ARTE Distribution

The art market had not yet experienced its digital revolution. Until that day of 2021, when NFTs, for Non fungible Token, appeared on your screens. Thanks to this new transaction technology, Beeple, an almost unknown digital artist, became the third most expensive living artist in the world.

NFTs promise to revolutionize the art market. More money for artists, fewer intermediaries, and fewer barriers for collectors. Will this digital revolution be virtuous, or will it meet the same fate as many others before it, emptied of their meaning and twisted from their original goals?

The art market had not yet experienced its digital revolution. Until that day of 2021, when NFTs, short for Non Fungible Token, appeared on your screens. Thanks to this new transaction technology, Beeple, an almost unknown digital artist, became the third most expensive living artist in the world.

NFTs promise to revolutionize the art market. More money for artists, fewer intermediaries, and fewer barriers for collectors. Will this digital revolution be virtuous, or will it meet the same fate as many others before it, emptied of their meaning and twisted from their original goals?

In this episode, in order for us to understand the connection between the worlds of art and new technologies, we meet Thierry, the owner of the Demeure du Chaos, headquarters of the publicly listed company ArtPrice and a museum of contemporary art. Thierry talks about the dazzling developments in the art world in general, and especially the emergence of NFTs.

In concrete terms, what are the changes brought about by NFT for artists, gallery owners and collectors?  Primavera de Filippi, a researcher at the CNRS, explains the concept of the Smart Contract, which enables an artist to follow and profit from the rise in his or her personal price, and the possibilities of the art market as a platform.

This episode highlights the limits of this technology. Can art be purely virtual? What are we really buying when we buy an NFT? Like any emerging market, it is unregulated. NFTs have the potential to profoundly change the art world, but it's still a long way from being realized. What will be left of it? A chapter in an economics textbook, or in art history books

Founding museums is a pastime among high-stakes collectors. Follow a magnificent Paris Museum restoration, where French Billionaire Francois Pinault showcases its art collection.

After five years of extraordinary renovation and construction work by Tadao Ando – one of today's greatest architects – François Pinault is preparing “Ouverture”, the museum's inaugural exhibition. This was an artistic and personal challenge for Pinault, a passionate collector and businessman at the height of his power, a billionaire and a non-conformist, as he defines himself.

In each episode, an artist creates his own documentary on someone he or she admires, or talks about art or something completely different.

The artist is in the driving seat!

This captivating film retraces the intellectual and human process that led Mondrian to geometric abstraction, the highly characteristic style that made him one of the major figures of the international artistic avant-guarde.

The work of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) marked a turning point in the history of modern painting. Initially influenced by Cubism, Mondrian invented an original universal language of geometric shapes and primary colours in the early 1920s. Along with Kandinsky and Malevitch, he was one of the pioneers of pure abstraction, an innovative trend that strongly influenced 20th century art.

Filmed in the exact replica of his studio at 26 rue du Départ in Paris, this docu-fiction brings Mondrian back to life. It portrays the man who was passionate about dance and jazz and retraces his artistic path, from his first realist works to his mystical years, from the Stijl movement to his departure for New York, where he died in 1944.

This is the first film to relate the history of that unconventional family. It highlights the Steins' contribution to modern art.

American of German origin, the Steins settled in Paris at the start of the 20th century. Gertrude, an avant-garde writer and her brother Leo lived on rue de Fleurus, and Michael, their elder brother and his wife Sarah lived on rue Madame.

The Steins were the first to buy works by Matisse and Picasso. They opened up their homes to the entire artistic avant-garde movement and built up one of the most outstanding modern art collections.

This is the first film to relate the history of that unconventional family. It highlights the Steins' contribution to modern art, covering Leo's perspective on the sources of modernity, Gertrude's friendship with Picasso, Sarah and Michael's links to Matisse, and the projects Gertrude launched in the 1920s and 30s with artists such as Picasso, Gris, Masson and Picabia.

The documentary is Jacques Monory's vision of the universe. It is a portrait of the artist, his thoughts and works.

For the past fifty years, Jacques Monory has been an integral part of the French artistic scene. He has been and is still today the great artist of the so-called "Narrative Figuration" movement which coincided with Pop Art in the United States and in Great Britain.
The works of Jacques Monory have mainly to do with American cinema. He uses the pictures of American cinema to describe the world as he sees it. Although he does have a pessimistic vision of the world, he nevertheless manages to distance himself from his work and from his personal life.

François Morellet is today recognised as one of the great artists of our time, and his works can be seen in the majority of the world's museums.

Close to the minimalists and the conceptualists, Serge Lemoine, president of the Musée d'Orsay, places François Morellet in the world of contemporary art.
For 30 years, one of the main aspects of Morellet's work has been the (over 100) pieces he has done in the public domain. We exhibit thirty of his works done in Europe, some of them spectacular, others extremely discreet.
But beyond his works is the man himself. François Morellet is an atypical character. He pursues his very rigorous and radical work with detachment and distance, is rather exceptionally modest and above all, has a biting sense of humour.

The general public still associate David Hockney, the legendary artist of the Seventies, with the blue of his Californian swimming pools, with Los Angeles boys, Andy Warhol or with the cult film "A Bigger Splash".

Filmed in Autumn 1998 in Los Angeles, in his house, this film sheds new light on David Hockney's current work and will be the chance to rediscover an artist who expresses his talents in spheres as diverse as painting, photography, etching and opera design, an artist whose fame has never stopped growing.

In his studio we are present with him during the production of the works which he considers to be the crowning achievement of his research into the connection between space and landscape : his representations of the Grand Canyon. Two monumental works consisting of 60 juxtaposed canvases.
By means of successive brush strockes, the film throws light on how an artist proceeds and is able to develop a work which is both intimate and spectacular, taking inspiration from his immediate environment : landscape, but also close friends, family and familiar objects, witnesses of passing time?

He allows us to share his concerns over the connection between painting and photography, time and memory. He tells us how his work on opera has influenced his comprehension of space, he takes us along with him on his "musical drives", cruising through the Californian landscape, which he enjoys doing whilst listening to Parsifal: in a car one is at the centre of things and when one moves through the landscape, one becomes a centre that moves.