Dialogues | A podcast from David Zwirner about art, artists, and the creative process

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In each episode of Dialogues, from David Zwirner, the gallery brings together two extraordinary artists or cultural leaders for an open-ended conversation about art, culture, and the creative process. Featuring leading figures in the worlds of art, architecture, film, music, and beyond—from Jeff Koo…

David Zwirner


    • Sep 13, 2023 LATEST EPISODE
    • infrequent NEW EPISODES
    • 39m AVG DURATION
    • 71 EPISODES

    4.8 from 245 ratings Listeners of Dialogues | A podcast from David Zwirner about art, artists, and the creative process that love the show mention: venice, taxi, dialogues, lucas, ms, artists, conversations, thoughtful, needed, wonderful, loved, insightful, interesting, great, life, thanks, time, like, listen, zwirner.



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    Latest episodes from Dialogues | A podcast from David Zwirner about art, artists, and the creative process

    Helen Molesworth and Njideka Akunyili Crosby | Special Episode

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 13, 2023 40:18


    A special live episode hosted by Helen Molesworth, recorded in July at David Zwirner Los Angeles during Njideka Akunyili Crosby: Coming Back to See Through, Again. Her first solo exhibition with the gallery, the presentation is now on view at David Zwirner New York through October 28th.

    see through helen molesworth njideka akunyili crosby
    The Yayoi Kusama Phenomenon (Re-run from Season 2)

    Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2023 22:42


    On the occasion of Yayoi Kusama's new exhibition at David Zwirner New York, we revisit a conversation on the legendary artist's effect on culture at large with two experts on art in the digital landscape: Jia Jia Fei, a digital strategist for the art world, and Christian Luiten, founder of the popular digital platform Avant Arte. I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers will be on view at 535 and 519 West 19th street through July 21st, 2023.

    Helen Molesworth and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh on Gerhard Richter | Special Episode

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2023 65:55


    In this live episode, Helen and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh discuss his new book, Gerhard Richter: Painting After the Subject of History. This conversation was recorded in the exhibition Gerhard Richter, on view at David Zwirner through April 29th. Gerhard Richter: Painting After the Subject of History is now available wherever books are sold.

    history subject gerhard richter benjamin h david zwirner helen molesworth
    How Picasso Was Sold to America | Special Episode

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2023 38:59


    On the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso's death, Helen speaks to the writer Hugh Eakin about his new book, Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America, a behind-the-scenes look at the dealers, writers, and curators who helped bring the artist—and Modernism—into the mainstream.

    Episode 56 | Barbara Smith and Meg Onli

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2023 62:21


    Helen speaks to the legendary Black lesbian feminist scholar Barbara Smith and Meg Onli, co-curator of the 2024 Whitney Biennial, about identity politics in the art world today, the role of criticism, and questions of cultural appropriation. Barbara Smith is the 2022-23 Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence at Brooklyn College, and you can donate to her work at The Smith Caring Circle. Meg Onli is the curator of Carolyn Lazard: Long Take, on view at the ICA Philadelphia until July 9th, and the co-curator of Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation, on view at the Julia Stoschek Foundation in Berlin through July 30th.

    Episode 55 | Nicholson Baker

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2023 49:04


    Helen talks to writer Nicholson Baker about how history is written, and the continued relevance of his World War II book Human Smoke (2008). Baker is the author of numerous books, including Vox (1992) and The Mezzanine (1988) and was the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001.

    Rirkrit Tiravanija and Elizabeth Peyton (Re-run from Season 6)

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2023 46:11


    We revisit one of the most popular episodes of Season 6, a conversation with the artists Rirkrit Tiravanija and Elizabeth Petyon, on the occasion of their recently announced solo debuts with the gallery. Rirkrit's show The Shop opens at David Zwirner Hong Kong March 20th, 2023, and Elizabeth's show Angel opens at David Zwirner London on June 7th, 2023

    shop rerun rirkrit tiravanija
    Episode 54 | Jonathan Anderson

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2023 42:46


    Creative Director of LOEWE and founder of JW Anderson, Jonathan Anderson, speaks with Helen about his innovative approach to fashion, from collections that are equal parts cultural commentary and artistic play, to pushing gender boundaries and materiality, to redefining the word “luxury.” Jonathan and Helen sit down to break open the divisions between craft and art, creation and appropriation, and high and low culture.

    Episode 53 | Cecilia Alemani

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2023 45:15


    A post-mortem on the 59th Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, with curator Cecilia Alemani. Cecilia and Helen Molesworth discuss the unique challenges of mounting an exhibition at scale in the COVID era and what it was like being the first Italian woman to curate a Biennale.

    Episode 52 | Sarah Schulman

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 15, 2023 43:42


    The novelist, playwright, activist, and AIDS historian Sarah Schulman discusses her most recent book, Let the Record Show, A Political History of ACT UP New York [1987-1993], a landmark document of the activist response to the AIDS crisis. Schulman describes the triumphs, challenges, and simultaneous histories of ACT UP, and what they teach us about movements in general. 

    Episode 51 | Jon Gray (Ghetto Gastro)

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2023 30:05


    Jon Gray, co-founder of the Bronx-based collective Ghetto Gastro, talks to Helen Molesworth about the collective's work at the intersection of the culinary world, hip-hop, fashion, art, activism, and community building.

    bronx jon gray ghetto gastro helen molesworth
    Episode 50 | Why You Do What You Do with Brendan Dugan, Johanna Fateman and Ebony L. Haynes

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 1, 2023 42:04


    Host Helen Molesworth calls art writer Johanna Fateman (Le Tigre), gallerist Brendan Dugan (Karma Gallery) and the curator, and writer Ebony L. Haynes (Senior Director of 52 Walker) to discuss how they carved their unique paths in the art world and what continues to inspire them.

    Episode 49 | Luca Guadagnino and Michaël Borremans

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2023 45:25


    A conversation between the Academy award-nominated writer, producer, and director Luca Guadagnino and the Belgian painter Michaël Borremans on the relationship between painting and film. They muse on the specificity of light to their mediums, the role of the uncanny, and paintings and films as a mirror of who we imagine ourselves to be. Guadagnino's most recent film Bones and All debuted to critical acclaim last Fall. Michaël Borremans held his seventh solo exhibition at David Zwirner, The Acrobat, in Spring of 2022.

    Best of 2022 | With Helen Molesworth

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2022 51:22


    As we close out the year, Helen calls up her dear friend Steve Locke to carry on the tried and true tradition of end-of-year lists. It turns out there was a lot to love in 2022. Mentions:  -Lynne Tillman, Mothercare  -Craig Drennen at Freight and Volume -Marlene Dumas at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice  -Bob Thompson at Colby College and the Hammer Museum -Milk of Dreams (Venice Biennale) -Mira Schor's instagram account -Ruth Erickson's A Place for Me at the ICA Boston -Cauleen Smith at Moran Moran gallery in LA -Death of An Artist podcast -And Silke Otto-Knapp and Ashley Bickerton in memoriam

    artist freight colby college palazzo grassi helen molesworth
    What Does Art Have to Do with Climate Change? | With Helen Molesworth

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2022 35:15


    In this episode, Helen Molesworth calls an old friend, the painter Alexis Rockman, to try and understand the art world's reaction to recent acts of museum vandalism perpetrated by Just Stop Oil, putting them in context with theories on environmental activism and the harsh reality of the climate crisis.  Alexis Rockman is a painter whose realist landscapes imagine the future effects of the anthropocene on the natural world, and was one of the first artists of his generation to investigate global warming in his work. Stay tuned for Helen's next episode, which takes stock of the very best art exhibitions of 2022. Mentions: -Just Stop Oil on Instagram -Climate Emergency Fund -Alexis Rockman, Manifest Destiny in the Smithsonian Museum  -Reluctant Radical by Ken Ward

    climate change manifest destiny helen molesworth ken ward
    On Art and Poetics

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2022 41:09


    Lucas Zwirner returns as host for a conversation with the MacArthur award-winning poet and translator Peter Cole and the renowned critic and scholar of avant-garde poetry, Marjorie Perloff. On the occasion of Peter's new book of poetry, Draw Me After, which is inspired by the work of Terry Winters and Agnes Martin, they come together for a state of the union of art and poetry.  Draw Me After: Poems is available now. 

    Let's Talk About Appropriation | With Helen Molesworth

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2022 36:51


    Following recent controversies in the art and fashion worlds, host Helen Molesworth and the artist Steve Locke, a returning guest, sit down to talk about a subject that has been thorny for as long as there have been arguments about art. So, appropriation: When is it strategy and when is it theft? Who gets to claim authorship of what? And what is actually original nowadays?

    appropriation helen molesworth
    Seeing the 90's Everywhere Right Now | With Helen Molesworth

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2022 19:45


    In the premiere episode of a new series hosted by Helen Molesworth, the curator and writer talks with her friend the artist Steve Locke about the re-emergence of art and culture of the 90's, and why certain ideas, obsessions, and artists of the era—from Wolfgang Tillmans to Marlon Riggs to Friends—are bubbling back up into the mainstream now.  This fall, Helen will be hosting regular episodes of the podcast that react to the shifting news and ideas in the art world and culture at large. Please follow Dialogues so you don't miss an episode.  This episode's guest, the artist Steve Locke, currently has a solo exhibition at Alexander Gray Associates in New York, open through December 17, 2022.

    new york friends dialogues wolfgang tillmans helen molesworth
    Inside ‘The Red Studio': Ann Temkin with 6 Artists on Matisse | Special Episode

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2022 71:43


    In this special episode produced and hosted by the painter Lisa Yuskavage, six artists—Joe Bradley, Carroll Dunham, Rashid Johnson, David Reed, Sarah Sze, and Charline von Heyl—give Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, their insights on Matisse's Red Studio (1911) and the elusive nature of creativity. It was inspired by the recent exhibition Matisse: The Red Studio at MoMA, now on view at the SMK Denmark through February 26, 2023. Dialogues is returning soon with new episodes hosted by the writer and curator Helen Molesworth, please stay tuned to this feed.

    Death of an Artist: The Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre Story | Special Episode

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2022 11:24


    A special preview of a new podcast miniseries, Death of an Artist, hosted by the curator and art historian Helen Molesworth, who will also be hosting new episodes of Dialogues, coming very, very soon.  For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world's most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his wife, the rising star artist Ana Mendieta? Helen revisits the question of Mendieta's death, takes a closer look at the incident in which she fell from the window of their 34th floor New York apartment, and interrogates both the silence and protest that have followed this infamous story since 1985. You can hear the full episode and all of Death of an Artist here.  Stay tuned to Dialogues for new episodes hosted by Helen Molesworth coming next month.

    Episode 48 | Rirkrit Tiravanija and Elizabeth Peyton

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2022 45:39


    The artists and former partners on what it means to be an artist now—and what it meant when they emerged in the New York art world of the 1990s. Tiravanija, who will have his first exhibition with the gallery in Hong Kong later this year, is renowned for participatory installations that have a living, social dimension to them. Peyton is one of her generation's best-known painters, recognized for her intimate paintings of people.

    new york hong kong rirkrit tiravanija
    Episode 47 | Edwin Frank

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 24, 2022 30:41


    The editorial director of New York Review Books and editor of NYRB Classics explains the origins and cult status of the incredibly popular series. Since its founding by Frank in 1999, NYRB Classics's mission has been to reintroduce out-of-print gems to a new audience, everything from Walt Whitman's Drum Taps to a Janet Malcolm work of journalism. Combined with a simple and magnetic design, this model inspired David Zwirner Books's own ekphrasis series, which focuses on writing about art, and which just celebrated its 20th edition with the publication of Virginia Woolf's Oh to Be a Painter!.   Oh to Be a Painter!, the most accessible collection of Woolf's writing on art, is available through David Zwirner Books. The entire ekphrasis series is now available as a special collection. 

    painter virginia woolf walt whitman woolf janet malcolm new york review books david zwirner books edwin frank
    Episode 46 | Jed Perl and Joshua Cohen

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2022 45:49


    A conversation that parses the nuances of the question: Does art have to be political to be important right now? With the art critic Jed Perl, who just published Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts, and the novelist Johsua Cohen, author of the acclaimed The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, which fictionalizes the Israeli family in ways comic and serious. 

    Episode 45 | Jerry Saltz and Ellie Rines

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2022 53:08


    A conversation about the art of looking. The Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic and author Jerry Saltz, of New York magazine and the bestselling How to Be an Artist, and the influential young gallerist Ellie Rines, of New York's 56 Henry, on doing their jobs in unorthodox ways—and how to look at the endlessly proliferating and increasingly uncategorizable art in the world today. And a warning to our listeners: This episode briefly mentions suicide, so please listen with caution or skip 44:34-45:30.

    Episode 44 | Amy Sillman

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2022 35:00


    The celebrated artist on the role of art criticism today, and how she probes and ultimately goes beyond the limitations of her painting in her other practice as a writer. This episode with Sillman, who in 2020 published Faux Pas, a new collection of her writings, is guest-hosted by Jarrett Earnest, and is the last of his three-part miniseries on serious artists who are also serious writers.  Amy Sillman: Faux Pas is available here. Her work will be featured in the 2022 Venice Biennale, and was recently on view in Toni Morrison's Black Book, an exhibition curated by Hilton Als at David Zwirner's 19th Street gallery in New York.

    Episode 43 | A Scientific Theory of the Art World

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2022 43:31


    What does evolutionary science have to do with the art world? A fascinating conversation with Richard Prum, a leading thinker in evolutionary ornithology who has developed a theory that impacts how we think about artistic genius, radicality, and the art world at large.

    art world scientific theory richard prum
    Episode 42 | Amalia Ulman and Maggie Lee

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2022 25:56


    A conversation with two exciting artists taking their multimedia practices onto the movie screen. Ulman, whose work combines video, performance, and the Internet in fluid ways, recently released her critically-acclaimed first feature film, El Planeta. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, it features Ulman and her mother as a pair of mother-and-daughter grifters in Gijon, Spain, their hometown. And Lee, who works across all manner of media, also made a standout film that draws from her own life: Mommy is a resonant profile of her mother following her devastating death that, like El Planeta, fuses the visual language of video and Net Art with that of Hollywood. 

    Episode 41 | Angela Davis and Hilton Als

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2022 47:34


    The activist and author Angela Davis and the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and curator Hilton Als in conversation about one of their favorite subjects and dearest friends: Toni Morrison. Early on in her career, Morrison worked as a kind of activist editor at Random House, where she helped change the landscape of publishing—including her effort to bring Davis's landmark political autobiography to the public in 1974. (It was just republished in its third edition.) Recently, Als curated Toni Morrison's Black Book at David Zwirner's 19th Street gallery in New York, a group exhibition that draws astonishing connections between Morrison's life and words and works by Beverly Buchanan, Robert Gober, Julie Mehretu, Kerry James Marshall, and many more.  Toni Morrison's Black Book, curated by Hilton Als, is on view through February 26, 2022.  Angela Davis: An Autobiography was republished in its third edition in January 2022, featuring an expansive new introduction by the author.

    Episode 40 | Luc Tuymans and Timothy Snyder

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2021 46:02


    A conversation about the slippery slope from Donald Trump's lies to the extinction of American democracy—and art's ability to break through fascist monoliths. The eminent Yale historian Timothy Snyder is the author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and “The American Abyss,” a widely circulated New York Times essay published following the January 6 storming of the Capitol. The essay caught the eye of Luc Tuymans, himself a kind of historian. In the paintings he's made throughout his career, Tuymans has examined the power of images in not only depicting historical trauma, but also their ability to cover up and reveal things about ourselves.

    Episode 39 | David Byrne and Marcel Dzama

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 50:12


    Two of the most playful, expressive artists we have on their creative process, trying new things, and the art of being a great collaborator. The former lead singer of the Talking Heads, Byrne is an artistic polymath, making stage plays, performances, films, and now even drawings, which he recently showed with Pace. His Broadway hit, American Utopia, also became a streaming hit when Spike Lee turned it into a film for HBO; it was also recently adapted by Byrne into a book with illustrations by Maira Kalman. Marcel Dzama—who has been showing with the gallery for many years, and who has, like Byrne, worked on the stage (most notably with the New York City Ballet)—also just published a new book, an edition of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream full of his beautiful new drawings.  David Byrne is represented by Pace Gallery. American Utopia returns to Broadway in fall 2021; the film can be streamed on HBO Max; and the book is available now. Marcel Dzama's illustrated edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream is available now. An exclusive set of new Dzama prints will be available on July 22, 2021 via Platformart.com. 

    Episode 38 | What Does Figuration Smell Like?

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2021 24:29


    A conversation about the art of scents with the perfumer Frederic Malle. The latest in a storied French fragrance family, Malle—whose grandfather launched Christian Dior's fragrance line, and whose uncle is the great filmmaker Louis Malle—had ambitions of being an art dealer before he took up the family trade, and his unique brand of of scent-making combines science, psychology, marketing wizardry, and (most importantly) art history.

    Episode 37 | Lorraine O'Grady

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2021 54:04


    The 86-year-old legend gets personal about a lifetime translating her singular voice to the world. While the major retrospective of her work currently at the Brooklyn Museum has cemented her reputation, Lorraine O'Grady did not discover herself as an artist until her 40s. Here, she traces her unlikely journey to becoming a conceptual and performance artist with a pioneering Black feminist sensibility—including stints along the way as a rock critic, novelist, and translator.  Guest-hosted by Jarrett Earnest, this episode is the second of three on a topic the critic is deeply invested in: serious artists who are also serious writers.  Lorraine O'Grady: Both/And is on view at the Brooklyn Museum through July 18, 2021. Her new anthology of writings, Writing in Space, 1973–2019, is available here.

    Episode 36 | Kate Zambreno

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2021 32:55


    How does an artwork change as the person looking at it does? Kate Zambreno, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Nonfiction and the author of the acclaimed 2020 novel Drifts, details the pleasures and discovery of returning to an artist or artwork over and over again—in her case, the likes of Sarah Charlesworth, Chantal Akerman, and Albrecht Durer. She speaks and writes about their lives and work with humor and personal insight born of longtime obsession.  Drifts: A Novel, named a Best Book of the Year by The Paris Review, is out now on paperback. Zambreno's latest book, To Write as if Already Dead, was published in June 2021.

    Episode 35 | Simphiwe Ndzube and Zakes Mda

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 2, 2021 47:04


    A conversation about the art of telling stories with the South African artist Simphiwe Ndzube, who works between Cape Town and Los Angeles and whose first solo US museum exhibition opens this month at the Denver Art Museum, and the renowned writer Zakes Mda, whose novels are widely read throughout South Africa and beyond. The two dissect their magical realist stories of post-apartheid South Africa and their experiences of America on the page and on canvas—and try to locate the source of their own magic.  This episode is guest-hosted by Kyla McMillan, a director at David Zwirner. Ndzube’s solo exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, Oracles of the Pink Universe, runs from June 13 to October 10, 2021. Learn more about it here.

    Episode 34 | Rachel Kushner

    Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2021 43:03


    A conversation about life as art with the author of The Flamethrowers. Few merge writing about art and writing about life the way Rachel Kushner does. A former editor at Artforum and Bomb, she’s deeply interested in memorializing the culture around the art—the conversations, the characters, the tall tales. In her 2013 novel The Flamethrowers, a National Book Award finalist, the New York art world of the 70s was brought to scintillating life; and in her new collection of essays, The Hard Crowd, she writes about Richard Prince, Raymond Pettibon, and Jeff Koons as vividly as she writes about her deep personal passion for motorcycles and muscle cars. You can order The Hard Crowd now.

    Episode 33 | The Queering of Ray Johnson feat. Nayland Blake

    Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2021 57:24


    Guest hosted by Jarrett Earnest, this conversation with the artist, curator, and critic Nayland Blake reflects on Blake’s own coming-of-age as an artist and writer—and their shared obsession and long history with the great artist Ray Johnson. Prompted by an Johnson exhibition curated by Earnest at David Zwirner in New York that reexamines and reframes the artist’s life and work through a queer lens, this episode is the first of three hosted by Earnest on a topic the critic is deeply invested in: serious artists who are also serious writers. Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, curated by Earnest, is on view at David Zwirner’s 19th Street gallery in New York through May 22, 2021.  No Wrong Holes: Thirty Years of Nayland Blake, a comprehensive survey of their art practice, recently closed at the MIT List Visual Arts Center.

    new york earnest queering ray johnson david zwirner nayland blake jarrett earnest
    Episode 32 | Beeple and Jordan Wolfson

    Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2021 81:22


    When Mike Winkelmann, now widely known as the digital artist Beeple, sold an artwork at Christie’s for $69 million in March 2021, it shocked the art world—and created an escalating interest in and market for NFTs, digital art using blockchain technology that allows the work of digital artists like Beeple to be collected for the very first time. But the high-stakes prices also brought two parallel art worlds—the traditional one of galleries and museums, and the growing online community of digital artists—crashing into each other. In this provocative conversation, Beeple and Jordan Wolfson hash out the relationship between the two and ask: Where do we go from here?

    Episode 31 | The Bauhaus Episode

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2021 33:25


    A conversation about the influence of the Bauhaus today, and its evolution from a seminal early-twentieth-century school of thought into popular shorthand for an aesthetic style that—like minimalism—is used for everything from furniture to smartphones. With guest Nicholas Fox Weber, the executive director of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and the author of iBauhaus: The iPhone as the Embodiment of Bauhaus Ideals and Design.  iBauhaus is available now in bookstores and online.

    design embodiment josef bauhaus anni albers foundation
    On Noah Davis: Revisited

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2020 50:42


    To close a tumultuous year, we’re revisiting one of its high points: a conversation that celebrates the life and work of the artist Noah Davis. With the curator Helen Molesworth, the filmmaker (and Noah’s brother) Kahlil Joseph, and the artist (and Noah’s wife) Karon Davis.  Dialogues will return with new episodes in 2021, please stay tuned. 

    noah davis helen molesworth
    Episode 30 | Olivia Laing

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2020 31:12


    A conversation about art criticism that is deeply engaged with the lives of the artists. Olivia Laing’s work regularly appears in The Guardian, Financial Times, and Frieze. Her latest book, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, examines the more complicated parts of life through the biographies and art of Agnes Martin, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, and Joseph Cornell, among other artists. This acclaimed collection of essays presents art as an antidote to what ails us—loneliness, alcoholism, our bodies—and a fitting way to write about art right now.  Funny Weather is available now in bookstores and online.

    Episode 29 | David Levi Strauss and Michael Taussig

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2020 39:30


    Is seeing believing? In an era of surveillance and “deepfakes” and camera phones, images are more powerful—and fraught—than they’ve ever been. The poet and writer David Levi Strauss, an authority on photography and its effect in society, and the renowned anthropologist Michael Taussig investigate this timely question, spurred by Strauss’s new book, Photography and Belief.  Photography and Belief is available now through David Zwirner Books.

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    Episode 28 | Sofia Coppola and Rainer Judd

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2020 37:05


    An intimate conversation between old friends who’ve leaned on each other creatively since they were teenagers. Rainer Judd, a filmmaker, artist, and president of Judd Foundation, and the Oscar-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola talk about growing up with larger-than-life fathers in Donald Judd and Francis Ford Coppola, the necessity of creative “puttering,” and Coppola’s new film On the Rocks, featuring an art world bon vivant played by Bill Murray.  You can watch On the Rocks now on Apple TV+. And you can visit Artworks: 1970–1994, a survey exhibition devoted to Donald Judd, at our 19th Street gallery in New York through December 12.

    Episode 27 | KAWS

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2020 27:26


    The artist KAWS’s output has been both wide-ranging and radically democratic, from toys to fashion to street art to museum exhibitions. In this conversation, he explains the vision behind one of his latest ventures, an experiment in augmented reality art making in collaboration with the curator Daniel Birnbaum, which both brings his work to a wider public and offers ideas for an especially timely problem: how to present art virtually.  KAWS AR artworks are viewable through the Acute Art app.

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    Episode 26 | Doon Arbus and Barbara Epler

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2020 30:15


    A conversation about the power of editors and curators, and all that happens behind the scenes. Doon Arbus, the author of the new novel The Caretaker, and her editor Barbara Epler, the head of the famed publisher New Directions, tell the origin stories of Arbus’s debut novel about the caretaker of an eccentric museum, and the tiny literary house that became the first American publisher of Neruda, Bolaño, W.G. Sebald, Anne Carson, and many more. The Caretaker is available now.

    Episode 25 | Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Tsitsi Dangarembga

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2020 77:47


    A moving, complicated, and at times ecstatic conversation between two groundbreaking women. The artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby, who was raised in Nigeria and now lives in Los Angeles, and the Booker Prize-nominated writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga, who was born in Zimbabwe and educated in England, examine their personal experiences with protest, government corruption, Trump’s America, the erosion of indigenous culture, and ongoing missions to center their African and immigrant stories in their art. Dangarembga’s new novel, This Mournable Body, was recently shortlisted for a 2020 Booker Prize. In July, Dangarembga was arrested in Zimbabwe, protesting government corruption. She’s currently out on bail, but her trial is still pending.

    Episode 24 | R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman

    Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2020 29:00


    Two icons of the comics world—and old friends—tell their cartoonist origin stories, from the psychedelics-fueled breakthroughs of the 1960s to finding their singular styles and the generational divide among the comics cognoscenti today. R. Crumb is one of the founding fathers of the alternative comics movement, and Art Spiegelman is equally influential, having authored the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus. 

    Episode 23 | Patrick Staff and Julie Tolentino

    Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2020 36:54


    A conversation between two dynamic artists and good friends, Patrick Staff and Julie Tolentino, whose work feels especially urgent now. Staff, who recently had a solo exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries in London, uses video and other mediums to comment on body politics from a queer and trans perspective. Tolentino also addresses issues facing marginalized groups, through performance that combines her dance background with social exchange. Always integral to their practices, these concerns are only heightened in the current moment. Here, they discuss contagion, toxicity, anxiety, the “leaky body,” and art during the pandemic.  Patrick Staff’s work is currently on view as part of Platform: Los Angeles, an online exhibition featuring thirteen Los Angeles-based galleries hosted on David Zwirner Online. You can learn more about Julie Tolentino’s work via the gallery Commonwealth and Council. 

    Episode 22 | To Venice and Rome

    Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2020 26:17


    A conversation with the acclaimed poet and New Yorker writer Cynthia Zarin that transports us to two of her favorite cities, Venice and Rome, in a celebration of Italy as the country begins to loosen the longest coronavirus-related lockdown in Europe. The episode features evocative readings from her forthcoming book,Two Cities, which captures the meditative yet constantly surprising nature of travel from a deeply personal point of view.  Learn more about Two Cities here. 

    Episode 21 | Diana Thater and Rachel Rose

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2020 39:41


    Artists Diana Thater, a leading pioneer of video and installation and major figure in the L.A. art community since the early 1990s, and Rachel Rose, a defining new voice of the medium, discuss the rapid evolution of video art and its limitless possibilities—including, for both of them, its ability to reckon with personal trauma and threats to the environment.

    rachel rose thater
    Episode 20 | Minimalism Today

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2020 28:38


    A timely conversation with the art critic Kyle Chayka, author of The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, on how minimalism went from radical 1960s art movement to, ironically, a hyper-commercialized lifestyle adopted by luxury brands and millennials everywhere—and where Marie Kondo and Agnes Martin overlap, if at all.  During this time, we’re evolving to give you even more to listen to, with one-on-one episodes with the people—and on the subjects—we find compelling now. Please stay tuned. You can buy Chayka’s book here. 

    Episode 19 | Antwaun Sargent and Tyler Mitchell

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2020 44:21


    Photographer Tyler Mitchell and critic/curator Antwaun Sargent on the radical power shift from gatekeepers to artists, the breakdown of barriers between fashion and art photography, cautionary tales of social media groupthink and overexposure, and historical artists who made the new black vanguard possible.

    sargent tyler mitchell antwaun

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