A couple of decades ago, this writer's handbag 'disappeared' at the edge of Montreuil, a gritty eastern suburb of Paris once best known for its marché des voleurs, or thieves' market. In recent years, however, artists have been flocking to Montreuil, drawn by its proximity to the capital and affordable real estate. It's not yet Brooklyn, but change...

Pierre Soulages is a century old. In anticipation of his retrospective to be held at the Salon Carré at the Louvre later this year, the current exhibition at Lévy Gorvy, Pierre Soulages: A Century, presents a generously full survey.On the first floor, we see the paintings with wide black horizontals or verticals, which made his name in France and...

While every bathroom is a crime scene, on occasion, this week the art world sighs and chuckles over the latest audacious act of art theft: the removal of America (2016), the solid gold, functioning lavatory by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which until the early morning of Saturday, September 14, was installed in a wood-paneled bathroom at...

Renowned French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, 55, has been busy. In one of the most important years of his career with five major solo shows and the launch of his most ambitious work ever, he is indefatigable. Amidst the art and architecture paradise of Château La Coste in the heart of Provence – famous for its biodynamic vineyard owned by Paddy...

Hot dogs, cigarettes and references to male sexual impotence abound in your work. Can we begin with your interest in the limp phallus?The whole idea of penis envy is so funny to me; it's painful and ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. I'm always trying to shake my art penis as much as I can—hence the hot dog and the cigarette. But I...

Georg Jensen's HQ occupies a yellow-brick, former porcelain factory building in the leafy neighbourhood of Frederiksberg, Copenhagen. It's a suitably impressive place, befitting a world-renowned heritage brand, but what sets it apart is what it contains, rather than its architecture. On its first floor is the world's largest silver smithy, where...

Jean-Michel Othoniel has a fascination with flowers. Long before the French artist became known for his joyful, gold-plated fountain in the gardens of Versailles and his cascading wave of Indian glass bricks, he was already exploring floral motifs, explaining, 'My first works played with anemones buried in sulphur, cut and dissected pomegranates,...

Lee Mingwei is known for his participatory projects, which often engage audiences as collaborators, be it in a personal, one-to-one type of experience or via an open invitation to a general public. These exchanges are documented and then carefully represented in specific environments to create another set of encounters for different viewers around...

In author Ursula K. Le Guin's 1986 essay, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Le Guin cites writer and editor Elizabeth Fisher's "carrier bag theory," which posits that the earliest tool was in fact a vessel for gathering and not a weapon—as is favored in male-centric historical narratives—pointing to the biases ingrained in...

On a lazy Sunday earlier this month, I visited a selfie space. Snark Park, a project of Daniel Arsham, Alex Mustonen, and Ben Porto's design group, Snarkitecture, opened last month inside the new mall at Hudson Yards. Featuring a temporary installation of Instagram-friendly backdrops, New York City's latest tourist destination designed for taking...

You've probably heard of the French artist and photographer JR, even if you don't pay much attention to contemporary art. So few living artists are the subjects of a 60 Minutes profile by Anderson Cooper. Then there was the Academy Award nomination last year for the documentary Faces, Places, codirected with the legendary French New Wave filmmaker...

Takashi Murakami in Wonderland was Murakami's first solo show in mainland China and Perrotin's second exhibition in its posh 1,200-square-meter Shanghai space. According to Perrotin's press release, it was also the artist's largest gallery show in Asia to date, featuring recent and new works specially created for the occasion.At the gallery's...

In November 2018, Perrotin debuted its fourth gallery in Asia in the heart of Shanghai. The space was inaugurated with the exhibition Takashi Murakami in Wonderland, on view through January 5.Just after the opening, Whitewall caught up with the woman behind the new location, Etsuko Nakajima.

Scandinavian art duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset have become masters of the architectural installation over the past 13 years, picking up critical acclaim and international gallery shows as they go. Their work is characterised by presenting a familiar space in a different context.

Artists see the world differently from everyone else. And the Scandinavian duo known as Elmgreen & Dragset have a particularly distinctive and skewed take on what the public sphere should look like.

With its cast of big-eyed, childlike "kawaii" characters, Mr.'s art may appear playful and carefree—but there's a darkness that lurks behind the 49-year-old Japanese artist's paintings.

Artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are mischief-makers with international clout. They may not be household names yet, but over the past decade the Scandinavian duo have been making a mark with public art that is at once witty, poignant and potent. Theirs, for instance, was the golden boy on a rocking horse on Trafalgar Square's Fourth...

Artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset (Danish Michael Elmgreen and Norweigan Ingar Dragset) exhibit widely across the globe, and have shows lined up in Portugal, France, the UK and the USA this year and next.

Between Wimbledon and the FIFA World Cup, there's been plenty of distractions from London's unusually Mediterranean weather of late.

In 1980, when the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami was 17 years old, he saw the anime movie Galaxy Express 999, about a boy finding his way as an astral traveler. 'It was like my spirit was flown away into outer space,' he remembered. 'This was around the time that Japan went into a bubble economy—there was a festive mood, but as an...

A towering surge of black glass bricks is about to hit central France. The Big Wave (2018) is the centerpiece of Jean-Michel Othoniel's major retrospective, Facing Obscurity (26 May–16 September). Organised for the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Etienne's 30th anniversary, the exhibition is also a homecoming for the artist, who was born...

If a 21st birthday "coming of age" observance can be applied to cultural events, 2018 marks the launch into adulthood of the Biennale of Sydney. In some ways Sydney's biennale was a precocious child, turning its back during infancy on mainstream Eurocentric art in favour of exploring its local geographic region, early on including...

Beaded spirals pirouette through the air at Galerie Perrotin's freshly renovated space in the landmark Beckenstein building at 130 Orchard Street in New York, once a fabric factory and now converted into five floors for programming directed by Peggy Leboeuf and Emmanuel Perrotin. Suspended as the artworks are, their stilled movement reminds you of...

Jean-Michel Othoniel invites AD into his Paris studio to discuss his expansive—and striking—new show on the eve of its debutThese past few years have been hectic for French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. From completing a major installation for the Angouleme Cathedral Treasury to solo shows in Korea and the South of France, the artist...