Talk Art

Russell & Robert meet Tai Shani, multidisciplinary British artist and joint-winner of the Turner Prize 2019. Shani’s practice encompasses performance, film, photography and sculptural installations, frequently structured around experimental texts. She is currently a Tutor in Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art.Taking inspiration from disparate histories, narratives and characters mined from forgotten sources, Shani creates dark, fantastical worlds, brimming with utopian potential. These deeply affective works often combine rich and complex monologues with arresting, saturated installations, manifesting equally disturbing and divine images in the mind of the viewer. We discuss her on-going "DC: projects", developed by the artist over a four-year period and culminating in her Turner Prize nomination. The work is made up of multiple characters which explore mythical and real women in an expanded adaptation of Christine de Pizan's 1405 pioneering proto-feminist book, The Book of the City of Ladies. Shani uses the structure of an allegorical city of women to explore ‘feminine’ subjectivity and experience, through a gothic/science-fiction lens. Adopting Pizans’ medieval conception of history, where historical events, fictions and myths are entwined, "DC: projects" draws upon a host of references, tropes and characters from disparate sources, creating an elaborate world, outside of time and beyond patriarchal limits. Follow @TaiShani on Instagram or visit www.TaiShani.com and for details of Tai's installation at Turner Prize 2019 visit @TurnerContemporary or @The_Tetley for Tai's earlier exhibition mentioned in this episode. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email talkartpodcast@gmail.com as we love hearing your feedback! @talkart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet legendary British artist Denzil Forrester. We discuss 40 years of painting, his childhood in Grenada, the impact of moving to London in 1967 aged 11, his memories of making drawings in London's dub & reggae nightclubs of the late 1970s-80s, his admiration for Jah Shaka's sound system and the drive to create paintings that documented the club scene he cherished. We learn about racially-motivated arrests of the time including Forrester's own unjust arrest as a student followed by the death of Winston Rose a few years later, a friend of Forrester’s who died while under police restraint. Forrester went on to pay tribute to Rose in a number of iconic paintings including 'Three Wicked Men' (1981), now part of Tate museum's collection, and in a recent large-scale public mural for Art on the Underground titled 'Brixton Blue' (2019). Reflective of the contemporary black experience and the racial tensions of the 1980s, the mural straddles Brixton station's entrance and depicts a Brixton street scene with the figures of a truncheon-wielding policeman, a Rastafarian ‘businessman’ holding a portable sound system and a besuited politician. We also hear how curator Matthew Higgs of White Columns, New York and fellow painter Peter Doig & TRAMPS gallery helped shine a spotlight on Forrester's paintings for a new generation.Denzil Forrester's major solo exhibition 'Itchin & Scratchin' runs at Nottingham Contemporary until 3rd May 2020. This remarkable exhibition's wide ranging artworks roam from London to Rome and New York, from Jamaica to Cornwall. Pulsing with music and movement, these nocturnal scenes are by turns intimate and ecstatic, singular records of the Afro-Caribbean experience in Britain. Presented in partnership with Spike Island, Bristol, where it will travel to from 4 July to 6 September 2020. Follow @Nottm_Contemp and @SpikeIsland. Special thanks to @StephenFriedmanGallery's Karon Hepburn, Jonathan Horrocks and Tamsin Huxford. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email talkartpodcast@gmail.com as we love hearing your feedback! @talkart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert and Russell meet leading gallerist & ceramicist Tommaso Corvi-Mora. We discuss growing up in Italy, moving to Germany for a pivotal first summer job working with Alighiero Boetti for a Bonner Kunstverein show, becoming a gallery assistant with Esther Shipper in Cologne, his early love of artist Joseph Beuys, and his longterm passion for the late Cuban-American artist Félix González-Torres. We explore collecting art, how he started his gallery in South London in the same building as Greengrassi (owned by his partner Cornelia Grassi), his representation of leading artists including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Alvaro Barrington, Jennifer Packer, Roger Hiorns and Adam Buick. Plus we learn about his own recent artistic career making ceramics, including a number of successful exhibitions curated by fashion designer Duro Olowu. See Tommaso’s new ceramics in Collect art fair at Somerset House with Made in Britaly. Plus he’s giving a ‘Lightning Talk’ at Collect on Saturday 29th February and will also be part of Camden Arts Centre’s ‘Ceramics Circle’ event on March 8th 2020. Follow @corvimora for the gallery’s Instagram and @tcmceramics for his ceramic work! If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email talkartpodcast@gmail.com as we love hearing your feedback! @talkart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet artists Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings. We explore the challenges & benefits of making art as a duo, letting go of your ego when collaborating, their decision to build their own @GayBar venue where they hosted one-off events over a 4 year period in their South London studio (complete with a bouncer, actual cocktail glasses and the occasional police raid!!!). We learn what it was like travelling around the country to make ‘UK Gay Bar Directory (UKGBD)’ (2015–16) a 5 hour video archive of LGBTQ social spaces. We discuss a ‘Gay Pride float’ they designed for Art Night (2019) in Walthamstow, their film ‘Something for the Boys’ (2018) and learn about an ongoing series of detailed drawings such as ‘The Sleepers’ (2019), their admiration for Michaelangelo, and the recent desire to create frescos. Their first institutional solo exhibition ‘In My Room’ brings together film, fresco painting and works on paper @FocalPointGallery, Southend, Essex from 16th February until 31st May 2020. Special thanks to Rózsa Farkas @ArcadiaMissa London and P·P·O·W @ppowgallery New York. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email talkartpodcast@gmail.com as we love hearing your feedback! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert speak with Lawrence Abu Hamdan, an artist, audio investigator and recent Turner Prize joint-winner. Lawrence's work explores ‘the politics of listening’ and the role of sound and voice within the law and human rights. He creates audiovisual installations, lecture performances, audio archives, photography and text, translating in-depth research and investigative work into affective, spatial experiences. Abu Hamdan works with human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International and Defense for Children International, and with international prosecutors to help obtain aural testimonies for legal and historical investigations. He is a member of Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths London where he received his PhD in 2017. We discuss linguistic "code-switching", making art that's accessible for everyone, the experience of being nominated for the Turner Prize (2019), why he created the work 'Earwitness Inventory' (2018) for Chisenhale, his admiration for the sound installations of Alvin Lucier, the influence of experimental DIY music scene in Leeds and what it was like growing up between Yorkshire and Jordan. Visit @TalkArt on Instagram for images of all artworks discussed in this episode, and follow @LawrenceAbuHamdan. This special episode was recorded by phone with the artist at home in Beirut and us in London. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email talkartpodcast@gmail.com as we love hearing your feedback! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art returns for Season 4!! Robert & Russell meet Grayson Perry CBE, the legendary English artist, Royal Academician, writer and broadcaster. Best known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foibles". We discuss Essex & the 'Cockney diaspora', the relationship between his collages & pots, transvestism, inviting fashion students at St Martin's to create dresses for his persona Claire, his admiration for fashion designers like Manish Arora & Alessandro Michele, iconic women like Countess Raine Spencer, why he enjoys making limited editions & multiples, his childhood teddy bear Alan Measles and a recent trip to USA to make a new documentary about the political & social divide. We find out about his marriage to Philippa Perry, why he loves cycling & collecting motorbikes, historical influences such as 15th century plates & pottery, Folk art, Outsider art, Islamic ceramics but also living artists he admires such as Mark Bradford and Jonas Wood, plus Grayson shares some advice for emerging artists. Visit @TalkArt on Instagram for images of all artworks discussed in this episode, and follow Grayson @AlanMeasles. Special thanks to Matt Carey-Williams and Kathy Stephenson @VictoriaMiroGallery. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email talkartpodcast@gmail.com as we love hearing your feedback! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s the holidays... and our gift to you is the gift of laughter!!! What better way to celebrate Christmas than to chat (and laugh lots) with our dear friend LONDON HUGHES??!! London is a pioneer, rebel and renaissance woman: stand-up comedian, presenter (Alan Carr was her early mentor), podcaster (Spotify's 'London Actually'), actor ('Fleabag') and now screenwriter with a forthcoming USA TV series for NBC (which she will star in too). Discover why her childhood nickname was ‘The Young Picasso’ and why her favourite Picasso paintings are ‘Weeping Woman’, and ’La Reve’. We discuss how she came to admire the paintings of Jackson Pollock, a painting ‘Sugar Shack’ by Ernie Barnes that her family had a print of in their household as she was growing up, we learn about her father's adoption by a white family in London and why London’s least favourite art form is photography. We discuss the art of comedy, Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg, her friendship with Lenny Henry and discover many comedians also make art including Harry Hill & Noel Fielding and she introduces us to the work of pop sculptor Fred Allard and how she tried (and failed) to buy one of his sculptures. London explains why her favourite museum is the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice and her admiration for Peggy’s support of then-unknown artists!! This episode was recorded live at Kings Place for the London Podcast Festival, on Sunday 8th September 2019. Follow @thelondonhughes and visit @talkart for images of artworks discussed in this episode. Thanks for listening this year! Talk Art will return in January 2020 with Season 4. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special episode of Talk Art is an interview with the late, great, legendary artist Joyce Pensato. Joyce was one of Russell & Robert’s favourite painters, who in recent years became a close friend to both. We were honoured to be invited by Joyce to visit her in New York on 28th May 2019 to record what became her last interview. We discuss growing up in Brooklyn, the encouragement of her father (an outsider artist who often made her toys), her love of German Expressionism in her teens but also Gauguin and Van Gogh, of whom she made a clay sculpture of which she would carry on the subway to show people. Joyce explains how Hollywood movies & pop culture had a lasting impact on her work, her love of Coney Island, meeting fellow painter Christopher Wool, painting with black & white enamel paint, how Christopher’s father Ira Wool became the first champion and collector of her paintings followed by exhibitions in Paris and further support from French collectors.She discusses a recent sculpture inspired by Big Ang (the US mafia “Mob moll” and reality TV star), her love of the movie Rocky and how Sylvester Stallone began collecting her work, why she had a nickname of ‘The Eraser’, her beloved dog Charlie, her key 1970s mentors & painting teachers Mercedes Matter and Joan Mitchell, how Thea Westreich championed her work in the 80s, her love of the works of Georg Grosz, Edvard Munch and Francis Bacon.We also chat with artist Elizabeth Ferry who ran Joyce’s studio for the past ten years and hear how they became known collectively as The Fizz & The Cucumber!!! Joyce set up the ‘Joyce Pensato Foundation’ to support future generations of young artists. For images of images discussed in this episode visit Instagram @talkart and @joycepensato. We love you Joyce! The Fizz is fizzing!!“I feel like I’m in the painting. We are one. I totally love to be physical. It’s in me.” Joyce Pensato, 1941-2019. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet British artist Haroon Mirza, best known for installations that test the interplay and friction between sound, light waves and electric current. He devises sculptures, performances and immersive installations, such as The National Apavillion of Then and Now (2011) – an anechoic chamber with a circle of light that grows brighter in response to increasing drone, and completely dark when there is silence. An advocate of interference (in the sense of electro-acoustic or radio disruption), he creates situations that purposefully cross wires. He describes his role as a composer, manipulating electricity, a live, invisible and volatile phenomenon, to make it dance to a different tune and calling on instruments as varied as household electronics, vinyl and turntables, LEDs, furniture, video footage and existing artworks to behave differently. Processes are left exposed and sounds occupy space in an unruly way, testing codes of conduct and charging the atmosphere. Mirza asks us to reconsider the perceptual distinctions between noise, sound and music, and draws into question the categorisation of cultural forms. "All music is organised sound or organised noise," he says. "So as long as you’re organising acoustic material, it’s just the perception and the context that defines it as music or noise or sound or just a nuisance" (2013). Mirza's major solo exhibition 'Waves and Forms' is at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton until 11th January 2020. The show highlights the artist’s ongoing exploration of waveforms: how they are perceived, the emotional and physical responses they create and the various ways in which we relate to them.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art New York!!!! Russell & Robert meet multidisciplinary artist Jon Key. Key is a queer black man originally from the small rural town Seale, Alabama now living and working in Bushwick, NY. A writer, designer and painter, his work excavates the lineage and history of his identity through four themes: Southerness, Blackness, Queerness, and Family. Through the process of writing, photography and painting, Jon’s work is portrayed graphically through four colours: Green, Black, Violet and Red. Respectively, these colours intertwine memory and intimate recounting of the four pillars grounding the work.We discuss his breakthrough 2019 solo show at Rubber Factory, followed by the group show 'Punch' at Jeffrey Deitch NY curated by artist Nina Chanel Abney (who collects Jon's work), his twin Jarrett Key (@jar.key, also a painter & performance artist), why he frequently paints self portraits and making the series of work 'Man in the Violet Suit' as a response to the 2016 Orlando USA shooting at the Pulse queer nightclub. We discuss his graphic design work with @MorcosKey (with Wael Morcos) for brands such as Nike, MoMA, New York Times, and his love of artists including Klimt, Picasso’s blue paintings, Charles White, Romare Bearden's collages, art directing influential black queer LGBTQ lifestyle magazine 'The Tenth'. Jon is a co-founder and the design director of Codify Art, a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist collective whose mission is to create, produce, and showcase work that foregrounds the voices of people of colour, highlighting women and queer people of colour.You can see Jon’s paintings this weekend in Miami at Untitled Art Fair at Steven Turner LA's booth, running until 8th December .Follow Jon on Instagram @jkey13 or visit his website https://www.jonkeyart.co to learn more. View images of all artworks discussed in this episode @talkart. If you enjoy listening to Talk Art, please leave us a review at Apple Podcasts or drop us a line talkartpodcast@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.