Helen Molesworth invited artists EJ Hill and Sarah Sze to listen to archival audio interviews with Ruth Asawa and discuss her ideas and art.Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, the first major posthumous retrospective of the artist, will be on view at SFMOMA from April 5–September 2, 2025 before travelling on to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, and to the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland.Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) was a sculptor, educator, and arts activist who challenged conventional notions of material and form through her emphasis on lightness and transparency. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the world since the early 1950s.Ruth Asawa: Retrospective is on view at SFMOMA from April 5, 2025-September 2, 2025.EJ Hill is a visual artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. His show Brake Run Helix is on view at MASS MoCA through January 2024.Sarah Sze is an artist based in New York. Her solo exhibition Timelapse just closed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and her show Metronome will open in November at OGR Torino, and at Aarhus, Denmark in 2024; she also has a forthcoming solo show opening at the Nasher Sculpture Center in 2024.

A revealing look into the real life behind the icon and Warhol Superstar Candy Darling. Cynthia Carr, author of the acclaimed Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz discusses her newest biography: Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. Carr is joined by MacArthur Fellow, singer-songwriter, and actor Vivian Bond, who narrated the audiobook.Cynthia Carr is a New York-based writer and author of Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz and Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. Vivian Bond is the recipient of an Obie, a Bessie, The Lambda Literary award for best transgender non-fiction for their memoir “Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels,” a Tony nomination for “Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway,”and was recently awarded a 2024 MacArthur Fellowship. Bond has a series of upcoming shows May 6-11 at Joe’s Pub.

The history of a radical cooperative farm at Black Mountain College that defined both daily life and pedagogy at the birthplace of American art education. David Silver, an expert on the farm at Black Mountain college, tells the story of how Black Mountain students collaborated in order to survive. David Silver is a professor of environmental studies and urban agriculture at the University of San Francisco and the author of the newly released book, The Farm at Black Mountain College.

Helen Molesworth explores the life and work of Anni Albers in the artist’s own words, with rare archival interviews with Albers and insights from artists Kristine Woods and Diedrick Bracken and art historian Julia Bryan-Wilson. Affinities: Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, a group show curated by Nicholas Fox Weber, director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, will be on view at David Zwirner 20th street gallery in New York from March 13–April 19. Weber is also the author of a biography on Anni Albers, forthcoming from Yale University Press in early 2026.Kirstine Woods is an artist based in Brooklyn and professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.Diedrick Brackens is an artist based in Los Angeles, known for his woven tapestries that explore allegory and narrative through the artist’s autobiography, broader themes of African American and queer identity, and American history.Julia Bryan-Wilson is Professor of Art History and LGBTQ Studies at Columbia University.  She is organizing an exhibition called GUTSY: On Feminist Infrastructure that will open in November 2025 at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland. 

A conversation about the late artist Noah Davis, the sounds he left behind, and the ones he imagined. Join podcaster and curator Helen Molesworth, professor and writer Tina M. Campt, pianist and artist Jason Moran, and director and curator Paola Malavassi for a mix of sound, music, and ideas inspired by Davis’s paintings.The Sound of Noah Davis was commissioned by DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam and produced by Besyv and FilmTone on the occasion of the exhibition Noah Davis. Special thanks to Karon Davis and the Estate of Noah Davis.The exhibition Noah Davis, originally on view at DAS MINSK, Potsdam in Fall 2024, is currently on view at the Barbican Center through May 11, 2025 and will travel to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles in summer 2025 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2026.Credits: With: Helen Molesworth, Tina M. Campt, Jason Moran, and Paola MalavassiA podcast commissioned by DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam on the occasion of the exhibition Noah Davis, 2024–25Idea: Paola Malavassi and Helen MolesworthProduction: Besyv and FilmTone, DenmarkProducer: Mathilde Schytz MarvitInterviews: Mathilde Schytz Marvit, Alexandra Kristjansen, and Bobby Salomon HessEditor: Alexandra KristjansenSound Design: Bobby Salomon HessMusic: Sofia Rønde Storck, Jonas Yagoubi, and Laurits Quist BilénArchival Audio: Noah Davis, lecture at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, 2011Piano: Jason Moran live in his studioThanks to: Karon Davis and the Estate of Noah Davis

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times critic Wesley Morris comes on the podcast to unpack the long history and current state of artistic rivalries, from Leonardo daVinci and Michelangelo to Drake and Kendrick Lamar.

Helen Molesworth hosts a special episode, starting with a conversation with leading ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio and followed by an interview with artist Laurie Simmons and activist Maryhope Howland.Chase Strangio is the Co-Director of the LGBTQ & HIV Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Laurie Simmons is an artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Connecticut and New York City and a member of Families United for Trans Rights.Maryhope Howland is a social psychologist, design researcher, and co-founder of Families United for Trans Rights.Families United for Trans Rights (FUTR, www.ourfutr.org) is a volunteer-run organization dedicated to securing the rights of trans Americans.

As we turn the page on a quarter century, Helen Molesworth and the artist Steve Locke look back with a highly opinionated list of their favorite art shows of the last 25 years.

Helen Molesworth speaks to Dean Kissick, author of The Painted Protest, a polemic piece on the state of contemporary art in this month’s Harper’s Magazine that has had a lot in the art world talking.Dean Kissick is a writer, contributing editor of Spike Art Magazine, and a director of Earth.

Art historian and critic Hal Foster joins Helen for a live conversation on Richard Serra (1938–2024) at David Zwirner New York. They discuss Foster’s decades-long engagement with Serra’s work and the artist’s enduring legacy.This conversation was taped in Every Which Way, a major Richard Serra installation from 2015, on view at David Zwirner’s 20th Street gallery in New York from November 8–December 14, 2024.