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...
How to give expression to that great human obsession: love? While music and literature are filled with languishing heroes and heroines who desire, kiss and embrace one another, the depiction of love in painting and sculpture is not only rarer, but also an altogether...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ovEJCxnmw Western modernity has been greatly influenced by tribal art: this is nothing new. It is common to see African masks alongside cubist pieces and other modern artworks, as is the case in the excellent Derain...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjxPp2dPZIc This story begins, for me, in 2006 or early 2007 in the lobby of a London hotel. Tom Krens was head of the Guggenheim at the time, a museum he sought to transform into a global brand. He had opened branches of...
It is one of the miracles of the American art world. In the land of rapid consumption, there exists an institution that takes its time, lots of it, and takes up space, again, lots of it. It’s called the Dia Art Foundation and its exhibition space at Beacon, located in...
Magazine photographers are kind of artists on the fly. The pages are flicked through quickly and the images are often covered in writing or sliced in half. Yes, the most striking shots will stay in the mind, but what was the particular style of the photographer you...
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is an artist of pleasure and pictorial sensuality. From Brittany to the Marquesas Islands, he often uses warm tones in his paintings, adopting a characteristic spectrum from yellow through to brown, punctuated by pinks, blues and greens. His...
An American flag. A target. A sequence of numbers. Are these simple subjects for a simple painter? Not at all. Since the 1950s, when Jasper Johns (born in 1930) develops a unique language using familiar themes, his vision is so powerful that paintings of targets,...
Chantilly is the name given to a sublime variety of whipped cream, for which France is envied the world over. But it shares its name with another French speciality: a Renaissance château, home to a long forgotten art history treasure trove. The Château de Chantilly...
One of the most spectacular exhibitions in Paris right now is at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The grandiose set design by architect Nathalie Crinière provides the backdrop for what are mainly gowns, since this is a retrospective of fashion designer Christian Dior...
This summer in Venice the Biennale is stealing all the attention. Which is why contemporary art lovers might miss an exceptional Philip Guston (1913-1980) exhibition at Gallerie dell’Accademia. Guston, an American painter with a distinctive verve, is known for having...
There’s no denying it: the new map of wealthy nations is directly influencing the art market. In the field of modern art, even if Europe with Picasso at the helm (the record price for his work is $179 million, set in 2015) has represented the inner circle of...