Talk Art

Russell & Robert meet Alice Rawsthorn OBE, the award-winning British design critic and author. Based in London, she is chair of the boards of trustees at Chisenhale Gallery in East London and The Hepworth Wakefield art gallery in Yorkshire. Alice was awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.We discuss growing up in Manchester, studying at Cambridge University, her role as design critic for New York Times with a weekly column that ran for more than a decade, her experiences as a Turner Prize judge in 1999 and as director of the Design Museum in London from 2001-2006. An influential public speaker and social media commentator on design, Alice has participated in important global events including TED and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Her TED talk has been viewed by over a million people worldwide. We learn of her passion for the Michael Clarke Dance Company, the box furniture of Louise Brigham, the challenges and rewards from being a trustee of arts organisations and the specific challenges art spaces face during and post the current global pandemic.Finally we learn about @Design.Emergency, a new project set up by MoMA's senior curator of design Paola Antonelli with Alice to explore design’s role and impact on the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath. Since the coronavirus outbreak began, designers and their collaborators have come up with ingenious solutions to help protect the public from the pandemic, improve treatment facilities and methods, and prepare us for the future. The duo plan to publish a book on Design Emergency, and are beginning the project with a series of weekly Instagram Live talks.Follow @AliceRawsthorn on Twitter, @Alice.Rawsthorn on Instagram. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to Talk Art, we will be back very soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet Edward Enninful OBE, editor-in-chief of British Vogue. Over the past two and a half years as editor-in-chief of the famed publication, he has helped shape a new vision for fashion media — not just in the UK, but globally — where he has placed a “diversity of perspective” at its core.Enninful has described his vision for British Vogue as “about being inclusive. It’s not just the colour of your skin but the diversity of perspective.” He has made art a priority including interviews and features with artists as varied as Lubaina Himid, Steve McQueen (who is Vogue's Contributing Editor), Luchita Hurtado, Celia Hempton, Anthea Hamilton, Lorna Simpson, Mark Bradford, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Frank Bowling, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Howardena Pindell, Bridget Riley, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Rosalind Nashashibi, Maggi Hambling, Huguette Caland, Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry and Rachel Whiteread. He has also profiled curators and museum directors such as Zoé Whitley (Chisenhale), Maria Balshaw (Tate) as well as writer Zadie Smith and photographers including Nadine Ijewere, Tyler Mitchell and Campbell Addy. In 2019, Enninful presented the Turner Prize, in an historic year where all four nominees won the prize.Ghanaian-born Enninful began his career as fashion director of British youth culture magazine i-D at age 18, the youngest ever to have been named an editor at a major international fashion title. After moving to London with his parents and six siblings at a young age, Enninful was scouted as a model on the train at 16 and briefly modelled for Arena and i-D magazines including being shot by artist Wolfgang Tillmans.Inspired by London’s club scene in the 1980s, Enninful’s work during this period captured the frenetic energy and creative zeitgeist of the time. It was also during this time that he befriended many of his future fashion collaborators, including Steven Meisel, David Smins, Pat McGrath, Craig McDean, Mario Sorrenti, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. For British Vogue, Enninful ’s covers have consistently featured strong women who promote messages of empowerment: Stella Tennant, Oprah Winfrey, Adwoa Aboah, Naomi Campbell, Rihanna, not to mention his September 2019 edition guest-edited by Meghan Markle HRH Duchess of Sussex, which featured 15 trailblazing female changemakers including Greta Thunberg and Jane Fonda on the cover.Enninful was awarded an OBE for his services to diversity in the fashion industry, and in 2018 he received the Media Award in Honour of Eugenia Sheppard from the CFDA in recognition of his career-long contribution to the fashion industry.Follow @Edward_Enninful and @BritishVogue. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. We love to hear your feedback!!!! Thank you for listening to Talk Art, we will be back very soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet leading artist Amoako Boafo. Best known for his contemporary portrait paintings, Boafo’s portraits are enticing in their lucidity, accentuating the figures in each work, who are regularly isolated on single colour backgrounds, their gaze the focal point of each work. Combing brushwork with finger painting, his use of paint is thick and gestural, the contours of the body’s almost soften into abstraction. The most well known of his series, the Black Diaspora portraits serve as a means of celebration of his identity and Blackness.We discuss his recent residency & exhibition in Miami with the Rubell Family Collection Museum, learning to paint and sculpt at Ghanatta College of Art, Accra before studying at Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna where he began to experiment and develop his own style, the influence of Maria Lassnig and Egon Schiele, the inspiration he drew from Kerry James Marshall's 2012 solo show at Secession, painting portraits of Thelma Golden (Director & Chief Curator of Studio Museum, Harlem), the ideas behind his 'Detoxing Masculinity' exhibition, and why he helped set up the progressive and inclusive Viennese art space WE DEY, dedicated to amplify the art and culture production of Queer/Trans*/Inter/Black People/People of Colour.In 2017 Boafo was awarded with the jury prize, Walter Koschatzky Art Prize and the 2019 STRABAG Artaward International. Widely collected by private and public collectors and institutions, most recently by CCS Bard College Hessel Museum of Art, The Albertina Museum Vienna, and the Rubell Museum.Follow @AmoakoBoafo on Instagram. Boafo is represented by @RobertsProjects, Los Angeles and @MarianeIbrahimGallery, Chicago where he has a solo show in June 2020. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. We love to hear your feedback!!!! Thank you for listening to Talk Art, we will be back very soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet American basketball legend Kevin Love and leading British art advisor Jane Suitor. Love is best known for playing for the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. He is a five-time All-Star and won the 2016 NBA championship with the Cavaliers. Outside of sport, Love is a passionate art collector, closely advised by Suitor. Beginning his collecting journey in his late 20s, he has already built an impressive Blue Chip art collection including artists as varied as Ed Ruscha, Doug Aitken, Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Richard Prince, Rashid Johnson and many more.We find out how Kevin & Jane first met in Los Angeles and began a fruitful working relationship, a helpful book Jane gifted Kevin 4 years ago, the inspiring trips they've made to artist studios, to art fairs like Frieze and to gallery & museum exhibitions in New York and LA. We discuss how Kevin's passion for film and the American Dream initially influenced his taste in art, his admiration for the timeless masterpieces of Jean-Michel Basquiat and his respect for George Condo's art combining the beautiful with the grotesque. Finally we explore Jane's advising career, working with philanthropist Janet de Botton who presented sixty works of art to Tate in the mid 90s, plus we discover Kevin's surprising family connection to iconic rock band The Beach Boys and how he set up his foundation The Kevin Love Fund to raise awareness for mental health issues and to provide tools for people's physical & emotional well-being.Follow @KevinLove (yes, he has over 3 million followers!!!) and @KevinLoveFund and @JaneSuitor on Instagram. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. We love to hear your feedback!!!! Thank you for listening to Talk Art, we will be back very soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet legendary art critic and writer Jerry Saltz for a feature-length special QuarARTine episode, as critical times call for critical thinking!!!!We discuss the future of art and the art world after coronavirus, what he remembers from the early 90s crash and his respect for how British artists responded and thrived. We find out why he wrote his new book 'How To Be An Artist', the decision to give up being an artist himself to drive trucks and limousines for over a decade, how he found his voice as an art critic for New York magazine and why his wife Roberta Smith is the greatest art critic of all! We explore his admiration for the work of artists like Kara Walker and Matthew Barney, a memorable trip to visit ancient cave paintings and why in Jerry's eyes art is for ANYONE!!!!Follow @JerrySaltz Instagram and @JerrySaltz on Twitter and for images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store, we love to hear your feedback!!!! Jerry's new book 'How To Be An Artist' is OUT NOW published by Octopus Books/Ilex and available to buy online at your favourite book store. Please support your LOCAL BOOK STORE!!!! Thank you for listening to Talk Art, we will be back very soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert chat to legendary artist Lisa Yuskavage. Best-known for her groundbreaking, provocative figurative paintings, Lisa‘s images occupy a space between high and low; the sacred and the profane.In this feature-length special episode, we discuss her journey to making the work she truly loved, combatting working-class guilt whilst studying at Yale (and her friendship with architectural artist Maya Lin), reading a Diane Arbus biography, how an Alice Neel documentary influenced her thinking on having a family, interrailing across Europe in the early 80s, discovering her voice as an artist leading to her breakthrough 1990s ‘Bad Babies’ exhibition. We discuss teaching, psychotherapy, her longterm friendship with artists Laurie Simmons & Carroll Dunham (and their awesome children Cyrus & Lena Dunham), rejection letters and her experiences in the gallery system, staying the course & self belief, her love of cinema (such as David Lynch's Blue Velvet), reading George Orwell's account of his prep school years, remembering her friend Jesse Murray an artist who passed away from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1993. Finally we learn about the challenges of making art during lockdown and explore the artworks she lives with at home including Philip Guston, Kara Walker, Neo Rauch and Matvey Levenstein.Thank you to Lisa for her generosity and for sharing her experiences of art making! Follow @LisaYuskavageStudio on Instagram, and for images discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt, or @TalkArtPodcast on Twitter! Lisa is represented by @DavidZwirner. We strongly recommend visiting Lisa’s website www.yuskavage.com Thanks for listening!! If you've enjoyed this episode, do leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear your feedback! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

QuarARTine continues!! Russell & Robert chat with gallerist, writer and curator Rózsa Farkas. Founder and Director of Arcadia Missa, a gallery focusing on “contemporary art with intent” that “began as a self-organised space in austerity Britain”. Beginning in 2011 as a multi-platform Peckham project space, it evolved into a commercial gallery by 2014 and is now located in Soho, central London. The space has provided new aesthetic approaches and alternative organisational structures with a dynamic exhibition programme and extensive publication platform.We discuss how to run a gallery during lockdown (including online publications and viewing rooms), the importance of peer-led programming/collaboration, self-publishing in the visual arts, performance art and how art can bring about social change. We discuss her artist roster including Penny Goring, Jesse Darling and Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, how to name a gallery and what we hope the future of the art world will look like. Plus, Rózsa reads one of Penny Goring’s poems which leads Russell to discuss late playwright Sarah Kane’s work and Rózsa introduces us to the art of British surrealist Ithell Colquhoun for the first time, the performance art of Hungarian artist Katalin Ladik and more recent works by emerging artist Rene Matić.Learn more about Arcadia Missa’s exhibitions s well as their print & digital publications at their website: http://arcadiamissa.com/ Follow @ArcadiaMissa on Instagram and for more images visit @TalkArt and we are now on Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. Thanks for listening!! If you've enjoyed this episode, do leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear your feedback! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert chat to Maria Balshaw CBE, Director of Tate, a family of four art galleries in London, Liverpool and Cornwall known as Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Balshaw is Tate’s first female Director.We discuss the effect of the lockdown on Tate museums, filming guided tours for their website of the on-hold blockbuster Andy Warhol and Aubrey Beardsley exhibitions for the public to access during lockdown, the increased global usage of their website during the pandemic in particular as a resource for children's art education, her passion for gardening, the lasting influence of Derek Jarman (and his music videos for Pet Shop Boys), the great news that Jarman’s house ‘Prospect Cottage’ has been saved for the nation by Artfund’s campaign and some inspiring lessons learned from collaborating with artist Marina Abramović.We learn of Maria's admiration for Steve McQueen's artwork and his recent epic portrait of London’s Year 3 school pupils (exhibited at Tate Britain), her love of Cornelia Parker's installation 'Cold Dark Matter' (which she first saw at Chisenhale gallery in 1991) and her longterm commitment to redressing the imbalance of representation for women artists, artists of colour and queer artists in museum collections and exhibition programmes. Recently a number of watercolours by Emmeline Pankhurst’s daughter Sylvia Pankhurst, best remembered as an activist/campaigner for the UK Suffragette movement, became part of Tate Collection. Finally we reminisce about Anne Imhof's now legendary live performance series at Tate's Tanks in 2019.We explore her years working as Director of the Whitworth, University of Manchester and Manchester City Galleries, when she oversaw the £17 million transformation of the Whitworth, which was subsequently awarded the Art Fund Museum of the Year award for 2015. She was also Director of Culture for Manchester City Council from 2013-2017, played a leading role in establishing the city as a leading cultural centre for the UK. She is currently a Board Member of Arts Council England, the Clore Leadership Programme and Manchester International Festival. Maria was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the arts in June 2015.Follow @MariaBalshaw on Instagram & @MBalshaw Twitter and @Tate on all social media platforms. Tate's website is: www.tate.org.uk For images of artworks discussed in this week's episode please visit @TalkArt and we are now on Twitter too @TalkArtPodcast. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet leading artist Jordan Casteel who has rooted her practice in community engagement, painting from her own photographs of people she encounters. Posing her subjects within their natural environments, her nearly life-size portraits and cropped “subway” compositions chronicle personal observations of the human experience.In February 2020, Casteel opened a major solo exhibition 'Within Reach', curated by Massimiliano Gioni, at the New Museum. Bringing together nearly forty paintings spanning her career, including works from her celebrated series Visible Man (2013–14) and Nights in Harlem (2017), along with recent portraits of her students at Rutgers University, where she is an Assistant Professor of Painting.Special thanks to Jordan for this enlightening conversation and to Veronica Levitt & the team at Casey Kaplan Gallery in New York for invaluable assistance and support. Follow @JordanMCasteel on Instagram. Further images can be found @CaseyKaplanGallery, @NewMuseum and of course our own @TalkArt page. We are also on Twitter @TalkArtPodcast. Thanks for listening!!!! http://www.jordancasteel.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert chat to music legend & flamboyant superstar Sir Elton John CBE from lockdown at his home in Los Angeles. We discuss art collecting, a lifelong obsession that began by collecting dinky toys and vinyl records during childhood, buying Man Ray posters at Athena when he first started songwriting with Bernie Taupin, why he started his photography collection in the early 1990s, what it was like to be photographed by Irving Penn, why he just missed out on getting his portrait taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, his friendships with contemporary artists such as Nathaniel Mary Quinn and Catherine Opie, his admiration for David Hockney, and why he & John Lennon once refused to answer the door to Andy Warhol!!! We discuss his love of glass, a preference for all-things analogue, his love of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, staging the groundbreaking exhibition 'The Radical Eye' at Tate Modern (that included photographs from the 1920s to the 1950s) and his hopes to stage further exhibitions at the V&A (where a gallery was recently named after Elton and husband David Furnish). We also discover his lockdown passion for jigsaw puzzles, playing Snakes & Ladders with his kids, and joyful binge-watching TV shows such as Fleabag and Pose!Follow @EltonJohn on Instagram, Elton's website is: https://www.eltonjohn.comPlease visit @EJAF for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and website: http://ejaf.orgFor all images discussed in today’s episode visit @TalkArt and we are also on Twitter @TalkArtPodcast. Special thanks to Elton, David Furnish and the Rocket team for making this interview possible. Thanks for listening!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.