https://youtu.be/x5XqBEE-pWY Never before attempted “Here, something never before attempted is being tried: to create the universe, create instinctively, and through love, the universe in which modern art might find both its rightful...
In a Little Paradise of Abstraction, on the Island of Porquerolles
https://youtu.be/ZnmHebgEktk?si=RdUeRVC8oeA5GzWS Wassily Kandinsky Each type of abstraction has its own school, and they rarely overlap. First came the great inventors of abstraction, led by Wassily Kandinsky, who, in the 1910s, began...
Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles : Happy Days
Letizia Battaglia Often, when artists first begin documenting their lives through photography, they naturally start by capturing their happy days. But what comes next—in both their work and their lives—usually ends up telling another story....
Cézanne in Aix: If You Miss This Exhibit, You’ll Have Failed Your Summer
https://youtu.be/QhDVh8aFuMs Aix en Provence It’s a safe bet that had Cézanne not been from Aix-en-Provence, the history of modern art would have gone down a very different path. In the final years of his life, the painter—whom Picasso would...
Wangechi Mutu: After the Metropolitan Museum, the Villa Borghese
https://youtu.be/gNyuk6G2GBE?si=q_i4EeB_Y7jATAV7 Site of grandeur When sites of grandeur reach a certain level, they become religious. Which isn’t to say that visiting such places makes one believe more in Jesus or Buddha. Simply, the feeling...
Matisse / Picasso: And the Winner Is…
https://youtu.be/LsfgADzyBrQ?si=nZtUVPDOw8dq4Whm Several Matisse At the most recent Art Basel fair in Basel, paintings by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) could be found at several booths. London- and New York-based gallery Luxembourg & Co, for...
Niki de Saint Phalle: The Great Return
https://youtu.be/uoNuSN7Ap3s Audacious and monumental Picture a colossal woman, 25 meters long and 9 meters wide, figured three-dimensionally in rounded, simplified shapes and covered in bright, contrasting colors. She is lying on her...
Art Basel in Basel: A Market Between Uncertainty and Resilience
Shielded form the world's Chaos? As Art Basel in Basel opened on June 17, with its festive spirit, endless dinners, and an exceptional program of museum exhibitions held across the city, one might have thought for a moment that the art market...
Venice: When Renaissance Artists Let Loose
https://youtu.be/q8U8JJt7o5w Absolute masterpiece When we think of the absolute masterpieces of art history, we often think first of the Italian Renaissance. And among the Italian museums that house some of the most significant examples, the...
Wolfgang Tillmans at Centre Pompidou — a Closing Statement That’ll Leave Its Mark
https://youtu.be/ZT3WhHz1xJU?si=TBv-NHSJDO6_cHL5 Wolfgang Tillmans (born in 1968) is a major figure in the global art scene. For some forty years, the German artist has practiced photography—but not merely in order to capture images. He’s what...
New York: An Exquisite Return Visit to Mr. Frick
https://youtu.be/eLvjpERKfHA Once upon... This story could begin with "Once upon a time," because it concludes in a veritable palace. But a palace of a particular kind. It can be found on Fifth Avenue in New York, opposite Central Park....
Venice: The Metamorphosis of Palazzo Grassi by Tatiana Trouvé
https://youtu.be/FvLBH3oc3Uk?si=CjemCFvJqRiFAjPg Palazzo Grassi Stepping into the world of Tatiana Trouvé (born in 1968) means entering her “magical mind,” tracing the contours of her unconscious, embracing her singular imagination. In Venice,...