https://youtu.be/OZeB6jA9KY4 With Saint Rita of Cascia “Saint Rita of Cascia, patron of impossible and desperate cases, thank you for all the powerful, decisive, marvellous help that you have given me up to now (…) Even if I am personally...
At the New York auctions there were paintings for keen connoisseurs or speculators
Vandalism On 18 November 2022 two environmental activists from the French movement known as “Dernière Rénovation” (Last Renovation) poured orange acrylic paint over a massive stainless steel sculpture, an equestrian self-portrait by American...
Tate Modern: this is how art history is made. Cézanne’s influence from Gauguin to Lucian Freud
Visual gust of wind Seeing a substantial exhibition of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is like being caught up in a visual gust of wind. There’s the beauty of the reddish and green hues that caress you, but also the simplified or even crude forms, the...
Centre Pompidou: the beautiful people of Alice Neel
https://youtu.be/wYDfZVjsCBg Immortality Without wanting to resort to big words, having your portrait done is a good way of attempting to achieve immortality. In New York it was Andy Warhol who, in the 1960s, brought the discipline back in...
The new natural illusions of Olafur Eliasson
https://youtu.be/ohJSf3ag_9Q A new vocabulary There are certain artists – and they are rare – who are capable of inventing an entire vocabulary. This is true of the Icelandic-Danish artist who lives in Berlin, Olafur Eliasson (born in 1967),...
Tribute to Rodney Graham (1949-2022)
The Canadian artist Rodney Graham, born in 1949, has just died of cancer. I met him in 2016 at the Dijon Consortium where he had staged an extraordinary exhibition. He invented exceptional stories through his videos and installations...
Paris+ by Art Basel: artworks for millions of euros at the fair replacing the Fiac
High expectations It’s the question on everyone’s lips: with the arrival of the contemporary art fair Paris+ by Art Basel, which is now organized by the Swiss behemoth, what are the real changes? Expectations are high if we are to believe the...
Paris: the impressive show of Picasso’s sculptures at a commercial gallery
https://youtu.be/Z4pfMDkzLy8 24 times more paintings than sculptures 16,000: this is the number of painted works officially produced by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and inventoried in his catalogue raisonné. In 2000 the modern art historian Werner...
Frieze week: the London art scene is hyperactive despite the post-Brexit crisis
London is resilient If Great Britain has been hit by a social and economic crisis, the largest art fair in the country seems to be faring well. On 12 October Frieze opened in Regent’s Park, with its two components, Frieze Masters (128...
This October Hamad Al Thani and Gordon Getty are selling their collections of classical decorative art. The anticipated awaking of a sleeping beauty of the art market
A Porsche and a Boulle desk “Thirty years ago, when you wanted to show you were successful, first you’d buy a Porsche, followed by a Boulle desk, but those days are long gone, and familiarity with these high-quality furnishings has been lost.”...
Fondazione Prada in Venice: Taryn Simon’s conversation piece is a journey through the human brain
https://youtu.be/JweHtN8cZqg Large amount of data The American artist Taryn Simon (born in 1975) has a singular visual oeuvre which always finds unique ways of addressing serious phenomena. She is adept at compiling large amounts of data to...
Kokoschka: A modern artist who foreshadowed the painting of today
https://youtu.be/_BT4Hum8Tm0 A life- size doll He was no stranger to heartbreak. The painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), also known as “Kokoschka the madman”, embarked upon a tortured relationship between 1912 and 1914 with one of the mythical...