The press conference for the Venice Biennale, arguably the world’s most important contemporary art event, takes place three months earlier and is usually quite a  confusing affair. Not this time.  Here's a foretaste of what the 57th Venice Biennale, curated...
Switzerland is a unique blend of alpine culture, cows, rustic tradition, cheese, and world-class expertise in such diverse domains as watchmaking, banking and contemporary art. Every two years, in Gstaad, a show called Elevation 1049 perfectly incarnates these two...
The greatest artists present us with endless opportunities to discover new sides to their work. A perfect example is at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, where 62 paintings by Claude Monet are currently on display. The thematic hanging and the choice of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-53EMSOgRQ Anyone who has visited Naoshima and Teshima, the art islands in the Seto Inland Sea in Japan which have been transformed by the visionary businessman Soichiro Fukutake into spaces that marry beauty and nature,...
It is not unheard of for museums, through their programming schedules, to inadvertently reprise entire chapters of art history. As I write, on one side of the Channel, in Paris, at Pompidou Center, is the fabulous Cy Twombly retrospective, showing until 24 April. (...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vInG1XY5GjE Â Philippe Parreno (born 1963) the French artist who lives in Paris (for an artist to remain in Paris after becoming known is a rarity) has filled the entire Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. The length of the...
The court decision came like a thunderbolt. Guy Wildenstein, the heir to the world’s largest dynasty of art dealers, was accused in France of a massive tax fraud (‘The most sophisticated and longest tax fraud of the Fifth Republic’ (1))  but on 12 January, before the...
Let’s be frank.  Among the art lovers of this world – that vast group of individuals that loves flaunting its coffee table books and haunts Moma, the Centre Pompidou and the Tate Modern – how many can tell you why Carl Andre is an important artist? Why exactly should...
In the pantheon of poets, the most prized names are those collectively known as the maudits – the cursed ones. Literature, like art, has been partial to its martyrs, the ones who died too soon, or who were marginalised by society and who appear to have died at the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxv2qthiSYg As a young boy Subodh Gupta lived in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India. Everyone in the small city of Khagaul where he grew up worked for the Indian railways. The young Indian boy with the very common...
Gold is the only thing that piques his interest. Firstly, he tasted professional success by investing in the precious metal (1). Subsequently, gold allowed him to immerse himself in what’s commonly known as the Golden Age. The New York businessman Thomas Kaplan (born...
There is not one surrealism, but in fact many surrealisms. Proof if required is to be found at the Centre Pompidou where that most Belgian of surrealists, the painter René Magritte, is in the spotlight until 23rd January. Also at the Pompidou until 17th January is...