Mientras París arde, el mundo del arte contemporáneo se refugia en su caja de cristal. Estos días, la metáfora resulta tan literal que roza la humorada, aunque todo vaya muy en serio: los coleccionistas más poderosos y buena parte de los principales profesionales mundiales del sector se reúnen en el Grand Palais, el monumento de vidrio y acero de finales del siglo XIX de los Campos Elíseos, para asistir a Art Basel Paris, la gran feria de arte contemporáneo del otoño, llevando en sus móviles un correo electrónico que les informa de las férreas medidas de seguridad desplegadas por la organización ante los disturbios generados por las protestas sociales.

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“By the way, don’t touch the figs.” Actress Siân Phillips has remarked that when she traveled the world, even decades after the premiere of I, Claudius, someone would recognize her voice and ask her to deliver the phrase delivered by her character, the Machiavellian Livia Drusilla. That scene from the series competes in collective imagination with its opening sequence, in which at the start of its 13 episodes, a serpent slithered to threatening music over a tiled mosaic face of Emperor Claudius. There it was in a nutshell: the greatness and filth of a newborn empire already corroded by corruption, the moral sickness that dominated a family, the political intrigues, the personal betrayals, the devastating effects of exercising and coveting power. The influence of I, Claudius can be seen in much more recent television projects, from Game of Thrones to Succession, but it also emerges in the current international political panorama, in the form of leaders like Donald Trump. This year, a half-century will have passed since its first broadcast, but anyone who watches an episode will confirm that it continues to be as relevant as it was back then.

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