A brush with...

Alberta Whittle talks to Ben Luke about her influences in art, books, music and other media and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Over the last few years, Whittle has emerged as one of the most striking new voices in contemporary British art, especially with her collaborative film installations focusing on battling anti-blackness. Born in 1980 in Bridgetown on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Whittle moved to Birmingham in the UK as a teenager before studying at the Glasgow School of Art—she still lives in Glasgow today but spends some of her time in Barbados. This relationship between her native Caribbean and her Scottish hometown have informed her work from the start, in terms of exploring her own identity and its connection with the histories of colonialism, slavery and systemic racism. Whittle's acclaimed films are a collage of disparate moving images, including found archival material, footage shot on an iPhone and extraordinary performances filmed in beautiful high definition, among other things. In this conversation, she explains her instinct to collaborate with performers, artists and writers, reflects on her love of the art of Frida Kahlo and Hilma af Klint, among many others, and discusses the music she adores, by artists as diverse as Dancehall queen Patra and the late opera singer Jessye Norman. Plus, she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by ARTIKA.Links for this episodeAlberta WhittleShows:Alberta Whittle: Reset at Jupiter Artlandbusiness as usual: hostile environment at Glasgow Sculpture StudiosLife Support at Glasgow Women’s LibrarySonia Boyce’s exhibition In the Castle of My Skin at MIMA, Middlesborough British Art Show 9Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now at Tate BritainSex Ecologies at Kunsthal TrondheimScotland + VeniceDiscussed in the interview:The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on the Windrush scandalFrida Kahlo at Tate Modern, 2005—room guideLouise Bourgeois at The Easton FoundationChris Ofili at David ZwirnerDenzil Forrester at Stephen Friedman GalleryHilma af Klint FoundationTramway, GlasgowFruitmarket, EdinburghDundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)Transmission, GlasgowMaryhill Integration NetworkApartheid Museum, JohannesburgCry Freedom on Amazon PrimeKamau Brathwaite at the Poetry FoundationChristina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and BeingDionne Brand at Penguin Random HouseEdwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at WorkJessye Norman’s Spirituals on Spotify and her Spotify pageTumi Mogorosi’s Project ELO on Spotify and his Spotify pagePatra’s Spotify pageAlberta Whittle’s blog about her Fresh Milk residency in Barbados, including the fete postersMax Roach and Abbey Lincoln perform Tears For Johannesburg & Triptych (Prayer, Protest)Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column at the World Monuments FundAlberta Whittle’s "accomplices":Sekai MachacheMele BroomesMatthew Arthur WilliamsChristian Noelle CharlesAma Josephine BudgeYves B GoldenAnushka NaanayakkaraSabrina HenryRichy CareyBasharat Khan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tino Sehgal talks to Ben Luke about his unique work, which transforms the space in which it is shown through the power of movement and sound. Sehgal, who is based in Berlin, moved to art from dance after studying choreography alongside economics. His latest show, at Blenheim Palace, commissioned by the Blenheim Art Foundation, features his work from the last 20 years staged amid the Baroque palace and its gardens. It features interpreters or participants who enact "constructed situations" ranging from group work, where they sing in unison or move in formation, veering from slow controlled movement to dance or even game-playing, to more intimate pieces involving individuals or duos—but always directly engaging the viewer as a participant. Sehgal discusses the structures that underpin his work, making art that exists only in the moment or memory rather than as an object or through documentation, and why he sees it more in the tradition of sculpture and installation than performance art. He reflects on his early encounters with the art of Joseph Beuys and Yves Klein, his interest in the work of Antoine Watteau, the powerful effect of the works of radical theatre director Christoph Schlingensief and choreographer Felix Ruckert, how he regularly returns to William Forsythe's work In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, and his response to the Belgian producers Soulwax and their 2manydjs project. And he responds to the questions we ask all our guests, including the ultimate question: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by ARTIKA.Links for this episode:Tino Sehgal at Blenheim Art FoundationBlenheim PalaceTino Sehgal at Globart Art Academy, Melk AbbeyJoseph Beuys’s 7000 Oaks in KasselYves Klein ArchivesJean-Antoine Watteau’s paintings in the LouvreAuguste Rodin’s The KissXavier Le Roy, Product of Circumstances and context at tate.org.ukChristoph SchlingshiefFelix Ruckert and a performance of Hautnah (1995)Excerpt from In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated by William Forsythe from its original performance in 1987, featuring Fanny Gaïda and Sylvie Guillem, Opéra National de ParisJohn Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our GrandchildrenMargaret MeadJohn Kenneth Galbreath’s The Affluent Society2manydjs: Soulwax’s official YouTube channelOde to Joy, Friedrich Schiller poem The Robots on Kraftwerk’s YouTube channelSock It to Me on Missy Elliot’s YouTube channel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oscar Murillo talks to Ben Luke about the defining cultural experiences and influences of his life. Oscar first shot to fame in the art world with paintings that attracted huge attention in 2013—canvases with loose, scratchy, expressive marks, patches of pure colour, and daily dust and grime from the studio, scrawled with words such as "burrito", "yuka" and "chorizo". But he has also consistently made works in sculpture, installation, performance and film. At the heart of his work is an engagement with language, with the nature of labour and production, with the movement of people and with fluid cultural identities. He discusses his major project Frequencies, in which children from more than 350 schools in 34 countries across the world were sent canvases that were affixed to desks, so that children could draw and write on them, consciously or unconsciously, over several months—and how the project relates to his own work. He talks about his ongoing interest in class as well as race, in relation to his Colombian background. He picks out the artists and musicians that have most influenced him, discusses the dual influence of La Paila, the village in Colombia in which he grew up, and London, to which he emigrated when he was 11 and made his career in art. And he answers the questions we ask all our guests: what are the essential rituals in his working life? If he could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by ARTIKA.Links for this episode:Oscar Murillo at David ZwirnerFrequencies, presented by Artangel, until the 30 August 2021By Means of a Detour, a book co-published by Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge and the Kunstverein in HamburgJannis Kounellis at Cheim & ReadDavid Hammons at MoMAMonet’s Water-Lilies at l’Orangerie in Paris and Murillo’s Surge paintings, made partly in responseHans Haacke’s Der Pralinenmeister (The Chocolate Master)Our podcast, A brush with… Julie MehretuFela Kuti on Spotify and his song VIP (Vagabonds in Power) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ellen Gallagher, an influential contemporary artist, discusses her rich cultural influences ranging from literature to music. She shares her unforgettable experience living with a Keith Haring print at Oberlin College and her admiration for Diego Velázquez. The conversation dives into Afrofuturism through the lens of the techno band Drexciya, and explores Herman Melville's nuanced takes on race. Gallagher reflects on the intersection of identity and art, prompting thought on what it means for an artwork to resonate deeply within our psyche.

Ben Luke talks to Julian Opie about his life and work by exploring the artists that have inspired him, his literary and musical influences and the cultural experiences that have most affected him. He talks about the early influence of Egon Schiele, his passion for Japanese prints by Utamaro and Hiroshige, his fascination with reading about ancient cultures and early humans, and his connection with composer Max Richter and the band Blur, among much else. And he answers the ultimate questions: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Cristina Iglesias about her life and work. She recalls how Disney's Fantasia made an impression on her as a child, how Velázquez's Spinners (Las Hilanderas) started her lifelong love of the collection of the Prado museum in Madrid, for which she created one of her best-known public projects. She discusses other major public commissions, including her underwater sculptures in the Baja California off Mexico and her latest project, Hondalea, in a lighthouse on Santa Clara island in the bay of her home town, San Sebastián, in northern Spain. She talks about her love of science fiction, including J.G. Ballard, the importance of music and her work with her composer brother Alberto on a new opera project. And she answers the final questions we ask all our guests on A brush with...: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the US-based artist about his influences and life-changing cultural experiences. They discuss his public sculpture in Margate, April Is the Cruellest Month, with its nods to TS Eliot and Siegfried Sassoon. They reflect on his fusing of his autobiography—and particularly the influence of his mother’s Iraqi Jewish family—with global geopolitics and the legacies of colonialism. They discuss his earliest influences and the contemporary artists, writers and musicians that most inspire him. And, as with all the guests on the A brush with... podcast, he answers the ultimate question: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the Seoul-born, London-based artist Do Ho Suh about his influences and life-changing cultural experiences. They discuss his recreations of his various homes in coloured fabric and how his early work in South Korea has been ignored by curators and critics. Do Ho reveals that, influenced by a painting of fish and shellfish in his family home, he wanted to be a marine biologist, and that he only switched to art when he realised his maths was not good enough. He reflects on the influence of the Chinese artists Qi Baishi and Bada Shanren and discusses the contemporary artists he admires, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres to Rachel Whiteread. And, as with all the guests on the A brush with... podcast, he names the writers and musicians he admires, ponders his studio rituals and answers the ultimate question: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Doris Salcedo about her life and work through the artists she most admires, the writers she returns to and the music she listens to. She recalls her epiphany when confronted with the works of Francisco de Goya, and how his empathy with the victims of war and violence prompted her own aim to give voice to the voiceless in the Colombian civil war and beyond. She talks about the influence of Paul Celan's poetry, which she quotes directly in her Unland series. She describes how Joseph Beuys's public sculpture gave her an example of a sensitivity to place that she has employed in her many memorable public works. Plus she reveals a secret to her studio life that she has never shown in public and answers our usual questions: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As he prepares for a two-part exhibition in Florence, the Tehran-born, Brooklyn-based artist discusses his life and work through the cultural epiphanies and influences that have shaped him. He talks about drawing in the basement of his family home as the Iran-Iraq war raged around him as a child and how visiting the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy prompted a turning point in his work. He talks about the auditory-visual synaesthesia that means he hears and feels the paintings as he creates them. He recalls life-changing encounters with Michelangelo and Hieronymus Bosch, reflects on his love of epic poetry and Sufi verse, and discusses the music he listens to as he works. And, of course, he answers those tricky questions that close all the A brush with... interviews: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.