https://youtu.be/VnR1g5Y0BoY Dumas, Doig and Serpas Ser Serpas is 26 years old and she is astonishingly free. This young woman, who was born in Los Angeles and whose mother is a police officer, is one of the stars of the Pinault collection with her remarkable paintings of fragments of bodies, which are displayed not […]
Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski Christian Boltanski 14 July 2021 All his life Christian Boltanski was obsessed by death. At his final large-scale exhibition, a retrospective conceived as a single artwork in 2019 […]
Not the architecture Biennale No, it wasn’t the architecture biennale that made me rush to Venice. I initially found it intellectually stimulating, with all the societal and ecological questions it raises, but it was weak and difficult to access in terms of the visual form these issues were given. Palazzo Grimani In […]
A lineage of collectors The Swiss billionaire Maja Hoffmann comes from a lineage of remarkable collectors. Her grandmother, Maja Sacher, was one of the founders of the art museum in Basel (See here the video interview of Maja Hoffmann) Childhood in Arles Maja Hoffmann spent her childhood in Arles because her father, Lukas, was […]
Great painter It’s generally taken as a given that Gerhard Richter is one of the great painters from the latter half of the 20th century. But for anyone who may still have doubts on the subject, it’s worth paying a visit to the Kunsthaus Zurich before 25 July. The institution is devoting a […]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOcPjIvN450 Ego Are they starchitects? On 16 March 2021 the famous Pritzker Prize was awarded to a French couple: Anne Lacaton (born in 1955) and Jean-Philippe Vassal (born in 1954). Partners in life and in business, these two architects, aren’t remotely affiliated with any kind of star system, as is usually the case for […]
https://youtu.be/OxTr5dkWJNE His Sainte Victoire During a public health crisis, the Beyeler Foundation could have contented itself with displaying its Rothkos, Monets, Giacomettis… from the permanent collection amassed by its founder, the dealer Ernst Beyeler (1921-2010). When the latter invited me to visit his site, which had just opened, looking out through the large windows […]
No foreigners No foreign visitors, or only very few… Frieze New York, the first fair to effectively take place on American soil since the outbreak of the pandemic, is receiving very few – if any – foreign visitors between 5 and 9 May 2021. The show, which up until now has been based in […]
The ultimate art-market star Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is the 20th century’s star painter, but he is also the ultimate art-market star of the early 21st century. Looking at the numbers, according to the Artprice database 100 euros invested on average in a Picasso work in 2000 would be valued at 190 euros in December […]
Mass sanitization These are times of mass sanitization. Long before we wore masks and handwashing justifiably became a global obsession, in another field the presence of sex in art was banished from the major themes of exhibitions in the Anglo-Saxon world. Beyond the little isle of French exception, a whole swath of visual sensuality […]
The exception of Luxembourg Luxembourg is known for its unique system of banking. What is less well known is that the duchy is also unique in terms of its museums compared to France, since this type of cultural institution is currently open there. Ahead his retrospective at the Royal Academy It’s therefore a good […]
https://youtu.be/ZfsdRadJwx8 Abraham Accords Now that Dubai has become an exceptional place in the global context of a planet where travel is prohibited and in a diplomatic context which promotes exchanges – the “Abraham Accords”, the peace treaty signed on 15 September 2020 by the United Arab Emirates and Israel – on 29 March the […]
Technological progress and art history Contrary to all commonly held assumptions, art history is closely linked to the history of technological progress. It is said, for example, that Vermeer made use of the “camera obscura”, an optical technique that involved a pierced hole in a small, darkened room through which the viewer could see […]
The scream “The Scream” by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is a bit like the tree that conceals the forest. Or the story of how a painting conceived in four versions – which has become a cultural touchstone in global collective memory – has long overshadowed the rest of the output of this Norwegian artist, […]
Art and Life “Art is what makes life more interesting than art.” People tend to slightly overuse this quote by the great Fluxus artist Robert Filliou (1926-1987), but it perfectly articulates a desire for an existence driven by the pursuit of aesthetics in the broad sense. The French illustrator Pierre Le Tan (1950-2019) was […]
Crystal balls Visionaries. In times of crisis, humanity is always looking for people who seem able to reveal truths before everyone else. These modern-day magi, bereft of their crystal balls, may take the guise of scientists, doctors, anthropologists, or those who specialize in the natural world, experienced people who are nobody’s fools during […]
https://youtu.be/LxH6-D2iYKA Appeared like by magic Contrary to the situation in France or in the United States, the Louvre Abu Dhabi closed its doors for only 100 days while the world was shaken by the pandemic. The museum appeared as if by magic in 2017 on a wild island previously overrun by mangroves, Saadiyat Island, […]
Daft Punk In electronic music, people often refer to a unique genre known as “French touch” which enjoyed great international success by liberating itself from its traditional musical heritage, and whose frontrunners were the now defunct Daft Punk. While the duo announced their separation on 22 February 2021, the idea of a “French […]
