at the Pinault collection
https://youtu.be/1eDs__BVvQg Walter Benjamin Walter Benjamin, the unparalleled theoretician of photography, found the perfect words to describe, since the 1930s, our fascination with images from the past. He wrote: “For the last time the aura...
NFTs are entering Centre Pompidou and Lacma: what it teaches us. Cozomo de’ Medici explains his choices
https://youtube.com/shorts/Wol5yiNvQSo?feature=share Crash in cryptocurrencies The world is changing at a rapid pace, and its artistic values are changing with it. The first chapter of this story starts in November 2022 when we witnessed...