The Canadian artist Rodney Graham, born in 1949, has just died of cancer. I met him in 2016 at the Dijon Consortium where he had staged an extraordinary exhibition. He invented exceptional stories through his videos and installations...
Fondazione Prada in Venice: Taryn Simon’s conversation piece is a journey through the human brain
https://youtu.be/JweHtN8cZqg Large amount of data The American artist Taryn Simon (born in 1975) has a singular visual oeuvre which always finds unique ways of addressing serious phenomena. She is adept at compiling large amounts of data to...
Kokoschka: A modern artist who foreshadowed the painting of today
https://youtu.be/_BT4Hum8Tm0 A life- size doll He was no stranger to heartbreak. The painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), also known as “Kokoschka the madman”, embarked upon a tortured relationship between 1912 and 1914 with one of the mythical...
Biennale de Lyon: an impressive journey through the ruins of contemporary society
Beirut https://youtu.be/wAV6ENMD32Y People never forget Beirut. Take Sam Bardaouil. Born in Lebanon, this world-class art historian is curating the sixteenth Lyon Biennale together with Till Fellrath, on show until 31 December. The duo, who...
Hydra: one of the most beautiful artworks Jeff Koons has ever made will be destroyed after 31 October
https://youtu.be/EylV6niUHss Guilty There is an old slaughterhouse on one of the chicest Greek islands. On this small landmass with no cars, where donkeys still carry the heaviest loads, the American painter Brice Marden regularly stays...
Bourse de Commerce, Paris. Philippe Parreno has created a masterpiece: the artwork for the ultra-present
https://youtu.be/h7l4KUEc3Ks Platform for experimentation In Paris, the spectacular rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce is currently turning into one of the major platforms for experimentation in contemporary art. Following on from the giant wax...
The Daskalopoulos collection: a XXL exhibition in Athens before the enormous donation
Athens With its attractive climate, low rents, large wild spaces but also, it must be said, its very alluring tax system, Athens could become a major platform for contemporary art in Europe. It is like a new Berlin complete with sunshine, where...
Ali Cherri: A 21st-century romantic from the Venice Biennale to the National Gallery in London and even the Cannes Film Festival
https://youtu.be/hyQUAN_lEwI Proust on his deathbed In his studio opposite his desk he has displayed the reproduction of a portrait of Marcel Proust on his deathbed. The French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri (born in 1976) talks about how when he...
Centre Pompidou: Diving into Tatiana Trouvé’s immense dream drawings
https://youtu.be/3XqOHlB25_8 In the corner of your mind Imagine that you were to give form, all in one place, to the fragments of ideas that you cherish, the ones that inhabit a certain part of your brain. Not the ideas that feed into...
Mondrian: The Beyeler Foundation masterfully analyses the mystery of his move from figurative to abstract art
Dormant mystery In all major visual creation there lies a dormant mystery. Why does the artist decide to change style as if overnight? For the occasion of its summer exhibition, the excellent Beyeler Foundation in Basel has chosen one of the...
Kehinde Wiley ahead of his exhibition at Orsay: “At the Louvre the history paintings are made to physically dominate you”
Errors of judgment Writing about contemporary art also involves making errors of judgment on art that is currently being made. The creative output of the major protagonists is still in gestation and the viewer’s framework for understanding it...
Maya at Musée Picasso:In the Picasso family, the beloved eldest daughter
https://youtu.be/K82lsVnLhtc Blockbuster The Picasso signature is a guarantee of success, and exhibitions exploring the life of the Spanish painter, from his diet to his status as a foreigner via his collections of tribal art, have proliferated...