https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ovEJCxnmw Western modernity has been greatly influenced by tribal art: this is nothing new. It is common to see African masks alongside cubist pieces and other modern artworks, as is the case in the excellent Derain...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjxPp2dPZIc This story begins, for me, in 2006 or early 2007 in the lobby of a London hotel. Tom Krens was head of the Guggenheim at the time, a museum he sought to transform into a global brand. He had opened branches of...
It is one of the miracles of the American art world. In the land of rapid consumption, there exists an institution that takes its time, lots of it, and takes up space, again, lots of it. It’s called the Dia Art Foundation and its exhibition space at Beacon, located in...
Anyone familiar with the art market will still recall with shock that day in 2007, when a media-friendly collector from Las Vegas named Steve Wynn proudly unveiled one of his treasures, a voluptuous canvas by Picasso from 1932 entitled "The Dream", only to hit his...
Every year in Paris from mid-October onwards, and more specifically during the FIAC, a proliferation of exhibitions is inaugurated. We have already mentioned the nasty surprise that came in the form of the Gauguin exhibition at the Grand Palais. The Picasso Museum has...
Paris is having a New York moment. As the Fondation Louis Vuitton prepares to pull out all the stops this October with an exhibition of 200 works from Moma telling the story of the institution, and as the Grand Palais exhibits 250 artworks by Irving Penn in a...
An American flag. A target. A sequence of numbers. Are these simple subjects for a simple painter? Not at all. Since the 1950s, when Jasper Johns (born in 1930) develops a unique language using familiar themes, his vision is so powerful that paintings of targets,...
Chantilly is the name given to a sublime variety of whipped cream, for which France is envied the world over. But it shares its name with another French speciality: a Renaissance château, home to a long forgotten art history treasure trove. The Château de Chantilly...
One of the most spectacular exhibitions in Paris right now is at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The grandiose set design by architect Nathalie Crinière provides the backdrop for what are mainly gowns, since this is a retrospective of fashion designer Christian Dior...
Hans Ulrich Obrist (Huo) is one of the most famous superstars of contemporary art. The artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery and self-described exhibition maker was generous enough to inaugurate our new video series: 10 times 50 seconds. -1 What is the first...
(David Hockney studio did not allow photos or videos in the exhibition even for journalists ) There are artists who dream about pictorial revolutions and there are those who celebrate easel painting as it has always been. Painting has its great adventurers, those who...
DOCUMENTA It attracts serious attention in contemporary art circles but there isn’t an awful lot of love for it. Documenta, the legendary mega-exhibition, happens every five years in the sad, small German town of Kassel. The show has always been intellectual and...