https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiYqoZrZJ8E An exhibition doesn’t need to be large for it to be sublime. Right now, the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris is staging an exhibition of this kind. It is in this institution, the setting for what could be called...
“Don’t bite off more than you can chew”. The danger when one possesses many artworks lies in wanting to display them all, in seeking to make a show of strength. In contemporary art, taking into account the diversity of forms and the scale of the artworks, ultimately...
He is always slightly grouchy. His slow manner of speaking is characterized by a strong Belgian accent and his physique has remained the same all the time I have known him. He is Sylvio Perlstein, a true character, an atypical collector who is rather wild by nature,...
Every time a snippet of a notable collection is unveiled it naturally engenders an emphatic flood of reactions in the vein of “I like this” or “I don’t like that”, grimaces, “oh”’s and “ha”’s, enthusiastic exclamations and harsh words. Take, for example, in...
The history of art can be unjust. But we quickly find the reasons for certain anomalies. Take Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973). Does her name sound unfamiliar to you? That’s understandable. She presents two major disadvantages. She’s a female painter who was also...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mAt6S_zdWY Imagine an artist who would become a legend within the first decade of his career. What would he do with the rest of his life? In the contemporary period, we could say that Damien Hirst (born in 1965), who was...
The greatest painters are those who have paid very close attention to their predecessors. Just look at Picasso, steeped in knowledge from a very young age thanks to his father who was an art teacher. Similarly, these days a major artist such as Scottish painter Peter...
In the Parisian district of Le Marais, the Tornabuoni gallery is exhibiting 24 paintings until 24 February by one of the most famous yet also most controversial artists in the history of twentieth-century art: Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). They are on sale for...
“My love I think of you always. But the 14 hours a day I don’t spend with you are a torment to me” (30 June [1949]) “I thus accept the situation as it is and will seek a miracle no longer. I am happy when I think of you” (25 October [1949]) “It is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqtRGAW_yLQ In these times when extreme nationalism is sweeping the globe it is good to remember that the greatest art is always the fruit of multiple influences of disparate origins. In his “Introduction to the History of...
The art public adores suffering artists. They live badly, they die young, they’re ill, but every now and then they produce extraordinary things. In the rankings of this type of artist the gold medal goes to Vincent Van Gogh, but just behind him there is the Italian...
They are the world’s most famous partnership in contemporary art. British artists Gilbert (born in 1943) and George (born in 1942) have been creating art together under their first names for 50 years, since 1967. Yes, they think as one. They even move as one, like...