https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2slfSt8OJYw For the past few years, it’s been a thing for museums to show artists in pairs. This often involves some stylistic affinity that shines a light on their respective works. For the new major exhibition at the Picasso...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDCmQEFk6Y Nobody can emerge unscathed from this exhibition. Mounted with exceptional skill by the Pompidou Centre curator Jonas Storsve with the collaboration of Nicola del Roscio who worked with the artist during 48 years ( he...
I’ve told this story before. In the French charming provinces, in a place known for its Medieval kings, its snails and its wine, is a small town. There, in one of its working class neighbourhoods is a building designed by the Japanese starchitect Shigeru Ban that...
To mark the exceptional Picabia retrospective at MoMA in New York (from 21 November to 19 March), I’m reposting my article about its earlier incarnation this summer in Zurich, featuring an exceptional account by specialist Alain Tarica. As the Zurich curator Catherine...
Art which is political to the exclusion of all else is pointless, regardless of how human its message. Art demands the foundation. It demands the form too. Otherwise you simply end up with illustrations. The greatest shock that I had the chance to experience recently...
The history of art spends its time righting past wrongs. The most recent case comes in the shape of a stunning exhibition on an Impressionist artist at the Musée d’Orsay, which runs until 5 March when it will travel to the National Gallery in Washington. Through the...
‘It is essential for the sensual element to be included in some way or another in any work of art.’ These words were written by Mark Rothko, the most sensual of abstract artists (in his paintings, at any rate). The sensual dimension is vitally important to art...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZ4qd07O1Y The Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, in Midnight’s Children,the book which launched his career, tells the fascinating story of a young Indian doctor who is summoned each week to the bedside of a young woman who he...
This story was written after a trip to Saint Petersburg and Moscow The history of modern art, in its great sweep, has been punctuated by miraculous tales of wealthy patrons who were more than just far-sighted, they were enormously generous towards artists who, thanks...
There is a new very good space in France for international contemporary art – the Van Gogh Foundation in Arles. You can look for all the similarities you want between Vincent Van Gogh, who is almost the adoptive son of this region, and the artists programmed here (Yan...
‘This is not a pipe’. It appears on t-shirts, mugs, and in advertising slogans and has become the biggest cliché of modern art. René Magritte (1898-1967), who painted the pipe in 1929 accompanied by the famous line ‘ceci n’est pas...’ or 'this is not...' has earned...
In this cynical and individualistic world we live in, acts of generosity always cause surprise. The gift in question is worth 6 million euros according to insurers. It came into existence last year when the Potanin Foundation, belonging to Russian oligarch Vladimir...