Cancel culture At a time when art which addresses societal issues has never been so relevant, exhibiting it in institutions has never proved so difficult. In late August in New York, at the epicentre of what is known as “cancel culture”, a...
Centre Pompidou: Why did Christo wrap things?
Thanks a to a hairdresser There are many smaller stories within the larger sweep of history. Christo, the Bulgarian-born artist who died on 31 May 2020, famous for his gigantic wrapping works at the scale of Paris’s Pont Neuf in 1985 and the...
Pinault Collection: When the most magical parts of Los Angeles meet Venice
No longer accessible The hazards and disasters of the coronavirus crisis mean many countries and artists that once seemed to be within reach are no longer accessible, and will apparently remain that way for some time. Excellent exhibition This is why we should...
Tribute to Christo: the art of gigantism and the impossible
Christo died on 31 May 2020 at the age of 84. He was one of the very first artists that I interviewed early on in my career. I went to meet him in 1993 at his studio in Soho in New York, where I made his acquaintance through the dealer Daniel Varenne, now also...
How museums are responding to the crisis : the reactions of directors from Los Angeles to Saint Petersburg (1)
Museums: the highest idea of a man “The museum, after all, is one of the places that give us the highest idea of man (…) The role of museums in our relationship with works of art is so great that we can hardly conceive of the fact that they...
Steve McQueen at the Tate Modern: the man with two brains
The filmaker There are certain rare people who seem to have two brains. This is the case of the English filmmaker and artist who lives in Amsterdam, Steve McQueen (born in 1969). Turner Prize In 1999 the video artist was awarded the Turner Prize, Britain’s highest...
Frieze LA: does art that appeals to the angels of entertainment run the risk of being too shallow?
( From Velvet Buzzsaw: "A bad review is better than sinking into the great glut of anonymity.) Art and entertainment industry Los Angeles may be a city rich in art, but it is first and foremost the city of what Americans refer to as the entertainment industry. Here...
Eugenio Lopez: a video interview with the very influential Mexican collector
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe5XsVzwOwo Trends in contemporary art There are trends within contemporary art. Mexico It’s been several years since Mexico started to become an attractive country for fans of current artistic creation. Firstly because certain...
Edward Hopper: Explore the American painter’s landscapes, like Barack Obama
In the Oval Office It was Barack Obama who, during his presidency, chose to hang two paintings in the Oval Office, one above the other. We recognized them as two views of Cape Cod, the coastal area which was a favourite of the Kennedys. More generally, they were two...
Ingres: a treasure trove of 4500 drawings that inspired the best of Picasso. Do you know Montauban?
Pilgrimage in Montauban Picasso didn’t wait for the invention of the high-speed train or the arrival of airliners when he specially embarked on the interminable journey three times to the little town of Montauban, situated 54 kilometres outside of Toulouse in the...
Peter Saul: before his exhibition at the New Museum, a video interview with the artist who’s been caricaturing America for over 50 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1pKj2F8cU What he is not This is an artist of whom it’s easier to say what he is not, as opposed to what he is. Peter Saul (born in 1934) is not a pop artist in the true sense, as you will often read. Extreme distorsions...
Francis Alÿs: video interview with the great nomadic artist on the occasion of his exhibition at Amsterdam’s Eye Museum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlbMXLQWvfg Walter Benjamin The visionary writer Walter Benjamin once said of Marcel Proust (1) that he admired “his astounding way of using the great poets’ method of taking their metaphors from everything that is close at hand...