https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL7tm-4pfMc Artists are seekers It’s always helpful to classify an artist in terms of a school, to put them in a box. But good artists can’t be pigeonholed. They’re seekers, and in the words of Picasso in fact they don’t seek,...
Crucial days There are crucial days that can change your life forever. Take the British painter Francis Bacon. On 26 October 1971 he was the subject of a major exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris. Not only was it a marked success for him in Europe, accompanied by...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBa2p4_YCxA The great German photographer who lived in Paris, Peter Lindbergh, died on 3 September. I met him last January. At the Giacometti Institute he was exhibiting his dark images dedicated to the Swiss sculptor, inspired...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV6v3d0hX0A A pilgrimage destination Because New York has long been the global centre for art, and because New York is in all likelihood still to this day the global centre for collecting contemporary art and the art...
RMB city There is a before and after Cao Fei. Or at least there is a before and after RMB City. Chinese artist The Chinese artist (born in 1978) used the platform of the virtual online game Second Life to create a fictional city in 2007 which takes its name...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cuFG2ey17o Maja Sacher In the art world she is known as a powerful collector. In this area the inspiration most likely comes from her grandmother, Maja Sacher from Basel, who became a serious collector of Picasso, Max Ernst,...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYJmPfmdNY The weeping woman As far as art history is concerned, Dora Maar (1907-1997) will always be the “weeping woman” as named by her portrait, painted so many times by Picasso as a kind of fury with tears streaming down her...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-iFQe64Rs The weather project Olafur Eliasson (born in 1967) came to public prominence in 2003 with his Weather Project at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, consisting of a spectacular giant sun that emitted no heat but which all of...
A limitless world There are certain people who are intelligent, but in their presence the future seems at the very least rigid and rectilinear if not dark and threatening. And yet there are others blessed with the same intellectual potential who have a...
50 years anniversary For exactly 50 years, the Rencontres de la Photographie have been held every summer under the hot sun in Arles. In the entire town Initially conceived as a small exhibition staged amongst friends, over time the show has radically evolved,...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rprylIsrdUg South Africa William Kentridge was born in South Africa in 1955. Apartheid He therefore spent 40 years living under the notorious apartheid regime. He describes how at the time the only way of understanding society...
On minute in front of a masterpiece How long does one spend in front of a masterpiece? For mere mortals who can’t claim to possess any, one minute maximum and often even less will be dedicated to experiencing this outstanding vision in a museum. Apart from in...