A brush with...

Alex Katz talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Katz, born in Brooklyn in 1927, is one of the most distinctive and influential painters of recent decades. Since he began making art in the 1940s, he has aimed to paint what he has called “the now”: to distil fleeting visual experiences into timeless art. It might be a spark of interaction between friends or family, the play of light across water, a field of grass or between the leaves of a tree, the movements of dancers, the electric illumination of an office building at night, or—more than anything else—stolen glances, everyday gestures and intimate exchanges with his wife Ada, who he has painted more than 1,000 times since they married in 1958. From the start, Katz has aimed to match what he calls the “muscularity” of the Abstract Expressionist artists that were dominant in New York when he emerged onto the art scene there in the 1950s, while never giving up on observed reality. He has said “the optical element is the most important thing to me”. He discusses the early influence of Paul Cezanne, the enduring power of his forebears, from Giotto to Rubens and Willem de Kooning, and his admiration for artists as diverse as Utamaro, Martha Diamond and Chantal Joffe. He reflects on the “emotional extension” of the poet Frank O’Hara and his interest in jazz maestros like Pres and Charlie Parker. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Alex Katz: Claire, Grass and Water, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy, 17 April-29 September; Alex Katz: Wedding Dresses, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, US, until 2 June; Alex Katz: Collaborations with Poets, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, 15 September-15 November. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shahzia Sikander talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Sikander, born in 1969 in Lahore, Pakistan, trained in the tradition of Indo-Persian manuscript painting and has used its forms, techniques and language as a launchpad for a wide-ranging engagement with colonial and postcolonial histories, with feminism, gender and sexuality, and with cultural identity and narratives around race. Working in drawing, painting, animation, video, mosaic and most recently sculpture, she has created a body of work in which existing and invented images and forms are juxtaposed to vivid and poetic effect. Technically exquisite and conceptually profound, her works have an instant impact but reward slow looking with layered narratives, references and histories. She discusses her early discovery of Michelangelo in Lahore, explains how she has channelled the “soulfulness” Eva Hesse found in minimalism in her response to historic manuscript painting, reflects on the importance of her teenage experience of Mogadishu, Somalia, and speaks about the enormous importance of poetry to her work, including the US writer Adrienne Rich’s translations of the Indian poet Mirza Ghalib. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including which artwork, if she could only have one, she would most like to live with.Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior, Palazzo SoranzoVan Axel, Venice, Italy, 20 April-20 October; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, US, 14 February-4 May 2025; Cleveland Museum of Art, 14 February-8 June 2025. Shahzia Sikander: Havah…to breathe, air, life, University of Houston, Texas, US, until 31 October; Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 28 April 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nalini Malani talks to Ben Luke, about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Malani was born in Karachi in 1946 and lives and works today in Mumbai. Her work in drawing and painting, performance, video and installation, responds to contemporary politics and human rights issues through the language of ancient myths, of poets, writers and thinkers, and of the history of art. She is increasingly celebrated for her installations that she calls “animation chambers”, fusing video and drawings, text and voice. They engulf the viewer in environments that contain endlessly shifting sequences of imagery and stirring soundtracks—a call to action in terms of both their political and cultural content. She discusses her early and enduring admiration of Indian Kalighat painting, how Louise Bourgeois’ reflections on memory are a consistent inspiration, why she has repeatedly returned to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, and about the pivotal period she spent in Paris between 1970 and 1972, meeting many leading intellectuals and artists. Plus she gives insight into her life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including “what is art for?”Nalini Malani: Can You Hear Me? and Ballad of a Woman, Concrete, Dubai, in collaboration with Volte Art Projects, 25 February-3 March; Nalini Malani: The Pain of Others 1966-1979, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS)/Jehangir Nicholson Art Gallery, Mumbai, India, 1 August-5 November; Ambienti 1956-2010: Environments by Women Artists II, MAXXI, Rome, 9 April-6 October; Nalini Malani: In Search of Vanished Blood, collection display, Tate Modern, London, 13 December 2024-September 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zineb Sedira talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Sedira, born in Paris in 1963 to Algerian parents and based in London since 1986, uses film, photography, installation, sculpture and other media to reflect on memory, from the personal to the collective and historical. She explores representation, language and family, intimately informed by her French, Algerian and British identity. By mining her singular autobiography and its connection with colonial histories and their contemporary legacies, Sedira has created a body of work that is at once politically nuanced, emotionally complex and visually rich. She discusses her early interest in Mary Kelly, her enduring engagement with the art of JMW Turner, and her admiration for the Algerian painter Baya. She reflects on her fascination with the Pan-African Festival in Algiers in 1969, the subject of a body of work. And she talks about her love of jazz and ska, the influence of postcolonial writers, among much else. Plus, she gives insight into her studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “what is art for?”Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 15 February-12 May; the film version of the work is on display at Tate Britain until September 2024; Dreams Have No Titles, Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi , UAE, 3 October-28 January 2025; Let’s go on singing!, Goodman Gallery, London, until 16 March; Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal, 19 June 2025-22 September 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stanley Whitney talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Whitney, ​​born in Philadelphia in 1946, makes abstract paintings that feature interlocking rectangles, squares and bands of paint whose intense colours hum with musical resonance and rhythm. Rigorously structured yet full of improvisation and unexpected incident, his paintings are both arresting and slow-burning: they grab you with their bold hues and hold you with their complex harmonies and dissonances, their sense of constant movement. He is particularly known for his square-format paintings of the past two decades but his career has been a lifelong search for a distinctive form of painting—one that, as he has said, is defiantly abstract yet contains “the complexity of the world”. He reflects on his encounters with an early mentor, Philip Guston; being painted by Barkley Hendricks, a fellow student at Yale; and his close friendship with David Hammons. He discusses his love of Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paolo Veronese and Henri Matisse, as well as the work of Gees Bend quilters. And explains how he connects this deep love of painting to musical greats including Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Charlie Mingus. Plus he discusses in detail his life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including “what is art for?”Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, US, 9 February-27 May; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US, 14 November-16 March 2025; Institute of Contemporary Art /Boston, US, 17 April 2025–1 September 2025; Stanley Whitney: Dear Paris, Gagosian, Paris, until 28 February. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Sasnal, born in 1972 in Tarnów, Poland, has made one of the most significant contributions to painting in the 21st century. He works with photographic imagery, drawn from an array of sources including newspapers, film, music videos, album covers, graphic novels, historic art and, crucially, his own photographs, including those taken on his smartphone, of his family. He also makes films, both in collaboration with his wife Anka and on his own. The result is a body of work that engages profoundly with contemporary life and the saturation of images that accompanies it. He discusses his array of source images and the process of choosing and using them, and how he has balanced the public and private across his career. He talks about risk-taking and allowing the paint to dictate the path of a picture. He reflects on how music was the spur for his discovery of art, and how it continues to be central to his work today. He talks about artists as diverse as Degas, Seurat, Sigmar Polke and Wolfgang Tillmans. And he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “What is art for?”Wilhelm Sasnal, Sadie Coles HQ, Kingly St, London, until 16 March; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 30 March-1 September; Wilhelm’s film The Assistant will be screened later in 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Camille Henrot talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Henrot was ​​born in 1978 in Paris and studied film at the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in the French capital. She uses drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and film to reflect on a huge range of subject matter, from anthropology and the climate emergency, to biodiversity and motherhood, to art history, literature and the excesses of the digital experience. At the heart of her practice is a concern with different forms of language and knowledge and how they are structured and composed. Her work emerges from deep research and is full of intriguing contradictions, awash with fragmentation and disruption yet pregnant with humour and delight. Henrot grapples with the stuff around us and within us; her art explores distinctively how the empirical and the subjective, the outer world and her own private realm, intersect. She discusses her early and enduring passion for the art of Saul Steinberg and Louise Bourgeois, a profound friendship with the architect and thinker Yona Friedman, finding a kindred experience in the work of Hélène Cixous and Clarice Lispector, her use of musical playlists in the studio, and her fascination with the sadistic violence of Disney cartoons. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio and has a profound answer to our ultimate question: “what is art for?”Camille Henrot’s books Milkyways and Mother Tongue are published by Hatje Cantz and priced £22 and £48. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Urs Fischer talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Born in 1973 in Zurich, Switzerland, Fischer makes work across multiple disciplines and media that defies categorisation. Whether he is working in photography, painting, drawing, sculpture or installation, he often upends the given characteristics of his medium. His art is in a state of constant transformation, being pushed and pulled in unexpected directions, often with a pronounced absurdity and always with a distinctive impact. He reflects on the experience of curating an exhibition of John Chamberlain’s work for Aspen Art Museum and how, if at all, it has affected his own practice. He discusses his early interest in Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel, why he recreated Giambologna’s Abduction of the Sabine Women (1579-83) in the form of a candle, and Rodin’s The Kiss (1882) from plasticine. He talks about Headz, the jazz and drawing workshop-cum-venue he created with Spencer Sweeney, and his experience of watching several movies in a single day. And he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?John Chamberlain: The Tighter They’re Wound, The Harder They Unravel, curated by Urs Fischer, is at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, US, 15 December-7 April 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An in-depth conversation with the British artist Stephen Willats, one of the leading figures in conceptual art in Britain, who addresses societal issues while exploring the meanings and purposes of art in the wider world. Since the 1960s, Willats (born in London in 1943) has foregrounded ideas that have become more widespread in contemporary art today, including empowering the viewer as a participant, emphasising the role of community in forging his work, and collaborating with his subjects so that they are effectively co-authors. From the very start of his career, Willats eschewed what he has called the “norms and conventions of an object-based art world” and instead attempted to subvert what he views as “a deterministic culture of objects and monuments”. For him, art has a complex, interactive and dynamic social function. He discusses his interest in thinking related to theories of learning and communication, early forms of artificial intelligence, advertising theory, and cybernetics. He reflects on how working in a gallery as a teenager gave him access to artists at the vanguard of new approaches to creativity. He recalls his encounters with punk and the New Romantic scene of the 1970s and 1980s, and his response to these countercultural developments. And while he avoids answering most of our usual questions, he does respond to one or two, including the ultimate: what is art for?Stephen Willats: Time Tumbler, Victoria Miro, London, until 13 January 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sutapa Biswas talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Biswas was born in Santinekethan, India, in 1962, and her work in painting, drawing, photography and video explores race and gender within the context of colonialism and its legacies. Made over five decades since the early 1980s, her art is both rigorously consistent in its themes and thrillingly diverse in mood and mode—by turns poetic, activist and even satirical. She discusses her studies in art and art history with Griselda Pollock, among others, at the University of Leeds in the 1980s, where she challenged the Eurocentric framing of the course, and made crucial early pieces including the painting Housewives with Steak-knives (1983-85). She reflects on her family history, and the traumatic journey to the UK from India, and how this haunts her work today. She discusses the influence of artists including Leonor Fini, Johannes Vermeer and Mary Kelly, film-makers like Satyajit Ray and Jean Cocteau, and writers including Marcel Proust. And she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990, Tate Britain, London, until 7 April 2024; The Time of Our Lives, Drawing Room, London, 25 January-21 April 2024; Photographing 80s Britain: A Critical Decade, Tate Britain, London, 21 November 2024-5 May 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Torkwase Dyson talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Dyson, who was born in Chicago in 1973, uses abstraction as a means of exploring what she describes as “the ways Black and brown bodies perceive and negotiate space as information”. Painting is the fundament of her practice but she uses a variety of media, from drawing through sculpture and architecture to community practices and collaborative performance. The result is a body of work that is diagrammatic and scientific yet expressive and sensorial. It deconstructs natural and built environments in relation to the histories and legacies of enslavement, colonialism, capitalism and extractivist practices, while addressing the climate emergency and climate justice. She reflects on her concept of Black Compositional Thought and the “hypershapes” that appear in her work, discusses the profound role of the senses and embodiment in her practice, and acknowledges the rigour and discipline that underpin it. She describes the seismic effect on her of the paintings of Mary Lovelace O’Neal, reflects on her admiration of the work of Tony Smith and his daughter, fellow artist Kiki Smith, explains the effect of the writer Saidiya Hartman’s reflections on her work, and discusses a recent project responding to the music of Scott Joplin. And she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?35th Bienal de São Paulo: Choreographies of the Impossible, until 10 December;  12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale: This Too, Is A Map, until 19 November 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An in-depth conversation with Sarah Lucas about her life and work. Lucas, born in London in 1962, is one of the most significant artists of her generation, both in Britain, where she was associated with the 1990s movement known as the Young British Artists, and internationally, where she has been the subject of several significant recent institutional exhibitions. Her practice primarily consists of sculpture, but it is often presented in distinctive installations in dialogue with photography, in the form of prints or wallpaper. Her work is characterised by sardonic and ribald humour, informed by colloquial British language but also shot through with feminist theory and social commentary. Formed from a wealth of materials, many of them everyday found objects like newspapers, food, furniture, cigarettes and clothing, her sculptures almost always evoke the body, however crudely reduced or abstracted. And while a humdrum frankness and bawdiness are ever-present, Lucas’s sense of the strange and the uncanny locate her work within the legacies of Dada, Surrealism and absurdist art in Europe and the US. She discusses her innovative approach to exhibition-making, and the liberating collaborations with Franz West that influenced them. She discusses how Yoko Ono informed some of her recent work. She reflects on an anarchic collaboration with the Austrian collective gelitin. Plus, she gives insight into her working practices and studio life.Sarah Lucas: Happy Gas, Tate Britain, London, until 14 January 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claudette Johnson talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Johnson, who was born in 1959 in Manchester, UK, and now lives in London, has created some of the most powerful figurative art of recent years. Working primarily in what she has called the “very small, twisted space offered to Black women”, she uses drawing and painting together in works that are bold yet sensitive, imposing in scale and intimate in their handling. She subverts the conventions of portraiture in her dramatic approach to composition and pose and in foregrounding the figure’s presence in the viewer’s space rather than establishing the context in which they are depicted. As a result, she confronts the historic invisibility, distortion and denial of Black subjects, and particularly Black women, in art. She discusses her discovery of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon at university and how it has proved both inspirational and problematic. She reflects on the huge importance of Lubaina Himid to her early career and the recent resurgence in her work. She recalls the impact of Toni Morrison’s fiction on her subject matter. And she eulogises Paula Rego’s approach to pastels, a key element in her work. Plus she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Claudette Johnson: Presence, The Courtauld, London, 29 September-14 January 2024; Women in Revolt! , Tate Britain, 8 November-7 April 2024; The Time is Always Now, National Portrait Gallery, 22 February-19 May 2024. She has a solo presentation at The Barber Institute in Birmingham, UK, opening in late March and is taking on a commission from Art on the Underground in London, scheduled for November 2024.For web article: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first of this new series of A brush with…, Yinka Shonibare talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.Shonibare was born in 1962 in London to Nigerian parents and moved to Lagos in Nigeria when he was a child. He returned to London for his fine art studies at Byam Shaw School of Art and Goldsmiths College. He explores race, class and constructions of cultural identity through sculpture, installation, painting, photography, film and other media. His signature material is Dutch wax fabric, which he is able endlessly to repurpose and recontextualise. He chose this material precisely for its complex and loaded history: it was originally inspired by Indonesian batik, mass-produced by the Dutch and then sold to European colonies in West Africa. Dutch wax fabric eventually became a signifier of independence and culture in Africa and its diaspora. Through references to Western art history, film and literature Shonibare uses this textile to playfully, even provocatively, explore the validity of national identities and the cultures that inform them. He discusses his perennial fascination with William Hogarth and Francisco Goya, and his admiration for contemporary artists as diverse as Cindy Sherman, David Hammons and Paul McCarthy, who he describes as “Hogarth x100”. He explains his love of opera—the total artwork—and contemporary dance. And he reflects on the consistent environmentalist strand in his work. Plus he gives insight into his studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: Free The Wind, The Spirit, and The Sun, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, 6 October-11 November; Yinka Shonibare CBE: Ritual Ecstasy of the Modern, Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, 22 September-4 November; Shonibare’s public work Hibiscus Rising, commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association for Aire Park, Leeds, as part of Leeds 2023, is unveiled on 25 November. Between April and September 2024, Shonibare will have a solo exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries, London. He will also participate in Nigeria’s Pavilion at the 60th International Venice Biennale from April 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Analia Saban talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Saban, who was born in 1980 in Buenos Aires and now lives in Los Angeles, examines, unpacks and plays with the medium of painting. She explores its materiality, its iconography and its history, reflecting on the origin and hue of colour pigments and the properties of media, the weave of canvas, the nature of brushwork, the conventions of depiction, and more. Her approach is consistent with the strategies of conceptual art yet it is abundantly physical and visual. She discusses her decision to move her studies from film to art after an epiphanic visit to New York museums; her profound friendship with her tutor at the University of California, Los Angeles, John Baldessari, and how it affects the presence of humour in her work; the perfect balance in the music of Keith Jarrett; and how Julia Kristeva’s writings on abjection prompted some of the darker thoughts in her work. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Analia Saban: Synthetic Self, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles, 15 September-28 October; Group exhibitions: Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), 17 September–21 January 2024; Eternal Medium: Seeing the World in Stone, Lacma, until 11 February 2024; Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, until 9 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alvaro Barrington talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. For Barrington—who was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1983, but grew up in Grenada and Brooklyn—painting is the bedrock of a practice that incorporates installation, sculpture and found objects, textiles, the written word and community events. He weaves together broad references, drawing on his personal and cultural background, and hugely diverse influences—particularly from art history, literature, political thought, and music—to create arresting and often exuberant constellations of imagery and materials. He discusses his early interest in the Akira manga, his admiration for artists as diverse as Louise Bourgeois, Jeff Koons and Johannes Vermeer, the significance of Audre Lorde’s essay Poetry is Not a Luxury, and why he feels the hip-hop legend Tupac is the most significant artist of the last 40 years. He gives insight into life in the studio, and reflects on the importance of his move to London from New York in the 2010s. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Alvaro’s work will be at the Notting Hill Carnival on 27 and 28 August. Grandma’s Land, Sadie Coles HQ, London, 2 September-21 October; They Got Time, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Pantin, 18 October-27 January 2024; Nicola Vassell, New York, November-December, dates to be confirmed; Tate Britain commission, Tate Britain, London, spring 2024. Alvaro discusses Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on the The Week in Art’s Vermeer Special. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mandy El-Sayegh talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. El-Sayegh, born in Selangor, Malaysia, in 1985 and now living in London, makes paintings, sculptures, installations, videos and performances that assemble disparate materials to explore the human body and mind within diverse social, cultural and political contexts. Moving freely and intuitively across these disciplines and media, she creates arresting correspondences between image and text, between the natural and the artificial, and between the senses and the intellect. She discusses growing up with a reproduction of Albrecht Dürer’s Christ on the Cross on the wall, the power of Paul Thek’s diverse work, her love of the South Korean artist Keunmin Lee’s paintings, the poetry of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and the films of David Cronenberg. Plus, she gives insight into life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “what is art for?”Mandy El-Sayegh, Interiors, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, 1-30 September; Mandy El-Sayegh: In-Session, Tichy Ocean Foundation, Zurich, until 30 November; the book The Makeshift Body: Mandy El-Sayegh, Black Dog Publishing, published in September, £29.95/$39.95 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first episode of a new series of A brush with…, Ben Luke talks to Larry Achiampong about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Achiampong was born in London in 1984 to parents from Ghana, and he explores his personal and communal heritage through media including film, sculpture, installation, sound and performance. He uses diverse visual languages, drawn from popular culture like gaming, comics and Hollywood movies, as well as video art and conceptualism, to explore the legacies of colonisation and entrenched inequalities in contemporary society relating to class, gender and race. He veers from documentary to speculative fiction, often within the same piece. Achiampong discusses the profound early influence of Adrian Piper’s art and the films of Spike Lee, the poetry of Claudia Rankine, how he draws on video games and comics as well as art, and his rejection of the term Afrofuturism. Plus, he gives insight into his life in the studio, and reflects on our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Larry Achiampong: Wayfinder, BALTIC, Gateshead, UK, until 29 October 2023; Larry Achiampong and David Blandy: Genetic Automata, Wellcome Collection, London, until 11 February 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Jeremy Deller about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Deller, born in London in 1966, has created some of the most extraordinary works of recent decades, acting as a catalyst for exhibitions, films, events and happenings that often involve numerous collaborators. His works reflect on social movements, communities and countercultures, the history of art and design, pop-cultural forms and celebrated public figures. He discusses the early influence of Francis Bacon, how Mike Kelley was an important figure in defining the possibilities of art’s relationship with popular culture, the power of Gitta Sereny’s pivotal biography of Albert Speer, his ongoing engagement with music in various forms, and much more. Plus, he gives insight into his studio life and answers our usual questions—including the ultimate: “What is art for?”Jeremy Deller, Art is Magic (book), Cheerio, £30/$60; Art is Magic (exhibition), Frac Bretagne, La Criée contemporary art centre and Musée des beaux-arts, Rennes, until 17 September; Jeremy Deller: Welcome to the Shitshow!, Kunsthalle Charlottenberg, Copenhagen, until 6 August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Jacqueline Humphries about her influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Humphries, born in 1960 in New Orleans, US, and now based in New York, is an artist who has pushed painting into new territories. She is mindful of the medium’s history but embraces technologies and explores their impact on this time-honoured discipline. Her practice, which now stretches across five decades from the late 1980s to today, is rigorous, irreverent and consistently surprising. She discusses the early influence of Édouard Manet and a late revelation about Caravaggio, key relationships with fellow painters like Charlene von Heyl, her admiration of The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, and her fascination with the video game Dwarf Fortress. Plus she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: What is art for?Jacqueline Humphries, Modern Art, Helmet Row and Bury Street, London, until 22 July; We Smell Gas, Reena Spaulings, New York, until 25 June; From Andy Warhol to Kara Walker: Scenes from the Collection, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany, until 14 July; To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversations on contemporary abstract painting, Gagosian, London, until 25 August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Gary Simmons about his influences—from musicians to writers, film-makers, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Simmons, born in New York in 1964 and based in Los Angeles, is a significant figure in a generation of politically engaged, artistically ambitious US artists that emerged in the early 1990s. Gary explores the complexities of race and class through media including drawings on chalkboards, sculpture, installation, architectural environments and painting. He draws on diverse references, including from pop culture like cartoons and sports, to create works that address systemic and enduring prejudice and the nature of memory. Gary’s language is deeply personal and informed by his own experiences but also calls on imagery with collective, if unstable, meanings.Gary Simmons: Public Enemy, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 13 June-1 October, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 5 December-24 April 2024. Gary Simmons: This Must Be the Place, Hauser & Wirth, London, until 29 July. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In March this year, we went to Finsbury Park in London to the home of Phyllida Barlow to interview her for the A brush with… podcast. Tragically, Phyllida died just a few days later. So this conversation is a tribute to one of the most significant British artists of recent years. Ardently committed to sculpture and convinced of its special power, she was coruscatingly erudite and perceptive, yet also irreverent and suspicious of orthodoxies. This was evident in her combinations of simple materials such as wood, plaster and scrim, cement, paint and fabric in extraordinary sculptures and installations. She managed to achieve at once awkwardness and grace, humour and pathos, the grand and the intimate. Among much else, Phyllida discusses the morality imposed on sculpture in her art school days, the underacknowledged “dirty side of making” in Marcel Duchamp’s work, her admiration for Louise Nevelson and Eduardo Chillida, the writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the films of Robert Bresson. Plus she answers our usual questions, including a moving response to the ultimate question, “What is art for?”Phyllida Barlow, Chillida Leku, Hernani, near San Sebastian, Spain, until 22 October; The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Toronto, 8 September-4 February 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Alfredo Jaar about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Jaar, who was born in 1956, in Santiago, Chile and has been based in New York since the early 1980s, addresses social injustice, human suffering, state-sponsored violence, and imbalances in power between the global north and south. He also explores how these issues are framed in the international media. He has responded to some of the most troubling moments in recent human history, from the military coup in his native Chile in 1973 and its aftermath, to the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s, to wars and covert operations waged by Western powers over multiple decades, and the relentless displacement of refugees across the world. He has done so through uncompromising, searing, yet often deeply moving installations in multiple media. Among much else, he discusses the profound influence of John Cage, Hans Haacke and Marcel Duchamp, his fascination with Pier Paolo Pasolini, a transformative experience watching Simone Forti, and the poetry of Ben Okri. Plus, he gives insight into his studio life, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “What is art for?”Alfredo Jaar: If It Concerns Us, It Concerns You, Goodman Gallery, London 18 April-24 May; Alfredo Jaar: 50 Years Later, Cecilia Brunson Projects, London, 19 April – 19 May 2023. One Million German Passports, Pinakothek del Moderne, Munich, 29 March-27 August; Alfredo exhibition for the 11th Hiroshima Art Prize at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan, 22 July-15 October, and an exhibition at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile, opens on 14 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Marguerite Humeau about her influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.Humeau was born in 1986 in the French city of Cholet, near Nantes, and lives in London. She creates extraordinary sculptural environments in which the scientific and the speculative are fused. She acknowledges the perilous present state of the planet and the future of humanity while exploring histories of life on earth across millennia, drawing on mainstream and fringe scientific theory, science fiction and various cultural phenomena, to create dramatic tableaux that are hugely distinctive in their visual language and subject matter. She asks fundamental questions about the world we inhabit and the meaning of human existence. She discusses her early love of the painting of Marlene Dumas, her awe at the work of Pierre Huyghe and how Nina Simone is an ongoing role model. She also reflects on her fascination with Leonora Carrington and the musicians Angel Bat Dawid and Bendik Giske. Plus, she gives insight into her studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “What is art for?”Marguerite Humeau: meys, White Cube Bermondsey, London, until 14 May; Orisons, Black Cube, San Luis Valley, Colorado, 24 June-June 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Mike Nelson about his influences—from the worlds of literature, film, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Nelson, born in 1967 in Loughborough in the UK, is one of the most significant British sculptors and installation artists of this century. He has spent the past three decades assembling materials gathered in junkyards, flea markets, online auctions, even street-corner fly tips into often labyrinthine sculptural environments. He creates distinctive spaces that suggest fictional (and often science-fictional) narratives, while alluding to diverse histories, obscure countercultural or political movements and current affairs as well as his own biography. He discusses the early influence of Graham Sutherland and Francis Bacon, his elation at discovering the work of Paul Thek, how fiction—and science-fiction writers like Stanislaw Lem, J.G. Ballard and the Strugatsky brothers—liberated his approach to art making, and the enduring influence of film-makers including Jean-Luc Godard and Sergei Parajanov.Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons, Hayward Gallery, London, until 7 May. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of this new series of A brush with… Ben Luke talks to Matthew Krishanu about his influences—including writers, composers, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.Krishanu, who was born in 1980 in Bradford, UK, is one of Britain’s most distinctive painters. He draws on specific photographic images, including those of his family and his childhood in Bangladesh, yet his paintings are richly ambiguous, as he complicates his source material through emotion, memory, geopolitics, references to art history and literature, and the poetics of paint itself. He discusses the transformative experience of seeing Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work, the ongoing influence of El Greco, his response to the work of Gwen John and the art in the caves of Ajanta in India, and his oeuvre’s intimate connection with literature, film and music. Plus, he gives insight into his studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Matthew Krishanu, Anomie Publishing, 196pp, £30/€35/$40 (hb). Out now in the UK and Europe, published 20 April in the US. Exhibitions: Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, 13 July-19 August; Tanya Leighton, Los Angeles, 11 November-11 December (tbc). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Amy Sillman about her influences—including writers, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Sillman, who was born in 1955 in Detroit, Michigan, grew up in Chicago, and lives and works in New York, is one of the most brilliant and original painters working today. Her art is steeped in the history of painting, but manages to build on traditions while also taking an irreverent and playful approach to the medium’s time-honoured qualities: colour, line, scale, shape, figure and ground. She also pushes her painting into experimental territory through animated drawings and zines. Among a wealth of references, she discusses the early influence of Saul Steinberg, her passion for the work of artists as diverse as Prunella Clough, Maria Lassnig and Howard Hodgkin, and the enduring influence of Gertrude Stein and Fred Moten. She reflects on a life-changing trip to India and the diverse cultural landscape of late-1970s New York. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio and answers the ultimate question: what is art for?Amy Sillman: Temporary Object, Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples, from 26 April. Faux Pas: Selected Writings and Drawings, After 8 Books, 300pp, €20/£20/£24.95 (pb); amysillman.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Joan Jonas about her influences—including those from the worlds of literature, film, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.Jonas, who was born in 1936 in New York and still lives in the city today, is one of the most significant and pioneering artists in the history of video and performance. She draws inspiration from a wealth of cultures and traditions, alluding to everything from fairy tales to ancient myths, scientific study and art history, and brings them together in multidisciplinary installations involving live action, drawing, spoken word, music, sound and video. She discusses her early interest in Minoan culture and Renaissance depictions of space, life-changing visits to Japan and Iceland, and writers as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges, Halldór Laxness, and Susan Howe. Plus, she gives insights into her studio life and has a stirring answer to the ultimate question: what is art for?Joan Jonas: Moving off the Land, Walther König, 272 pp, €25. Drawing in Circles, with Eiko Otake, Castelli Gallery, New York, 14 March-1 April; Joan Jonas, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, until 26 February. Joan Jonas, Dia Art Foundation, Beacon, NY, US, until 13 March. Her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, opens in spring 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Haroon Mirza about his influences—from writers to composers and musicians, film-makers and, of course, artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Mirza, born in London in 1977, creates installations using sound, light, objects and video. These complex and evolving experiences immerse the viewer in varied sensory phenomena while building fascinating connections between their materials, formally and in the meanings they produce. He reflects on his early interest in Salvador Dalí’s sense of space and time; the impact of seeing the exhibition Sensation in 1997 at the Royal Academy in London; the relationship between science and science fiction; and the complex process of translating ideas from his head to a practical language. We gain insight into Mirza’s studio life and daily rituals and he answers the ultimate question: what is art for?Haroon Mirza, Lisson Gallery, London, 24 February-8 April. You can listen to Haroon’s Modular Opera EP at haroonmirza.bandcamp.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

British painter Tess Jaray talks to Ben Luke about her influences—including those from the worlds of literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.For more than 60 years, Jaray relentlessly explored pictorial and architectural space through abstract painting. Born in Vienna in 1937 but based in the UK since she was a child, she achieved notable success early in her career but is only now gaining the recognition that she has long deserved for building one of the most singular and consistent bodies of work in recent British painting. Steeped in the history of her medium, she balances hard edges and precise handling with a distinctive colour sense that lends it a powerful emotional resonance.Among much else, she discusses her instinctive response to the landscape of Worcestershire, England, where she grew up; the impact of the New York School on the UK art scene of the 1960s; her trip to Morocco in Henri Matisse’s footsteps; the enduring influence of Italian architecture and painting; and her friendship with the writer W.G. Sebald. Plus, she gives insight into her studio life and answers the ultimate question: what is art for?Tess Jaray, Karsten Schubert, London, 16 March-15 April. Gwangju Biennale: Soft and Weak Like Water, Gwangju, South Korea, 7 April-9 July. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Alicja Kwade about her influences—including writers, musicians and, of course, artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Kwade, born in 1979 in Katowice, Poland, and based in Berlin, makes spellbinding sculptural installations that play with perception and question the structures of reality and society. She grapples with philosophical concerns and draws on scientific and mathematic theory, while engaging with time-honoured sculptural properties—space, material, weight and surface. She discusses her early, and ongoing, interest in Gordon Matta-Clark, Leonardo and Jean-Paul Sartre; how music helps her create in the studio; and how, as she has said, “My muse is the blank space, the not-knowing and not-understanding.” Plus, she answers our usual questions, including: “What is art for?”Alicja Kwade: Petrichor, 303 Gallery, New York, until 17 December. In Relation to the Sun, to Sequences of Events within 8016 Hours, i8 Gallery, Reykjavik, until 22 December 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Nick Cave about his influences—including those from the worlds of literature, music, film and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Cave, born in Fulton, Missouri, US, in 1959, creates elaborate sculptures and found-object installations. He’s best known for his Soundsuits, which blend sculpture, performance, fashion and social activism. His work veers from the intimate and homespun object to vast installations and performances involving multiple participants. Among much else, he discusses his early encounters with the work of Anselm Kiefer and Barkley Hendricks; his passion for the couture of Elsa Schiaparelli; the enduring influence of George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic; and a seminal sequence in the film The Wiz. Plus, he answers all our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for?Nick Cave: Forothermore, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, until 10 April 2023. In the Black Fantastic, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands, until 9 April 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the British artist Helen Marten about her influences—including those from the worlds of literature, music, and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Marten works in sculpture, text and screen-printed paintings and has created a complex language of forms with a remarkable breadth of materials. Her works entice us to make associations and draw meanings, while remaining richly ambiguous. She discusses her early interest in Joan Miró and Robert Rauschenberg, her enduring passion for the art of Martin Kippenberger and Charline von Heyl, and her absorption in the writing of Roland Barthes as well as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Plus, she reflects on life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for?Helen is co-curator and exhibition designer for Hervé Télémaque: A Hopscotch of the Mind, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, US, until 26 March 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Theaster Gates about his influences—including writers, musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Gates is an artist whose every gesture is transformative, whether that’s in the form of social projects in his native Chicago, works repurposing found materials from significant disused spaces in the city, presentations honouring and reimagining collections of materials he’s gathered over time, or the ceramic sculptures that were his earliest medium and remain at the heart of his work today. He discusses his engagement with artists as diverse as El Lissitzky, Agnes Martin and Arthur Jafa; his transformative encounters with Martin Puryear and bell hooks; how he came to be custodian of Chicago House pioneer Frankie Knuckles’s personal vinyl collection; and his abiding passion for ceramics, which, he says, are “made for the eternal as much as they are made for tea”. Gates also gives insight into his life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for?Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces, New Museum, New York, until 5 February 2023; Vestment, Gagosian, New York, until 23 December; A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Baltimore Museum of Art, until 29 January 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to John Akomfrah about his influences—including writers, musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.Akomfrah was born in Accra, Ghana, in 1957 but has been based in London since he was a child. From his early years with the Black Audio Film Collective to his recent works as a solo artist, he has explored major issues—including racial injustice, colonialist legacies, diasporic identities, migration and climate change—through a distinctive approach to memory and history. First shown on television and in the cinema, his films are increasingly made for museums and galleries, in the form of ambitious, often epic, multi-screen video installations. He is one of the great film-makers of the last few decades. He discusses discovering Jackson Pollock through Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz album, his early experiences of the Tate Gallery and ongoing love of J.M.W. Turner’s paintings, his passion for John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and his enduring engagement with music from post-punk to John Luther Adams. He also gives us insight into his studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for?John Akomfrah: Purple, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C., 28 October–summer 2023; The Unfinished Conversation, Tate Britain, London, until the end of 2022. A new work will be shown at the Sharjah Biennial, 7 February-11 June 2023, and The Box, Plymouth, UK, from December 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to William Kentridge about his influences—from the worlds of literature, music, film and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Kentridge was born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and began his career making large-scale drawings. But his work has grown to encompass film and video installation, sculpture, tapestry, sound, performance, and puppetry. It teems with imagery and ideas, reflecting on his autobiography, on the inequities of Apartheid South Africa, but also on broader histories from colonialism to communism and beyond. He discusses being surrounded by Miró and Matisse as a child, his homages to Beckmann and Manet, the enduring power of composers like Shostakovich and early filmmakers like Georges Méliès, and the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Plus, he gives insight into life in his studio, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?William Kentridge, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 11 December; William Kentridge: Oh To Believe in Another World, Goodman Gallery, London, 1 October-12 November. William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows, the Broad, Los Angeles, 12 November-9 April 2023. William Kentridge: That Which We Do Not Remember, M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum Of Art, Kaunas, Lithuania, until 30 November. Kentridge’s series of short films, Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot, is shown at the ICA, London, as part of the BFI London Film Festival on 7 October. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Anicka Yi about her influences—from the worlds of literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Yi creates installations and objects that sit on the borders of art and science. Drawing on research into biology, and particularly macrobiotics, but embedded in geopolitics, Yi’s work calls for a deep sensory engagement from the viewer, with smell as important as sight. In fusing different categories of knowledge, she questions what she calls “the increasingly hazy taxonomic distinctions between what is human, animal, plant and machine”. She discusses being “possessed” by the formal language of Isamu Noguchi and inspired by the breadth of Rosemarie Trockel’s work; she reflects on the impact of John Ashbery’s poetry and how Donna Haraway prompted her series When Species Meet (2016). Plus, she gives insight into life in her studio (and how it compares to a laboratory) and answers our usual questions, including: what is art for?Anicka Yi, Gladstone Gallery, 24th Street, New York, 6 October-12 November Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 50th episode of A brush with…, Ben Luke talks to Glenn Brown about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Brown (born in Hexham, UK, in 1966) takes reproductions of other artists’ works—including those by Old Masters, the greats of Modern art and science-fiction illustrators—and transforms them by changing their colour, orientation and size. It leads to paintings, drawings and sculptures that are often grotesque and macabre but always strangely enticing and resonant. He discusses his early love of the art of horror and fantasy, his ongoing fascination with Salvador Dalí, his admiration for artists as diverse as Hendrick Goltzius and Maria Lassnig, the impact of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films, the writing of T.S. Eliot and Samuel Beckett, and how growing up during the Cold War influenced the music he listened to and the art he makes today. Plus, he gives intimate insight into his working life and answers our usual questions, including “What is art for?”.Glenn Brown: We’ll Keep On Dancing Till We Pay the Rent, Gagosian, West 24th Street, New York, 10 November-23 December; Things: A History of Still Life Since Prehistoric Times, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 13 October-23 January 2023; Glenn Brown: The Real Thing, Landesmuseum and Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany, 23 February-24 June 2023; The Brown Collection, Brown’s museum of his own work, opens in Bentinck Mews, Marylebone, London, in October 2022. Visit Glenn’s website glenn-brown.co.uk for more details. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Adam Pendleton about his influences—from the worlds of literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Pendleton, born in 1984 in Richmond, Virginia, makes paintings, drawings, performances, films and other works exploring the relationship between Blackness, abstraction and histories of the avant-garde. He is perhaps best known for an ongoing body of work he calls Black Dada. He discusses the influences behind Black Dada, from the poetry of Amiri Baraka to the sculpture of Sol LeWitt, reflects on the drawings of Jean Dubuffet and the drafts and revisions of Joan Jonas’s work, and enthuses about the power of Nina Simone’s voice and Julius Eastman’s compositions. Plus, he gives insight into his studio life and answers the ultimate question: what is art for?Adam Pendleton: In Abstraction, Pace Gallery, Geneva, 7 September-5 October; Adam Pendleton: Toy Soldier, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, 10 September-26 November. Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, until 5 September. Adam Pendleton, Mumok, Vienna, 31 March-10 September 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Pierre Huyghe about his influences—including writers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Huyghe was born in 1962 in Paris and today lives and works in New York. He has experimented over more than 30 years with the form of exhibitions and the very nature of art. His works are complex systems involving a host of elements, from lifeforms including plants, animals and microorganisms, to inanimate objects and technologies. He pays particular attention to the spaces in which these disparate factors come together and bleed into each other, leading to constantly evolving, strange and often spellbinding experiences. He discusses his early interest in the “multiplicity of things” in Yves Tanguy and Hieronymus Bosch; his admiration for artists today, including Daniel Buren and three previous guests on A brush with…, Mark Leckey, Philippe Parreno and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster; his response to the musical works of John Cage; and his 1990s projects exploring the cinema of Pasolini and Hitchcock, among others. Plus, he gives insights into his daily studio life and answers the ultimate question: what is art for?Pierre Huyghe’s permanent work Variants is at Kistefos, Jevnaker, Norway. Pierre Huyghe: Offspring, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, Denmark, until 30 October. Une seconde d’éternité, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, until 26 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the Canadian-Korean artist Zadie Xa about her influences—from the worlds of literature, film, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Xa was born in 1983 in Vancouver, Canada, and is now based in London. She explores folklore and speculative fiction, familial and collective histories, diasporic identity and the climate emergency through painting, sculpture, film and performance, often brought together in fantastical installations. She talks about artists from Lee Bul to Hieronymus Bosch and Kara Walker; her interest in Korean folk art and folk tales; how she returns to the science fiction novels of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler; and the early and ongoing influence of hip hop and rappers like Cam’ron. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Zadie Xa: House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 20 September-May 2023; The Condition of Being Addressable, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, until 4 September; Hospital Rooms: Like there is hope and I can dream of another world, Hauser & Wirth, London, 19 August-14 September; Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, 3 September-22 October; Soy Dreams of Milk, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong, from 10 September; The New Bend, curated by Legacy Russell, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, 27 October-30 December; The Horror Show: a Twisted Tale of Modern Britain, Somerset House Studios, London, 27 October-19 February 2023; Jeju Biennale, Jeju Island, South Korea, 16 November-12 February 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Lina Iris Viktor about her influences—including writers, film-makers, musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Born in the UK in 1987, the Liberian-British artist works in painting, sculpture, photography, performance and installation. She creates works that reflect on her own identity amid broader themes—history and geopolitics, astrophysics and maths, ancient myths and belief systems—to explore universal implications of blackness. Among much else, she discusses her love of Rebecca Horn’s Concert for Anarchy (1990); the influence of Chris Ofili, Louise Nevelson and Seydou Keïta; her enduring engagement with the writing of Jun'ichirō Tanazaki and Sylvia Plath; and her response to the films of Ingmar Bergman and Carl Dreyer. And, as usual, we find out about her life in the studio, and ask the ultimate question: what is art for?In the Black Fantastic, Hayward Gallery, London, until 18 September; Rite of Passage: Lina Iris Viktor with César, Louise Bourgeois, Louise Nevelson and Yves Klein, LGDR, London, until 17 September Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Megan Rooney about her influences—including other artists, writers and musicians—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Rooney was born in 1985 in South Africa, but grew up in Brazil and then in Canada, before studying in London. She works in performance, sculpture and painting and has gained particular attention recently for the vast murals she has made in several international museums. Among much else, she discusses the transformative experience of seeing Henry Moore at the National Gallery of Ontario; a life-changing moment seeing works made on the walls by women prisoners in the Carceri dell’Inquisizione, Palermo, Sicily; and about the writing of Maxine Kumin and Haruki Murakami. Plus, Rooney answers our regular questions, including those about the pictures on her studio wall, her daily working rituals and the artwork she would choose to live with, as well as the ultimate one: what is art for?Megan Rooney’s With Sun is in Fugues in Colour, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, until 29 August. She is also in the group exhibition Saturation, Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin, Paris, until 24 September. She will have a solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, in early 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster about her influences—from other artists to writers, film-makers and musicians—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Gonzalez-Foerster is one of the leading European artists of her generation. Born in 1965 in Strasbourg, France, she works primarily with installation but her artistic language is enormously diverse, taking in film and video, sculpture, holograms, sound, virtual reality and even smell. Her pieces range from spectacular immersive environments to enigmatic neon texts, and they draw on a wealth of references, from literature and cinema to opera and architecture. In the conversation, she discusses her early fascination with the Musée Gustave Moreau in Paris and with historic forms of public entertainment. She reflects on the “almost traumatic” impact of seeing Marcel Duchamp’s work for the first time, her friendship with Felix Gonzalez-Torres, reading Peter Pan, her late discovery of opera and her abiding love of film. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: Alienarium 5, Serpentine South Gallery, London, until 4 September. Her work OPERA (QM.15) (2016) is at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris, until 2 January 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Emma Talbot about her influences, including writers, film-makers, musicians, and, of course, other artists, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Talbot (born in Stourbridge, UK, in 1969) brings together drawing, painting, text, sculpture and animation in installations that fuse a personal response to her internal emotional world with societal and geopolitical issues, from feminism to capitalism and climate change. She talks about her love of the Sienese early Renaissance artist Sassetta; her troubled response to Gustav Klimt’s Three Ages of Woman (1905) and how she has used it as the basis for a new body of work made for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women; how she returns to the novels of George Orwell and Edna O’Brien; and the profound effect of Federico Fellini’s films, including Satyricon (1969). Plus, she answers our regular questions about her studio life, the art she would most like to live with, and, ultimately, what art is for.Emma Talbot: The Age/L’Età, Max Mara Art Prize for Women, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 30 June-4 September; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 23 October-19 February 2023. Emma Talbot’s work is included in The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale, until 27 November 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Stan Douglas about his influences—including writers, film-makers, musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Douglas is a video artist and photographer—one of the leading pioneers of video installation and large-scale photography. He scrutinises these different media and explores how they shape our understanding of reality, through often unexpected connections between contemporary and historical events, and rich references to music and literature. Douglas discusses his early interest in Marcel Duchamp, the enduring power of artists as diverse as Francisco de Goya and Agnes Martin, his endless fascination with Samuel Beckett, and how his love of Miles Davis’s underrated album On the Corner prompted one of his best works, Luanda-Kinshasa (2013).Stan Douglas’s project for the 59th Venice Biennale, 2011 ≠ 1848, is in the Canadian Pavilion in the Giardini and the Magazzini del Sale, Venice, until 27 November. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nari Ward talks to Ben Luke about his influences—including literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Ward often uses found materials, from baby strollers to baseball bats and shoelaces, and repurposes them in sculptures, wall-based text works and installations. They address present and historical social and political issues, including race and poverty, and deal directly with emotions like loss and hope. Ward was born in 1963 in St Andrew, Jamaica, and moved with his family to the US when he was 12. He now lives and works in New York, and specifically Harlem, which has been much more than the location of his home and studio—often providing the raw materials and the thematic basis of his art. The late curator Okwui Enwezor said of Ward that he had “completely transformed the scale and the ambition of installation art”. He discusses his early interest in the Brothers Hildebrandt, his direct references to Piero Manzoni and Joseph Beuys and his use of Claude McKay’s poetry and The Staple Singers’ lyrics. Plus, he answers the questions we ask all our guests, including the ultimate: what is art for? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cornelia Parker talks to Ben Luke about her influences, including artists, writers, film-makers, composers and musicians, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.Parker, born in 1956 in Crewe, Cheshire, north-west England, makes works ranging from dramatic room-filling installations to subtle, ephemeral objects— some of the most profound, witty and thought-provoking art of recent decades. Common to her work are acts of transformation, from the violent to the surreal and the whimsical. She takes found objects and substances and through hugely varied processes lends them new, often multilayered, meanings. She discusses her early love of J.M.W. Turner, and the work she eventually made linking Turner with Mark Rothko. She recalls wrapping Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss with a mile of string, in a reference to Marcel Duchamp, and the controversy this intervention prompted in the press. She talks about the increasing concern with politics in her work, including two new works made for her Tate Britain retrospective opening in May 2022. And she answers the questions we ask all our guests, including those about the museum she visits the most, her daily studio rituals, and, ultimately, what art is for.Cornelia Parker, Tate Britain, London, 19 May-16 October Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Leckey tells Ben Luke about the influences—from art to literature, film and music—and cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Leckey’s enormously varied and experimental work sits on the cusp of digital and analogue worlds. Using video, sound, performance and installation, he explores the meanings and effects of images, consumer products, media and technologies, alongside themes including class and capitalism, interwoven with personal and collective histories. Deeply subjective and emotional, yet seeking universal truths, Leckey’s practice has made him one of the most influential artists working today. He discusses his preoccupation with pre-Renaissance icons, his early interest in Mexican Muralism, the influence of Lutz Bacher and Mike Kelley, his fascination with a range of musical artists, and his use of YouTube, TikTok and other platforms in making his work. Plus, he answers our questions about daily rituals, the one work of art he would choose to live with, and the ultimate question: what is art for?Mark Leckey, Cabinet, London, until 30 April. You can find his latest works, as well as previous pieces like Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore and Dream English Kid on Mark’s YouTube channel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ali Cherri talks to Ben Luke about his influences, from art to literature, film and music, and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Cherri works with film, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting and other media to explore geopolitical and cultural histories, the loaded sites of museums, and the meanings and practices of archaeology. He was born in 1976 in Beirut at the beginning of the Lebanese civil war and, as we hear, growing up in Lebanon in this period inevitably marked his life and ultimately the art he would make. As well as talking about growing up in Beirut, he discusses his National Gallery exhibition, prompted by his residency at the gallery, his exploration of what he calls the “politics of visibility”, his use of taxidermied animals and his experiences at antiques auctions. Among the huge range of cultural figures he discusses are David Hockney, Ilya Kabakov, Man Ray, Donna Haraway and Tsai Ming-liang. He also responds to the questions we ask all our guests, about the objects he has in his studio, his daily rituals, and the ultimate question: “what is art for?”Ali Cherri: If you prick us, do we not bleed?, National Gallery, London, until 12 June. Ali Cherri will feature in the main exhibition of the 59th Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, 23 April-27 November. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.