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Former Art Basel head Marc Spiegler writes a column on the dangers of commercialising art
I read a column by Marc Spiegler, who ran Art Basel from 2007 to 2022. A comical piece. He laments that galleries are struggling, that the market shrank by some ten per cent in 2024, and that young investors are buying bitcoin instead of paintings. Duremar, having caught a pond
Coming Up · Archaeology · In the Press · Observations · Science
A popular genre, a chat about the brain: on Hugh Groucutt's interesting idea that Homo sapiens took shape slowly and gradually, without revolutionary upheavals
In essence, the cognitive revolution of 40,000 to 50,000 years ago is one of the textbook stories. Homo sapiens supposedly grew clever all of a sudden, drew a bull on a cave wall and set off to conquer the planet. The trouble is that anatomically modern humans appeared
NB! · In the Press · Observations
My expertise has been officially attested 🥹 For the third year running, we are finding the leading lights of cultural production for the RBC Visionaries project
In the Press · Books · Society
Breakdown of a list of 100 books by country, century and author, including five Russians
The Guardian has published a list of the 100 best books ever published in English. The list includes 75 books originally written in English and 25 in translation. There are 5 Russian authors on the list: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Grossman and Nabokov, with 8 books between them: 6. "Anna
In the Press · Interviews · Cinema · Books · Society
Prohibitions Alone Will Not Do
Prohibitions alone will not do. The best defence is attack. A humanitarian intervention must be followed by a clever humanitarian response. The series «GDR» and «Dear Willy» have already appeared, but that is clearly not enough. Nor do these series touch on our own times. That is why I am
In the Press · Observations · Education · People · Humour
He was physically abused, maybe even sexually abused
A Cambridge lecturer on the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. As the saying goes, this is as far as your education has taken you Fortunately, in this case the British scholar is not, after all, a professional historian, nor indeed a scholar at all, but merely gives lectures in adult
In the Press · The East · Museums · Heritage · Society · Paris
March digest of Parnassian Mockingbird on the Louvre, Dalí, d'Artagnan and the Hermitage
"The Angel of History," wrote Benjamin, "has his face turned toward the past, but a storm is blowing from Paradise and propels him irresistibly into the future. What to us appears as a chain of events, to him is one single catastrophe." March turned out to
Architecture · In the Press · Museums · Heritage · Society · Paris
France's new Culture Minister Catherine Pégard said on France Inter on 30 March that the Louvre renovation plan must be adjusted to take account of security concerns
France's new Culture Minister Catherine Pégard said on France Inter on 30 March that the Louvre renovation plan must be adjusted to take account of security concerns. It is her first public interview in her new post. The occasion was the robbery of the museum on 19 October
Archaeology · Archive · In the Press · The East · Observations
1913 newspaper reports of temple chambers inside the Great Sphinx and Reisner's denial
I have told this story before, but in view of the alternative news I shall repeat myself. In 1913 a number of English-language newspapers carried an article reporting that several chambers of a temple-like character had been discovered inside the Great Sphinx. The text claimed that a fairly
In the Press · Books · Society
An author reflects on apprehension when writing a new page or chapter
In a recent Kommersant piece on the book market, the labelling of books and the application of the law banning the "propaganda of drugs", State Duma deputy Sergey Shargunov confesses:. Every time I write a new page or a new chapter, I think: "Is this going to
In the Press · Museums · Observations · Society · Paris
It is hard to single out any aspect of this Louvre director's tenure that has not come in for devastating criticism
It is hard to single out any aspect of this Louvre director's tenure that has not come in for devastating criticism. Her departure can therefore rightly be called an act of responsibility, whoever may have initiated it Farewell, de Carmont - read my text on the crisis at the