Episode 2: Faces of Community | Barbara Walker, Ming Smith & Lou Stoppard

‘You have an idea and it goes off in another direction and you either pull it back or you go on the journey. I knew I wanted to make some portraits, but I also knew I didn't want to. I wanted to create some tension.’ – Barbara Walker  

In the second episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artists Barbara Walker and Ming Smith, and writer and curator Lou Stoppard discuss the evolution of portraiture and ask how it can better reflect and build community.

Barbara Walker is a British artist whose work interrogates power, identity and the visibility of Black experience; Ming Smith is an American photographer whose practice explores her immediate cultural community; and Lou Stoppard is a British writer and curator. 

About Frieze Masters Podcast 

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year’s fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title ‘The Creative Mind’, and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present. 

The series includes topics ‘The State We’re In’, ‘The Faces of Community’ and ‘The Power of Painting’, with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians. 

About Frieze 

Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 

www.frieze.com 

@friezeofficial