The Week in Art

Leading figures in the art world, including Max Hollein, discuss hopes and concerns for the visual arts. Topics covered include the significance of museums, restitution of cultural heritage, autonomy in the arts, diverse narratives, and building a society based on love and joy. The importance of diversity, fair pay, and democracy in museums is highlighted. Ethical concerns of collaborating with Saudi Arabia and climate change in the art world are explored. Updates on the art market and the impact of activist art are discussed. The need for transparency and support for artists is emphasized.

In the first episode of this new season of The Week in Art, we talk to Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent, about the thefts scandal at the British Museum and its implications for the museum in the future. The artist Grada Kilomba is one of four curators of this year’s Sāo Paulo biennial, called Choreographies of the Impossible, and she joins our host Ben Luke to discuss the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Village Square at Céret, a painting made in 1920 by Chaïm Soutine. It features in the exhibition Against the Current, which opens this week at K20 in Düsseldorf, Germany. The exhibition’s co-curator, Susanne Meyer-Büser, tells us about the picture.The Sāo Paulo biennial: Choreographies of the Impossible, Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Sāo Paulo, Brazil, 6 September-10 December.Chaïm Soutine: Against the Current, K20 Düsseldorf, 2 September until 14 January next year; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 9 February-14 July 14 2024; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland, 16 August-1 December 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: in the final episode of this season, James Goodwin, a specialist on the art market and its history, tells us about what high inflation and interest rates mean for the art market and what lies ahead. As Spain heads to the polls in July, we talk to Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory in Madrid. What could the election mean for the controversial Spanish laws of Historical Memory and Democratic Memory relating to the Civil War of 1936 to 1939 and the period of Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship? And this episode’s Work of the Week is a project by the Swedish duo Goldin + Senneby. The work, called Quantitative Melencolia, involves recreating the lost plate for Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving Melencolia I. It is part of the exhibition Economics: The Blockbuster, which opens this week at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, UK.Economics the Blockbuster: It’s not Business as Usual, Whitworth Art Gallery, until 22 October. The Manchester International Festival, until 16 July.The Week in Art is back on 1 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Art Newspaper’s editor, Alison Cole, and London correspondent, Martin Bailey, join our host Ben Luke to review the National Portrait Gallery after its £41m revamp. We talk to Nancy Ireson at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia about the exhibition William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision. Edmondson was the first African American artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1930s, but has rarely been shown in museums on the US East Coast since. And this episode’s Work of the Week marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival in the UK of the Empire Windrush, a boat carrying passengers from the Caribbean. Zinzi Minott, the choreographer and artist, has made a film called Fi Dem about the Windrush on this anniversary every year since 2017. She tells us about the latest iteration, which is at the heart of a new exhibition at Queercircle in London.The National Portrait Gallery is open now. Yevonde: Life and Colour, until 15 October.William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 25 June-10 September.Zinzi Minott’s Fi Dem VI is part of her exhibition Many Mikl Mek Ah Mukl, Queercircle, London, until 27 August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As her new series for the BBC, Africa Rising, takes Afua Hirsch to Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa, we talk to her about the artists and art scenes she encountered and what she took away from her experiences. The Liverpool Biennial’s latest edition opened last weekend and has a South African curator, Khanyisile Mbongwa, and an IsiZulu title, uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things. The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, Louisa Buck, visited the biennial and reviews it for us. And it is Art Basel this week, in its original Swiss location, so this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the most notable works for sale at the fair. Valentine was painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1984 and given to his then girlfriend, Paige Powell, on Valentine’s Day. Jeffrey Deitch, who is selling the work at Art Basel, tells us its story.Africa Rising: Morocco is on the BBC iPlayer now. The Nigeria episode is on BBC Two on 20 June at 9pm for UK viewers and on BBC iPlayer, and South Africa is broadcast on BBC Two at 27 June at 9pm. For listeners outside the UK, check your local listings.Liverpool Biennial, uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things, until 17 September.Art Basel, until 18 June; Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Modena Paintings, Beyeler Foundation, Basel, until 27 August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood on their collaborative art, Wayne McGregor on his new choreographic work—a collaboration with the late Carmen Herrera—and Whistler’s Mother returns to Philadelphia.Ahead of an exhibition of their work in London in September, we talk to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood—who has created the artwork with Yorke for every Radiohead album since 1994, as well the visuals accompanying Thom’s solo records and side projects including the recent records by The Smile—about their collaboration. A new work for the UK’s Royal Ballet by the choreographer Wayne McGregor premieres at the Royal Opera House in London on 9 June. Untitled, 2023 is a collaboration with the Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, developed before Herrera’s death last year at the age of 106. We talk to McGregor about the piece and the intersection between visual art and choreography. And this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the most famous pictures in the world: Arrangement in Grey and Black, better known as Whistler’s Mother, by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. It’s part of an exhibition called The Artist’s Mother: Whistler and Philadelphia, curated by Jenny Thompson, and we speak to Jenny about the work and the show.Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood: The Crow Flies will be at Tin Man Art, Cromwell Place, London in September – exact dates to be confirmed, visit tinmanart.com.Untitled, 2023, is at the Royal Opera House in London until 17 June, as part of the triple bill with Corybantic Games, a tribute to Leonard Bernstein by the Royal Ballet’s artistic associate Christopher Wheeldon, and a revival of Anastasia Act III by Kenneth MacMillan.The Artist’s Mother: Whistler and Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 10 June-29 October. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby opens at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, we talk to Catherine Morris and Lisa Small, who have curated the show with the Australian comedian. Floods at the end of last month have caused widespread damage to heritage in the Italian region of Emilia Romagna; we speak to James Imam, our correspondent in Rome, to gauge the extent of the damage and explore the Italian government’s response. And this week marks the centenary of the birth of the great US abstract painter Ellsworth Kelly. This episode’s Work of the Week is Kelly’s Spectrum IX (2014), one of a series of paintings based on a spectrum of colours made by Kelly across his seven-decade career. Yuri Stone, the assistant curator at Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland, US—where the piece is part of a retrospective of Kelly’s work—tells us more.It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby is at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, until 24 September. Previous Picasso items on this podcast include a tour of Tate Modern’s Picasso 1932 on 8 Mar 2018, and a look at his response to Old Masters on 3 June 2022.Ellsworth Kelly at 100 continues at the Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland, US, until March 2024; for more on the anniversary events visit ellsworthkelly.org/centennial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the first ever museum show of Keith Haring’s work in Los Angeles. We talk to Sarah Loyer, the curator of Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody at the Broad in Los Angeles. Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain in London, has led the complete rehang of the museum’s collection, including a vastly expanded presence of women and artists of colour across 500 years of British art. He tells us about the project. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Room, Part 1 (1975) by the late San Francisco-born painter Joan Brown. The painting is part of the touring survey that opens this week at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and Liz Park, the curator of the Pittsburgh show, tells us more about it.Keith Haring: Art Is For Everybody, The Broad, Los Angeles, 27 May-8 October; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 11 November-17 March 2024; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 27 April-8 September 2024.The rehang of Tate Britain is open now.Joan Brown, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 27 May-24 September. Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California, 7 February–1 May 2024. Joan Brown: Facts & Fantasies, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, until 17 June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Frieze art fair and spring auctions in New York. As the Frieze Art Fair returns to The Shed in Manhattan, coinciding with the season’s big auctions, The Art Newspaper’s live editor, Aimee Dawson, and our contributing editor Anny Shaw take the temperature of the market in New York. Just as we completed the episode, the US Supreme Court ruled that Andy Warhol infringed on the photographer Lynn Goldstein’s copyright when he created a series of silkscreens based on her photograph of the late rock singer Prince. Coincidentally, we had already recorded an interview with our New York correspondent Laura Gilbert about the fact that a Manhattan judge last week refused to throw out two photographers’ long-running copyright lawsuits against the artist Richard Prince, for his New Portraits series, which appropriated their original images. The case is bound to be affected by the Supreme Court’s decision, as Laura tells us. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Metronome by Sarah Sze, a new site-specific work made for a former first class waiting room at Peckham Rye station in south London, which until recently had been almost derelict. We speak to Sarah about her new installation.Frieze New York continues until Sunday, 21 May.Listen to an interview with Virginia Rutledge, the art historian and lawyer, about the Andy Warhol/Lynn Goldsmith case in The Week in Art episode from 24 June 2022.Sarah Sze: The Waiting Room, Artangel at Peckham Rye Station, London, until 17 September. Sarah Sze: Timelapse, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, until 10 September. Listen to the podcast A brush with… Sarah Sze, from 29 September 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Sudan crisis. How are artists responding to another war in the East African country? The photographer Ala Kheir joins us from Khartoum to tell us about the conflict in Sudan and how it is affecting him and other artists. We talk to Alyce Mahon, the co-curator of Sade: Freedom or Evil, a new exhibition at the Centre Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) in Barcelona about the 18th-century writer and libertine the Marquis de Sade and his artistic and literary influence, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Gwen John’s La Chambre sur la Cour (1907-08), a painting of John herself in a Parisian interior. The picture is one of the highlights of an exhibition dedicated to John at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, UK.Ala Kheir on Instagram @ala.kheir.Sade: Freedom or Evil, Centre Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, until 15 October. Alyce Mahon, The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde, Princeton University Press, $47/£40.Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 13 May-8 October. Alicia Foster, Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris, Thames and Hudson, $39.95/£30. Out now in UK, published in the US on 18 July. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.