City of migration Palermo is a fascinating city, and one that’s sparked a lot of conversation in recent years. Firstly, this is due to its current international relevance as it’s one of the major sites of migration from Africa to Italy, where its mayor Leoluca...
https://youtu.be/FE3wDrJqe5o 170 arworks Too much is never enough. The Fondation Louis Vuitton is dedicating a retrospective of 170 artworks to the American artist Cindy Sherman (born in 1954). Overdose There is a risk of it...
Cancel culture At a time when art which addresses societal issues has never been so relevant, exhibiting it in institutions has never proved so difficult. In late August in New York, at the epicentre of what is known as “cancel culture”, a...
https://youtu.be/XE0qmphievc The end of colonial ruls Even before the world was put on hold due to the arrival of a highly contagious virus, our society was already experiencing a profound shift in values. A number of countries that were...
Christo died on 31 May 2020 at the age of 84. He was one of the very first artists that I interviewed early on in my career. I went to meet him in 1993 at his studio in Soho in New York, where I made his acquaintance through the dealer Daniel Varenne, now also...
American inferiority complex For a long time the United States suffered from an inferiority complex with regards to its painting. This was because despite America’s status as an economic powerhouse, up until the Second World War it was Paris –...
Museums: the highest idea of a man “The museum, after all, is one of the places that give us the highest idea of man (…) The role of museums in our relationship with works of art is so great that we can hardly conceive of the fact that they...
https://youtu.be/ot4aupt4VkY History of contemporary art Swiss-born Hans Ulrich Obrist (born in 1968) is now part of the history of contemporary art. The artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery in London has become a phenomenon in his own right thanks to...
The filmaker There are certain rare people who seem to have two brains. This is the case of the English filmmaker and artist who lives in Amsterdam, Steve McQueen (born in 1969). Turner Prize In 1999 the video artist was awarded the Turner Prize, Britain’s highest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe5XsVzwOwo Trends in contemporary art There are trends within contemporary art. Mexico It’s been several years since Mexico started to become an attractive country for fans of current artistic creation. Firstly because certain...
Pilgrimage in Montauban Picasso didn’t wait for the invention of the high-speed train or the arrival of airliners when he specially embarked on the interminable journey three times to the little town of Montauban, situated 54 kilometres outside of Toulouse in the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1pKj2F8cU What he is not This is an artist of whom it’s easier to say what he is not, as opposed to what he is. Peter Saul (born in 1934) is not a pop artist in the true sense, as you will often read. Extreme distorsions...