I met the American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel (born in 1951) twice at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where he was in the process of installing his exhibition consisting of a dialogue between his own oeuvre and the sublime collections at the museum. Julian...
The prices of art at auction are constantly being pushed up. Although the large auction houses remain anxious to publish the satisfying results so as to globally keep up morale in the field, they also have a desire to conquer certain parts of the market, nowhere more...
The position of outsider is an uncomfortable one. You’re neither the best nor the worst. Phillips auction house, owned by the Russian luxury-goods company Mercury Group, finds itself similarly situated. Yet since 2014 it has been led by one of the greatest experts on...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BilamdemOw4 There are names that circulate in the contemporary art world which resemble little refrains that get stuck in your head. You hear them here and there at art fairs and museums on the other side of the world, you...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roF4jWEqBLg Even though Andy Warhol may not have had the museum namesake he deserved in New York – only Pittsburgh accepted a Warhol Museum after his premature death – and even though he isn’t actually buried there...
Sean Scully (born in 1945) cuts an imposing figure. Tall in stature, he moves slowly. His face is stern. He has thin lips. A shaved head. He could play the role of a bad guy in a film. He has a reputation for being difficult, but after spending a short time in his...
The next modern and contemporary art sales of the season will take place the week of the 12 November in New York. The programme features a large amount of expensive art, the most expensive of the last six months, being passed from one hand to another with creations...
“Lacquerware is light and soft to the touch and gives off hardly a sound. I know few greater pleasures than holding a lacquer soup bowl in my hands, feeling upon my palms the weight of the liquid and its mild warmth. The sensation is something like that of holding a...
The ultra-famous Japanese architect and winner of the Pritzker Prize , Tadao Ando (born in 1941) possesses an uncommon grace. He doesn’t display the usual rigidity during interviews. I met him last year and the man was all smiles, speaking to me at length about boxing...
Information has a resounding impact in the art market not when it addresses such notions as beauty, aesthetic renewal or visual research, but rather when it uses superlatives: it’s always the most expensive, the biggest, the most spectacular. In the race to extremes...
The museums with the richest collections of paintings always stage the most beautiful temporary exhibitions of Old Masters art. This is, quite simply, because these collections constitute a great currency of exchange. But it’s also because they naturally attract the...
Artists have an advantage over mere mortals in that the fruit of their torments can give rise to great works of art. They are able to express their contradictions and allow them to play out on canvas, creating a sort of tension that appeals to the viewer’s emotions....