Bill Viola and video art A single exhibition is not enough to form a definitive opinion of an artist. The American artist Bill Viola (born in 1951) is known as one of the major figures and the great pioneer of video art. Yet his retrospective at the Grand...
War Machine Tefaf in Maastricht, Holland, is a veritable war machine dedicated to the antiques trade. With its 279 participants and renowned for its excellent organization, it’s been running for 32 years and has recently spawned two sister fairs in New...
A double success story? The story might go like this: an English pop singer from a modest background becomes a global superstar and buys and supports visual artists, also from modest backgrounds, who found fame around the same time as him: the rather...
Sharjah Do you know Sharjah? It’s a city in the United Arab Emirates that doesn’t get much media attention. While it may not be as bustling as Dubai with its ski run and flashy nightclubs, nor as moneyed as Abu Dhabi with its Louvre and its oil wells, Sharjah, a city...
Unique charm Amid the abundance of fairs springing up all over the world, Arco, which is held in Madrid until 3 March, stands out for having its own unique charm. Firstly because it takes place in this fun-loving capital and constitutes the largest national artistic...
Environmentalism There was a time when environmentalism wasn’t really talked about, except in relation to a few dishevelled and clearsighted hippies sporting yellow badges with the slogan “Nuclear Power? No Thanks”. There was a time when housewives didn’t worry about...
First Bischofberger It’s the striking phenomenon marking the beginning of 2019. The Swiss peaks have literally been colonized by artistic activities. These may be commercial, aesthetic or intellectual in nature, but in any case they’re taking over the chicest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdwEglW8EX8 On paper the Dau project doesn’t fail to amaze. This is the story of a Russian filmmaker who hasn’t filmed all that much, Ilya Khrzhanovsky (born in 1975), who is said to have succeeded in convincing a New Russian who...
Immersive art Dialling up the “wow” factor, that’s the aim. A great wave is washing over the art world across the globe, a wave that submerges everything, a wave of immersive installations. From the Japanese Team Lab collective to veteran Japanese Pop artist...
Ever since Marcel Duchamp presented an upside-down urinal which he called “Fountain” and the artistic community decided this was an act of significance, ever since artists began distorting silhouettes to imprint upon them their personal feelings and impressions while...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTJYVDMXfow The French language is facetious. In order to provide an emphatic and worthy name for amateur artists, for those who practise a hobby, it has found a unique description that’s even entered international usage:...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aes8g44lBog With all these artworks in the millions of dollars whose prices become the most memorable thing about them, with all the fairs you could ever want, with all these figurative or abstract paintings flooding the...