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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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“Small differences make all the difference”, also for the upcoming Julia Rommel’ solo at Bureau

  We believe these lines from Kirk Varnedoe’s book “Picture of nothing” (Mellow Lecture, 2003) to be the perfect introduction...

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Thinking Cézanne as an open source (now in Madrid)

  The exhibition “Cézanne Site / Non-Site”, at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid (until 16 May) represents a good opportunity to...

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At the centre, Quarto Stato's sketches, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo's studio, Volpedo, Italy.

Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo in The Still House

  It takes less than an hour driving from Milan to reach Volpedo, but international tourists and art lovers don’t...

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Would you buy a bond from an art critic?

The Contemporary Art day sale at Phillips has just finished a few minutes ago, and the market’s traders are already at work...

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“Ixion”, Cornelisz van Haarlem, Oil on canvas, 192 x 152 cm, 1588, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen

The revenge of the Body Art stems from Tiziano and Ribera (now at the Prado)

  At the Museo Nacional del Prado, until 4 May, you can visit the show “The Furias. From Titian to...

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Ayan Farah, Alvar, 2103, 180 x 130 cm.

Ayan Farah’s soft, light and transparent self-recording

Ayan Farah was born 1978 in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Exposed until the 7th of March at Bugada&Gargnel in Paris, Farah’s...

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Master Paroto, "Madonna and Child with Saints", 1447, Oil on canvas, 131 x 200 cm, detail, Brescia, collection CAB Foundation

Master Paroto and the origin of his quirky sweetness

  The Polyptych by Master Paroto, “Madonna and Child with Saints,” 1447, is a work of great charm: for its...

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Philippe Parreno in conversation with Carlos Basualdo at the Teatrino of Palazzo Grassi, Venice.

At the Teatrino of Palazzo Grassi Philippe Parreno reveals his affinity with Philip K. Dick

  From our perspective, the essence of the conversation between artist Philippe Parreno and curatorCarlos Basualdo put up last Thursday...

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Seminal masterpieces by Mantegna to inspire the display of the new Accademia’s space in Venice

  After visiting the new 3500 squared meters bakery-style space of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice – that to us...

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Who can identify the artist?

  Last night a friend showed us this charming artwork. Take a close look at the Christ’s crossed arms and...

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Helen Marten, installation view at Sadie Coles HQ, London, 2014.

Helen Marten solo at Sadie Coles: the backstage of a visual itinerary

  Information runs fast on the web, and sometimes free, also in the instance of the current Helen Marten’s solo...

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Murillo vs. Smith: 14 artworks soon under the hammer, check the ingredients before eating!

  A few days ago Jerry Saltz – alias Jerry the Fox – wrote on Twitter: “idiot collectors fighting over...

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Oscar Tuazon, A home, 2014, installation view, Galerie Eva Presehuber, Zurich.

Oscar Tuazon solo in Zürich: a home, after a home, after a home…

  In 2009 Oscar Tuazon’s home in Paris was partially modified by some structures made by the artist himself, especially...

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A model perfroming Yves Klein's "Antropométries", 1960

Am I blue? From Leon Battista Alberti to Derek Jarman

The use of blue colour in art, in various eras and different cultures, has always enriched the form of the...

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Pascale Marthine Tayou, Favelas, Installation view 3rd staircase, Kunsthaus Bregenz. Photo: Markus Tretter © Kunsthaus Bregenz Courtesy of GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano | Beijing | Le Moulin © Bildrecht, Vienna, 2014

The “labour theory” to read Pascale Martyne Tayou in Bregenz

  Born 1966 in Nikongsamba, Cameroon, Pascal Martin Tayou – the feminine “e” at the end of the name has...

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Ramon Casas, Before the bath, 1894. Detail.

At the Forte di Bard, Italy, for an enlightening dialogue about contemporary art with P. Josep Maria Soler, Abbot of the famous Montserrat Abbey

  The Forte di Bard is one of the rare Italian cultural institutions with enough budget to run properly, thanks...

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Michelangelo Pistoletto, Lei e Lui- Maria e Michelangelo, 1968. Painted tissue paper on polished stainless steel 90⅝ x 47¼ in.

Young collectors, get inspired by this Christie’s auction …and keep your “Eyes wide open”!

  “Eyes Wide Open: An Italian Vision” is the title of the unconventional auction which will take place on 11...

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Installation view at The Frick Collection showing Giuseppe Piamontini’s “Prince Ferdinando di Cosimo III on Horseback” with Cy Twombly’s “Untitled” (detail), “Chalkboard” series, 1970, ©Cy Twombly Foundation, both works from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill; photo: Michael Bodycomb

At the Frick the two legs of a challenging relation: monumentality and dynamics in the Hill’s collection

  The collection of Janine and J. Tomilson Hill is generally known for the many masterpieces of art from the...

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Piero della Francesca, “Saint Jerome and a Supplicant”, ca. 1460–64?, Tempera and oil on wood, from Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

In New York, four personal encounters with Piero della Francesca

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art , thanks to a collaboration with the Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice and the Galleria Nazionale...

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Gucci, (Blue and Orange), 2013 Wooden stretcher, polythene, Gucci bag, sponges, shredded screen prints, Gucci tissue paper and plastic tape.

May Hands, the ego wrappin’

  A respectable gallerist has recently pointed out to us May Hands, a young British artist working in Brighton and...

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Bernardino Luini, "Female figure", 1521-1523, torn and restored fresco on wood, cm 44x35x47, Pavia, Pinacoteca Malaspina

To have a fresco in its place, or having it replaced in a museum?

  What is right: to leave a fresco in the location for which it was thought for, or to remove...

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Meredith Frampton painting Marguerite Kelsey: at Tate Modern, the arty side of fashion

The painting titled  “Marguerite Kelsey” (1928) by Meredith Frampton (1894 -1984) can be found at the Tate Modern in London...

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Lucien Smith, Untitled (Scrap Metal 4335), 2013.

Physicist Stephen Hawking: ‘Energy and information can escape black holes’

  As reported today by many press agencies and newspapers, the iconic theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has revisited his idea...

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Rodi Gallery, when the white cube turns conceptual it goes on four wheels

Probably the Rodi Gallery is not the first movable gallery in the history of arts, but seems to be the...

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Giacomo Ceruti, "Two boys playing on the baskets", oil on canvas

The finest private collections of nothern Italian old masters on show in Brescia

  From 1 March to 1 June, Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia will host the exhibition “Moretto, Savoldo, Romanino, Ceruti. 100...

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Auguste Rodin, "The fish-woman", 1917 © Musée Rodin, Paris. Photo by Bruno Jarret/Adagp

Rodin and Michelangelo: idea, control and making of

  Until 26 January at Palazzo Reale in Milan, there will be a major exhibition dedicated to Auguste Rodin (Paris...

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