logo-CFA
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (French, 1827-1875), "Ugolino and His Sons", 1865-67; detail, Saint-Béat marble; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation Inc. Gift, Charles Ulrick and Josephine Bay Foundation Inc. Gift, and Fletcher Fund

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux at the MET and the Divine Comedy

In the relationship between form and information, it may happen that a poetic source is stronger than a scientific or...

Continue

Art in novels: from “Letters to a young novelist” by Mario Vargas Llosa to Rudolf Stingel’s alpine landscapes

Dear Friend, Ernest Hemingway says somewhere that at the beginning of his writing career it suddenly occur to him that...

Continue
No image

A dialogue with collector Michel Cox Witmer at TEFAF 2014, who suggests: never buy based on what is for sale

Michel Cox Witmer is a long-experienced collector as well as a member of TEFAF’s board of trustee. On the way...

Continue

The TEFAF Art Market Report: there’s a reason for all those online art sales start-ups

  At 6.23 pm, when we start writing this article, the TEFAF is packed with people, and almost everyone is dressed...

Continue

Day one at TEFAF 2014: get ready for the opening!

  TEFAF 2014 has just begun, and collectors from all over the world are ready to enter the fair. In...

Continue
"Virgin and Child with Angels" (1452-1455 ca), oil on panel by Jean Fouquet, Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (it will be in Madrid, Prado Museum until 25 May)

Jean Fouquet goes to Madrid with an introduction letter by Paul Cézanne

  Generally preserved at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the “Virgin and Child with Angels” by French...

Continue
The Itinerary of catastrophe, a conversation between Sylvère Lotringer and Paul Virilio, 2008.

At the Whitney Biennial three artworks, plus Semiotext(e)

  Yesterday CFA had a very dedicated tour of the Whitney Biennial of American art, its last dance in the...

Continue

As a Futurist in New York he was completely useless! And fully disappointed back he went to his own country…

  Yesterday Conceptual Fine Arts visited the great show dedicated to the Italian Futurism at the Guggenheim museum, that we...

Continue
Antonello da Messina active 1456; died 1479, “Saint Jerome in his Study” about 1475. © The National Gallery, London

The fluidity of ideas reveals a futuristic side in the Renaissance

  At the National Gallery in London soon there will be an exhibition that will offer a very conceptual approach...

Continue

Bodies and objects are back at Independent 2014, thanks to Oliver Osborne and Brad Troemel

  If the realm of the art practice is half occupied by artists who are not interested in representing bodies...

Continue

Falls, Kahn, Smalley, Ancart: at the Armory 2014 a few minutes are enough

  Collectors have been faster than ever this year at the Armory Show, especially with these guys. The three amazing...

Continue

New York contemporary art week is about to being: is a wishing list what you need?

  After two months of web surfing and e-books reading, we are coming back to the playground. New York contemporary...

Continue
Siena Cathedral

Looking at beauties from different perspectives

  The Cathedral of Siena (whose construction began in the mid-twelfth century and completed by 1370) re-opens its “Gate of...

Continue
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, "Head of Medusa", detail, 1597 ca., Florence, Uffizi Gallery

Caravaggio’s Med: from the far east a conceptual solution to an old iconographic problem

  The “Head of Medusa” by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) is an example of the parade shields...

Continue

Harold Ancart: an introduction to the info-free painting

  The name of the Belgian artist Harold Ancart is at the moment on the wishing list of many collectors,...

Continue

The software engineer who programmed the conceptual side of the Italian Renaissance art was a banker

  The starting point for a conceptual approach to Renaissance art could be pinpointed in the flowering of the Neo-Platonic...

Continue

Simon Fujiwara, the artist who steals the roses of the Centre Pompidou

  Simon Fujiwara is a brilliant storyteller. His beautiful sculpture titled “New Pompidou”, currently on show at the Centre Georges...

Continue

A dialogue with Dominic Samsworth, who dialogues with abandonments and surroundings

  Dominic Samsworth has just finished his period of residency at the Still House Group in New York. He was...

Continue
No image

Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino are coming, but be careful please!

We have received this pic a few minutes ago. It has been taken at Palazzo Strozzi during the set-up of...

Continue

“The reliable man”, directed by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, starring Giuseppe Giani

  A few weeks ago we were in Volpedo, where we visited the perfectly preserved studio of Giuseppe Pellizza, a...

Continue
Peter Sutherland, Bonfire 4, 2014. Inkjet on perforated vinyl adhered to OSB, 72 x 48 inches.

Why the Still House’s strikes differ from Fontana, Burri and César

  Among the recent attempts to enhance the connection between contemporary art and the art by dead artists, we have...

Continue
“Annunciation”, detail, Andrea Previtali, early XVI century, Meschio, Vittorio Veneto, Treviso, Church of santa Maria Annunziata

Andrea Previtali: beyond the religious matter his masterpiece blossoms with subjects

  There is a particular artist whom we would like to draw your attention to, that is Andrea Previtali (Berbenno,...

Continue
The room of fabric in the civic Museum of Modena

A gold mine of inspiration for any tailor or contemporary fashion addicted (to be found in Modena)

In the civic museum of Modena, there is a room that preserves the nineteenth-century layout of a wide selection of...

Continue
Swabian “Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family”, about 1470, Oil on silver fir - The National Gallery, London © The National Gallery, London

How can an artwork be ugly in some periods and strikingly beautiful in others?

  There are some shows which are able to maintain the rigor of scientific studies while offering to the general...

Continue
Fortunato Depero, Motociclista, solido in velocità (Biker, Solid at Speed), 1923. Oil on canvas, © 2013 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ SIAE, Rome.

Fortunato Depero opens the new Centre for Italian Modern Art in New York

  While the seminal exhibition dedicated to the Italian Futurism is going to inaugurate tomorrow at the Solomon R. Guggenheim...

Continue
Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci; Pontorme, Empoli 1494 - Florence 1557), "Saint Jerome Penitent”, about 1529-1530, oil on canvas, 105 x 80 cm. Hannover, Hannover Landesmuseum Niedersächsisches.

That misanthrope obsessed with health, hygiene and sexual abstinence called Pontormo

  From 8 March to 20 July 2014, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will host the exhibition “Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino....

Continue

Type or masterpiece? When the size is the main variable

A couple of days ago, Christie’s international head of postwar and contemporary art, Brett Gorvy, told to the French financial...

Continue
Rodolfo Siviero with a recovered work by Pontormo

Rodolfo Siviero: a 007 in the service of the Italian old masters

Here is how during the Second World War Rodolfo Siviero saved many Italian art treasures from the Nazi, and where...

Continue
John Water, Playdate, 2006. Courtesy of Sprueth Magers, Berlin.

What if Michael Jackson and Charles Manson had met each other before their lives went wrong?

  Who can play the role of the genius better than John Waters in the art world? Probably no one,...

Continue
Monumental Cemetery of Pisa. The restorers are relocating the frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli ("The construction of the Tower of Babel"). The artist was working in the cemetery from 1468 to 1483.

A five star restaurant for bacteria is saving the Cemetery of Pisa

  The Cemetery of Pisa is being reborn. Founded in 1277 to house the sarcophagi from the Roman period, the...

Continue
Portrait of Francesco I de' Medici. Circle of painters active in the Studiololo of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence

Do you know who I am?

Francesco I de’ Medici (Florence 1541 – Poggio a Caiano, 1587) was one of the finest patrons in the history...

Continue