In the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, there’s something different about the scenery. From the distance, it’s a bundle of colours criss-crossing in strange patterns that you first notice. Up close, the colossal object is breathtaking. The roof of the Frank Gehry-designed...
Since in New York there are modern and contemporary auctions every day this week featuring emotion, why not go along and see some genuine masterpieces that are not for sale. The curatorial world is shaped, in varying degrees, by its trends. The most recent trend,...
Every May and November, Sotheby’s and Christie’s modern and contemporary art auctions in New York have become, rightly or wrongly, a shop window for the global art business and a bellwether for the market in the eyes of the general public. In a few lots, everything is...
Every two years at the Grand Palais in Paris, Monumenta is an act of creative bravura and a truly colossal show in the international contemporary art calendar. It’s a battle of the titans, in which an artist has to struggle to assert himself inside and against a...
Imagine someone who grasped as early as 1910 the monumental importance of Picasso and Matisse on the history of art. Imagine a man who anticipated the role Cezanne’s painting would have in the dawning of cubism. A man who since Marcel Duchamp stopped painting in...
The American artist Paul McCarthy (born 1945) is important. He’s important because he pokes fun at all those defenders of good taste in art. Paul McCarthy is important because he upsets people. Paul McCarthy is important because he projects the image of an America...
The art world, like the rest of us for that matter, likes pigeonholing artists into one category or another. Fortunately there are artists who manage to escape all categorisation. A case in point is Francesco Vezzoli, the Italian artist recognised by international...
The American legend Robert Longo (born in 1953), whose works can be found in the collections of major museums across the world, was in Paris a few days ago as he has two gallery shows, one at Thaddeus Ropac in Le Marais, the other at Cahiers d'Art in Saint Germain des...
‘Each time you talk to your friends on Facebook, each time you buy a book on Amazon, each time you save for your pension fund, you’re dealing with a company practicing tax optimisation. We’re not talking drug trafficking. It frequently turns out that these...
Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) is true a giant of painting from the second half of the 20th century but has yet to receive the full credit he deserves. This is especially apparent when compared with his fellow countryman Gerhard Richter (born 1932) who can properly be...
In a just short space of time La Monnaie de Paris, with its sumptuous 18th century salons, has defied to all expectations to become an important exhibition space for radical contemporary art. Hot on the heels of the solo exhibition by Belgian artist Marcel...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNudBHEsAlI Some painters have an overwhelmingly intellectual relationship to their work. For others it’s more physical. Ask one of the most famous among the latter group, Gerhard Richter, born in 1932, who his greatest inspirations...