She told me: “If I were you I would think twice before you decide to go to Tehran. The Grand Bazaar is on strike. The last time that happened the Shah was overthrown”. She’s an American-Iranian friend who receives daily news from Tehran via her family who live in the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K43H-AvZXtc It’s a huge shock. It’s a major exhibition driven by a universal message. It’s a piece of the history of modern art. In Paris there’s a place that is little known for its exhibitions, the Shoah Memorial located...
Two of the greatest artworks of the twentieth century were almost conceived in a brothel. The masterpiece “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon”, Picasso’s cubist manifesto now on display at Moma, doesn’t depict pretty girls from the south of France but rather creatures...
Being a homosexual and a successful writer at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries could lead to dangerous situations. In France it wasn’t until 1982 that homosexuality was decriminalized. In England one of the most skilled wordsmiths in the land, Oscar...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz4Bht6Ft3M The Centre Pompidou continues to multiply. Following the opening of a new branch in the East of France in Metz, an outpost in Malaga, and in anticipation of next year’s opening in Shanghai of a new Asian...
Millions of dollars are again going to be raining down. At the end of a week of sales dedicated to the impressive Rockefeller collection (cf. the Report) in which the first night of auctions alone brought in 646 million dollars and record prices for Monet, Matisse,...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiYqoZrZJ8E An exhibition doesn’t need to be large for it to be sublime. Right now, the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris is staging an exhibition of this kind. It is in this institution, the setting for what could be called...
He is always slightly grouchy. His slow manner of speaking is characterized by a strong Belgian accent and his physique has remained the same all the time I have known him. He is Sylvio Perlstein, a true character, an atypical collector who is rather wild by nature,...
One should be wary of the vocabulary employed by auction houses. The use of superlatives is all too common (the most beautiful artwork, the most beautiful collection etc…) and the sole objective is to push up prices. An example that comes to mind is the sale in 2015...
Every time a snippet of a notable collection is unveiled it naturally engenders an emphatic flood of reactions in the vein of “I like this” or “I don’t like that”, grimaces, “oh”’s and “ha”’s, enthusiastic exclamations and harsh words. Take, for example, in...
The history of art can be unjust. But we quickly find the reasons for certain anomalies. Take Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973). Does her name sound unfamiliar to you? That’s understandable. She presents two major disadvantages. She’s a female painter who was also...
The greatest painters are those who have paid very close attention to their predecessors. Just look at Picasso, steeped in knowledge from a very young age thanks to his father who was an art teacher. Similarly, these days a major artist such as Scottish painter Peter...