https://youtu.be/OwcJ8lJnmVg Death's triumph In what is known as classical art, painters and sculptors used to amuse themselves by creating vanitas works: dead game lying on a table, flowers or fruit from different seasons arranged...
Oscar Murillo: The artist whose paintings allow him to infiltrate the world
https://youtu.be/RVCU9Qd68gg Romanticism Artists can have a kind of 21st-century romanticism, if we can call it that, which means that some of them aren’t satisfied with recognition. They’ll call into question all the signs that bring them...
Levy, Gorvy, Dayan, Rohatyn (LGDR): the new global consortium of the contemporary art market
Paris again Paris is in the process of once again becoming, with dizzying speed, a major hub for the global art market. On 26 January 2022 an announcement was made by the organizers of Art Basel that they would be taking over as the...
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: historic star of African art, discovered in France, celebrated at Moma
African art in vogue There can be no doubt that African contemporary artists are currently in vogue. This is generating a rapid promotion not just of those who are truly talented but also of painters who are repeating a tried and tested...
Ceramics and contemporary art: a love story
Contradictions Right now the art world is caught between two powerful cross-currents that are utterly contradictory. One the one hand there are artists seeking to explore what we’d describe as virtual realities through digital art, now often...
Bruno Latour’s Biennial, from Taiwan to Metz with artists who act as whistleblowers
Turning inwards In the art world, the most evident consequence of the public health crisis has been a geographical turning inwards. Sao Paulo Biennal While in the past, and for some time now, the flourishing of biennials has resulted in...
The Lee Ufan experience in Arles: “Death transformed by nature lives on discreetly”
https://youtu.be/ybfy9DPWkAg Van Gogh In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh brought his friend Paul Gauguin to Arles. He dreamed of creating a community there, a communion even, of artists captivated by the colours of the Camargue region. It was...
Carsten Höller: in Lisbon inside the belly of the whale, the artist plays with light and science
https://youtu.be/ZWpomNj3mrQ Phytopathologist Carsten Höller is a man of experiences. That’s not to say he is particularly old, since the Swedish-Belgian-German artist – who speaks French very well – was born in 1961. But from his...
Anselm Kiefer: forever in search of the ideal painting
https://youtu.be/yQS91FsimQ4 The same painting Across kilometres and kilometres, since the very beginning, or almost, Anselm Kiefer (born in 1945) has been making the same painting. This is not to say that he’s repeating himself, that...
Jeff Koons and David Beckham: the unexpected encounter in Doha
Soft power In the early French Renaissance when King Francis I assembled the greatest artists of the time, such as Leonardo da Vinci, in the West, or closer to the present day during the postwar period when the United States extended its...
Art Basel Miami Beach: the spectacular success of artists from the African diaspora
Josephine Baker As the Pantheon in Paris – the inner sanctum of the French Republic – saw the entrance of Josephine Baker, a black woman, former music-hall dancer, activist and patriot of American origin, Miami saw the inauguration of the...
Beeple, the author of the 69.3-million-dollar NFT: “I want to change the course of art history”
https://youtu.be/C0KMkaN-qx4 More open to change The public health crisis has made people more open to change and has led to a growing awareness of the importance of physical experiences (meeting friends, listening to live music)...