https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDCmQEFk6Y Nobody can emerge unscathed from this exhibition. Mounted with exceptional skill by the Pompidou Centre curator Jonas Storsve with the collaboration of Nicola del Roscio who worked with the artist during 48 years ( he...
I’ve told this story before. In the French charming provinces, in a place known for its Medieval kings, its snails and its wine, is a small town. There, in one of its working class neighbourhoods is a building designed by the Japanese starchitect Shigeru Ban that...
Art which is political to the exclusion of all else is pointless, regardless of how human its message. Art demands the foundation. It demands the form too. Otherwise you simply end up with illustrations. The greatest shock that I had the chance to experience recently...
‘It is essential for the sensual element to be included in some way or another in any work of art.’ These words were written by Mark Rothko, the most sensual of abstract artists (in his paintings, at any rate). The sensual dimension is vitally important to art...
It is commonplace to say that he is one of the greatest names in painting in the 20th century. Mark Rothko (1903-1970) committed suicide at the age of 66 and we invariably connect his darkest paintings to the period preceding his death. ‘It’s so easy to tell a...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRl1EuJNnFk In the small world of international contemporary art, he's a star. Yet he has no objects for sale, unless you include (good) intentions, freedom and a moderate desire to change the world. His name is Tino Sehgal, he...
Gagosian, Sotheby’s, Christie’s. Think of the art market at its most glamorous, its most breathtaking, with its record-breaking prices, and the names most often evoked are the two leading auction houses and a multinational gallery owned by the American, Larry...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Mq5PtT9Yw This story gets off on the wrong foot. It involves an artist who is already the subject of a lot of talk – arguably a little too much – and who caused several scandals in the 2000s, through his art, and also with his...
The setting is sensational: FIAC, which takes place from 20 to 23 October, is swelled with 186 galleries from 26 different countries and this year stretches beyond the Grand Palais into the Petit Palais (where 4o works are shown inside and out at the front). The main...
‘Everything I’ve done in the cinema lately has been for the sake of painting. Cinema was magnificent in the '70s. There are fewer masterpieces these days.’ In 2008 the celebrated film maker and producer Claude Berri (1934-2009) whose credits include producing Roman...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZ4qd07O1Y The Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, in Midnight’s Children,the book which launched his career, tells the fascinating story of a young Indian doctor who is summoned each week to the bedside of a young woman who he...
There is a new very good space in France for international contemporary art – the Van Gogh Foundation in Arles. You can look for all the similarities you want between Vincent Van Gogh, who is almost the adoptive son of this region, and the artists programmed here (Yan...