He’s one of the most interesting and intriguing sculptors of our times. Thomas Houseago, born in 1972, gives his three-dimensional works a highly original form. It’s hard, however, to refrain from seeing them as a way of revisiting the history of art. He revisits...
Here in France, where people have a new habit of vandalising artworks, the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson arrives to face-off against the opulence of the Sun King but also, alas, against reactionaries of every stripe. Until 30 October he’s taking up residence in...
There’s no doubt about it: at the June and December auctions in Paris, where the most beautiful lots of the season are all concentrated, the trophy works tend to be snapped up by foreign buyers. In fact, some of the leader auction houses Sotheby’s, Christie’s and...
It was the famous collector from Miami Mira Rubell who first told me about Hank Willis Thomas. Born in 1976, he’s a talented American artist dealing with popular culture, gender and racial stereotypes in contemporary consumer society, and the perception of ‘African...
It’s the most beautiful sculpture park in France, if not Europe. In the golden light on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence, not far from the mountain of Saint Victoire that Cezanne loved so much, Chateau La Coste’s 230 hectares are an abundance of pine...
There's one thing that both wine and art have in common. In countries with long wine growing traditions like France, the wines considered the best have a ‘long finish’. In other words the flavour lingers, it takes time to fully appreciate. On the other hand American...
(take your time to watch it!) We expect our artists to be visionaries. But when they happen to naturally fit that mould we misunderstand them since they’re too far ahead of their times. It’s been a very long while that Alfredo Jaar (born in 1956) has been...
In the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, there’s something different about the scenery. From the distance, it’s a bundle of colours criss-crossing in strange patterns that you first notice. Up close, the colossal object is breathtaking. The roof of the Frank Gehry-designed...
There’s a joke we like to tell in France, one you could imagine inspiring one of his 'Joke painting' by American artist Richard Prince. A man driven to suicide jumps off the top of a skyscraper. On the way down, he says the same thing each floor he passes: ‘So far,...
Every May and November, Sotheby’s and Christie’s modern and contemporary art auctions in New York have become, rightly or wrongly, a shop window for the global art business and a bellwether for the market in the eyes of the general public. In a few lots, everything is...
Every two years at the Grand Palais in Paris, Monumenta is an act of creative bravura and a truly colossal show in the international contemporary art calendar. It’s a battle of the titans, in which an artist has to struggle to assert himself inside and against a...
The American artist Paul McCarthy (born 1945) is important. He’s important because he pokes fun at all those defenders of good taste in art. Paul McCarthy is important because he upsets people. Paul McCarthy is important because he projects the image of an America...