https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn0JqAumE5c Marcel Duchamp was most certainly unaware that in inventing the principle of the “ready-made”, the transformation of the everyday object through the sheer will of the artist into a work of art, he was opening...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2DuGbgkcbI In art jargon we call them “artists’ artists”. To put it another way, they are often complex personalities whose art’s importance is initially highlighted by their peers rather than spontaneously realized by...
I was told: “Come to the New Territories”. I didn’t know quite what that meant, but it sounded like a promise of adventure. The painter Firenze Lai (born in 1984) lives in Hong Kong, specifically in the New Territories. I had already made several attempts to...
Ever since that mythical day when the serpent tricked the original couple into taking a bite from the apple, the desire for domination has been a common human sentiment. It takes various forms, which have been illustrated by artists down the ages. Not long ago, the...
The veteran Pop painter Alex Katz, aged 91, has a bewildering dynamism. The day I meet him, having just been with his London gallerist Timothy Taylor and wearing a fluorescent jacket and pink trainers, he’s in a hurry. And it shows. He rushes through answers, skips...
The artist Sheila Hicks is exceptional for several reasons. Firstly because she was born in 1934 yet she is one of the most well-known artists currently on the international contemporary art circuit, which has a long given preference to young artists. She is exhibited...
With its international exhibitions programme led by the Franco-Italian curator Chiara Parisi, the Villa Medici is well on its way to becoming a firm fixture in the international calendar of major contemporary art exhibitions. Following the experience of grandiose...
It is very difficult to come up with something new within the genre of fashion photography, which is highly codified, conventional and often boring in its perfection. Think super skinny models who have barely hit adolescence, perfect lighting, flawless complexions and...
Azzedine Alaïa passed away on 20 november in Paris. In 2010 I interviewed the great couturier who opened up about his native Tunisia where he is now buried and about his desire to leave a mark. The couturier Azzedine Alaïa is a sculptor of the female...
He’s a genius in the recent history of the moving image, and his vision in the film“Love is the message, the message is death” (2016) leaves no viewer unscathed. The short extracts which could be available to watch online give nothing away compared to the powerful...
On 13 November, Christie’s is set to auction an artwork that perfectly encapsulates the fascination wielded by René Magritte (1898-1967) over the twentieth century. Made in 1949, it is called “L’empire des lumières” (“The Dominion of Light”). In the painting, which is...
Douglas Gordon (born in 1966) is a Scottish artist who is hypersensitive, sentimental, receptive, and capable of creating very beautiful images as well as very trashy ones. He won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He is a truly unpredictable...