The brilliance of certain artists lies in their ability to force you to really look at what they have to show. It’s true of German-born, London-based artist Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968). Slowly but surely he’s become one of the superstars of contemporary art, and...
In the '90s HBO aired ‘Dream On’, a US series where the lead character at key moments had flashbacks of clips from TV shows he’d watched in his childhood. It was a way of saying that all adults born since the '60s are TV babies, shaped by its images, its theme tunes,...
Regardless of what people say each time about the overall standard at the Venice Biennale, and despite the growing number of challengers from Sao Paulo to Shanghai, this event remains the queen of the world’s contemporary art shows. With 900 works at the international...
If the role of art in your life amounts to concerns such as whether the painting in your living room matches the colour of your sofa then you should probably steer clear of the 57th Venice Biennale where the largest exhibition, the international pavilion, is ‘curated’...
It can be difficult finding one’s way among all these biennales – the new tourist panaceas – flourishing across the planet. This rainy spring, for example, in Jutland in the middle of Denmark, separated by 80km and only a few weeks apart from each other, there is a...
It’s a vast continent containing an array of political and religious realities, unique histories and countless languages. That's Africa, a jigsaw of identities. Art critics, however, still have a tendency to use the catchall term ‘African art’. As if there was such...
‘The Thinker’, ‘The Kiss’... Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is a giant of sculpture whose most famous works have almost become clichés (on this idea of Rodin as a cliché, see the new work by Urs Fischer – a life-sized version of 'The Kiss' in Plasticine, as...
New York’s most stunning exhibition right now is dedicated to a complete unknown – or near enough. His name is Hercules Segers (circa 1589-1638), he’s a Dutchman and he was best known for his prints. Don't be put off by the austerity of the subject matter. Segers is...
This is the tale of an artist who for ten years has been very secretly working away on a repertoire of works that will reinvent his creation. This is the tale of Damien Hirst (born 1965), who is attempting a resurrection in Venice by way of a sprawling and...
The Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery in Paris is showing the early works of Robert Mapplethorpe. Each is unique and made in his own hand. Some pieces incorporate photography, but not all of them. It’s proof – if proof is still needed – that Robert Mapplethorpe was not simply a...
Who among us hasn’t felt at least once, while walking by the sea, through a forest, or in the mountains, a kind of mystical impression, a communion with the sky and the earth, a sensation of being drawn towards the sublime absolute. To relive that experience, but...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJC9wbiKeV8 You can’t mistake her. She is coiffed like a contemporary Capuchin monk with her two-tone haircut, white at the roots, burgundy at the tips. She walks slowly but her spirit fizzes like lightning. Agnes Varda is...