This exhibition is the first of its kind. It doesn't just tell the history of an art dealer but also the history of art, the history of a family and plain History with a capital H, filled with the blood and tears of the Second World War. ‘21 rue La Boétie’ is the...
In the pantheon of poets, the most prized names are those collectively known as the maudits – the cursed ones. Literature, like art, has been partial to its martyrs, the ones who died too soon, or who were marginalised by society and who appear to have died at the...
Have you heard the one about the former chairman of Sotheby’s Europe who loved electronic music so much that he took part to a video music? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYV3gRbl4U Or the one-time chairman of Phillips who agreed to star in a reality TV show for US...
He’s an arch-narcissist, his teeth are falling out, he’s unattractive, provocative, intelligent, cynical, disabused and expresses himself spiritedly with his lapidary pronouncements. Michel Houellebecq, the runaway success of the French publishing world, a writer who...
I sometimes wonder if those men dressed head to toe in leather, chains strapped across their bodies, showing off those muscular bodies achieved through hours spent in the gym, their look finished off with peaked cap, and who instantly bring to mind police or army...
‘Each time you talk to your friends on Facebook, each time you buy a book on Amazon, each time you save for your pension fund, you’re dealing with a company practicing tax optimisation. We’re not talking drug trafficking. It frequently turns out that these...
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) was a great artist, not just a great photographer. He will forever be etched in memory as someone who immortalised in black and white those perfectly formed, statuesque naked male bodies in highly constructed environments. The numerous...
Renowned historian and curator Michael Peppiatt saw his life change one day in 1963 when, by sheer coincidence, someone advised he meet the painter Francis Bacon. From then on a friendship ensued, with its ups and downs, in collaboration and fascination. ...
The work with the greatest impact in recent years has been directed by SaThe Economist under the title Seven days in the art world. A detailed analysis and fun, a "reality show art" as described the New Yorker, translated into many languages fads - literally as...
I met Alex Katz one evening in February 2014 in Paris, in his Place des Vosges hotel room. Born in 1928, the Pop Art painter looks incredibly youthful and cool. He laughs a lot. He smiles a lot, and marks a pause to watch you react to something provocative he’s just...