Talk Art

Robert & Russell meet leading British artist Anthea Hamilton, best known for creating strange and surreal artworks and large-scale installations. Recorded on 5th January 2020 at Spiritland, Kings Cross.We discuss the experience of being a Turner Prize nominee, meeting Gaetano Pesce the Italian architect and design pioneer, working with curator Ruba Katrib from New York’s Sculpture Center and the important power of a “yes”. We explore her image archive, often printed-out images including Moschino fashion designs that inspired her iconic 'brick suits', the collaborations & editions made for Studio Voltaire’s House of Voltaire shop.We consider the benefits of being a geek, the influence of Kabuki theatre, collaborating with fashion designer Jonathan Anderson at Loewe and curator Linsey Young for ‘The Squash’ Duveen commission at Tate Britain, and her earlier performance based on mime at Serpentine. We learn about Anthea’s interest in film making, how she came to work with oat and rice cakes and sushi nori/seaweed within his sculptures, teaching at Open School East in Margate, working with images of Karl Lagerfeld and John Travolta and a key early film she made of herself singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ slowed down and its inclusion in a group show curated by Sonya Boyce at Tate when she was 19.Follow @HamiltonAnthea on Instagram and official website website https://antheahamilton.com/. You can also view images at her gallery too @ThomasDaneGallery. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet artist Shawanda Corbett, best known for her ceramics, paintings and performances. Shawanda is a recent recipient of The Turner Bursary which replaces the Turner Prize 2020, recognised for her significant contribution to contemporary art in the UK during the past 12 months. We discuss the themes within “Neighbourhood Garden”, her current debut solo exhibition at Corvi-Mora gallery in South London, studying at the Ruskin at Oxford University, her admiration for her tutor Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, the ceramics of Magdalene Odundo and her love of jazz music including Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Alice Coltrane & John Coltrane. We discuss cyborg theory and growing up with a disability, the question of “what is a complete body?” and the influence of Bauhaus and Sci-Fi. We consider the importance of collaboration in creating her performances particularly with choreographers, notably her brother Albert Corbett and the role and vital energy of, and connection to, the audience. We discuss theatre and dance such as Pina Bausch and Katherine Dunham who kept dancing even when in a wheelchair later in her life. Finally we discuss family and her experiences growing up, her memories of childhood and her inspiring grandmother Mary Bells who was a big supporter and ally to the trans and gay community in New York during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.Shawanda is pursuing a doctoral degree in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art and Wadham College, University of Oxford. "Her practice-led DPhil focuses on the relationship between differently-abled body and abled body as cyborgs. In replacing disability theory with cyborg theory, Corbett’s practice is challenging her to be the primary maker and performer in her conceptual practice. She applies prosthetic making and the transitional period for prosthetics to techniques in filmmaking, analogue photography, and live performances."Visit her current solo exhibition at Corvi-Mora, running until 31st July 2020. https://www.corvi-mora.com/Follow @Cyborg_Artist on Instagram and official website website https://www.shawandacorbett.com. You can also view images at her gallery too @CorviMora. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Season 6 continues! Russell & Robert chat to emerging artist Ana Benaroya from her studio in Jersey City, New Jersey. Recorded remotely on 19th April 2020 during lockdown, we are massive fans of Ana's paintings!!!We discuss her early career as an illustrator, her love of cartoons, her passion for drawing, identifying with male characters in 80s/90s movies growing up and how she developed studies of the human body, in her early paintings of male physicality and how her focus has recently shifted to representing women’s bodies, particularly women in positions of power, muscularity, the influence of superheroes, bodily fluids, and smoke. We explore queerness, her passion for music especially opera and classical but also YES... the one and only, Celine Dion!!! We learn about Ana’s recent sport influenced paintings including use of multi-colours to project deep emotions, her admiration for painters such as Tom of Finland, Carroll Dunham, Peter Saul, Nicole Eisenman, Dana Schutz, Henry Taylor, Robert Cole Scott, Artemisia Gentileschi, the Chicago Imagists like Jim Nutt, Gladys Nillson, Karl Wirsum and the artists she studied with such as Rebecca Ness, Blair Whiteford and Dominic Chambers. Finally, we find out why her dream is to one day exhibit at the Met museum!!Ana’s forthcoming solo exhibition will open this Autumn in Chelsea, New York at Ross + Kramer gallery. Ana's current joint show with Peter Saul 'Summer-Upon-Summer-Love' is on display in their East Hampton gallery.Follow @anabenaroya on Instagram and view images at her gallery too @rosskramergallery. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Talk Art! Russell & Robert meet Aindrea Emelife, art critic, independent curator, advisor and arts presenter.We discuss her recent powerful mission statement written for The Independent newspaper investigating how the art world can step up for Black Lives Matter. Aindrea spoke to leading figures for their perspectives including Jasmine Wahi, the Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum in New York, Eva Langret, artistic director of Frieze London, Osei Bonsu, curator of international art at Tate Modern and Courtney J Martin, director of Yale Centre for British Art in Connecticut.We explore her admiration for Studio Museum associate curator Legacy Russell and director/chief curator Thelma Golden, Chisenhale's director Zoé Whitley, the challenges with online art fairs in lockdown, Arthur Jafa's film 'Love is The Message', her passion for emerging artists artist Jade Fadojutimi and Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, and Russ & Rob's recent discovery of Sola Olulode paintings part of a recent Stephen Lawrence Trust fundraiser.We hear about Aindrea's first column for the Financial Times (published when she was aged 20 years old), studying History of Art at The Courtauld Institute of Art, her commitment to philanthropic efforts including being a patron at Matt's Gallery and her joint founding the Plop Residency with artist Oli Epp, which gives three artists a month a residency space that includes tutorials from industry professionals, mentorship, studio space in Central London and exposure to the London art scene.Thanks for listening!! Follow Aindrea on Instagram @AindreaLondon. Learn more at her website http://aindrea.com/ or visit the Plop Residency at www.plop-residency.com. Read Aindrea's article at The Independent (click here).For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Talk Art, we're feeling the POWER of LOVE! Russell & Robert chat to the captivating superstar duo of Ellie Goulding and Caspar Jopling from their home in Oxfordshire.As passionate art collectors, we learn about the artists they admire and collect including Rebecca Warren, Julie Mehretu, Tracey Emin, Donna Huanca, Raymond Pettibon, George Rouy, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jack Whitten, Raqib Shaw, Cy Gavin, Christina Quarles and Ellie’s favourite - a neon of a double cross by Jonathan Horowitz in rainbow colours. We hear about the shyness of their first date visiting two exhibitions in London: Anselm Kiefer at White Cube followed by Robert Rauschenberg at Tate Modern. As their relationship grew, visiting exhibitions has become an integral part of their life as well as art fairs like Frieze and Art Basel!Ellie discusses her dedication to female artists and how her art collection has evolved since meeting Caspar, the works she used to collect were “dark stuff” gothic in style like ship wrecks or skeletons, skulls or ghosts! Whilst Caspar reminisces about his first art purchase growing up of a poster by Sir Terry Frost, his admiration for his uncle the legendary gallerist Jay Jopling (White Cube), how he advises his friends to support and collect art, and how he even experimented with screen printing and painting during his teens inspired by Rauschenberg, Richard Prince and Andy Warhol.With no motivation for investment, Ellie feels a close correlation between the art she loves and the songs she writes, something she explored whilst writing her forthcoming new album 'Brightest Blue': “I love the idea that you can buy something, that I can stare at for a long time and then it could maybe draw a song or a lyric out of me”. The album's title directly inspired by a Doug Wheeler artwork the couple saw at David Zwirner's gallery in New York. The intense installation of a blue room was “like walking into another world”.Art also inspires her music's visuals, collaborating with creative director Imogen Snell as well as photographers Louie Banks, Ronan Park and Rankin. We discuss her musical collaborator SerpentWithFeet who appears on her new album but also recently sang at her and Caspar's wedding in Yorkshire. We remember her collaborator the late rapper Juice Wrld and the impact of his passing on artists like Katherine Bernhardt and the international art and music communities.Finally we discuss Caspar's experiences working for Sotheby's but also within the film industry, his current studying for his MBA at Oxford University, the recent news of the Gallery Climate Coalition and how the art world is approaching sustainability, online viewing rooms, the positives and negatives of buying art (and clothes) online, and the escapism in lockdown watching period drama Downtown Abbey as well as the joys of completing Kandinsky and Lichtenstein-inspired puzzles! Ellie's fourth studio album 'Brightest Blue' can be pre-ordered NOW, released in full on 17th July 2020! Follow Ellie & Caspar on Instagram @EllieGoudling and @CasparJopling, @EllieGoulding on Twitter, her official website https://www.elliegoulding.com/. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Season 6 continues! Recorded remotely on 3rd April 2020 during lockdown, Russell & Robert chat to leading artist Katherine Bradford, best known for her radiant paintings of swimmers, superheroes, ships and dreamy landscapes that critics describe as simultaneously representational and abstract, luminous, and richly metaphorical.We explore how Katherine changed her life aged 30 years old to become an artist moving with her twin children from Maine to New York City, making friends with Chris Martin and other passionate intense painters in 1980s Brooklyn: "It was quite a new idea. People were not going to Brooklyn to be artists. So we were in a sense pioneers and we all stuck together, we relied on each other.” We discuss landscape painting, lobsters and Brunswick Maine's cold water coast, the sense of night in her works and how she came to add figurative elements which in turn increased her audience and interest in her paintings. We learn of her admiration for Marsden Hartley’s clouds "logos of the sky", John Marin and Alex Katz who share a direct, simplified language of painting. We explore the influence of folk art and children’s art, the spiritual in art (à la Kandinsky), and how working with the influential CANADA gallery helped her to progress. We find out what success means to her and the themes within her new solo show Adams and Ollman gallery in Portland. We discuss the joy of Instagram and her love of other painter's works including Susan Rothenberg, Rothko, Rose Wylie, Chris Martin, Katherine Bernhardt and Nicole Eisenman.Follow @KatheBradford on Instagram and please also visit Katherine's galleries @CanadaGallery and @AdamsandOllman and visit their website to view Katherine's current solo exhibition 'Mother Joins The Circus' www.adamsandollman.com. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Season 6 continues! Recorded remotely on 1st May 2020 during lockdown, Russell & Robert chat to Philadelphia-based artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase whose paintings and drawings focus primarily on queer black bodies in everyday, domestic spaces.We explore the importance of family including Jonathan's husband Will (who is also their studio manager), sea horses, shyness, Bipolar disorder, identifying as non-binary and the value of having a studio in their hometown of Philadelphia. We discuss humour, depicting the messiness of the human body, bodily fluids, queerness, gender performativity & 'performing' ourselves including Du Bois' Double Consciousness, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble and a recent inspiring quote by Alexander Leon, tattoos, the inspiring music & style of Missy Elliott and more recently Lizzo, science fiction, manga such as Sailor Moon, Afrofuturism, the joy of teaching & their respect for artist Jennifer Packer, the psychology of Francis Bacon's work, Gilbert and George, the influence of nature in particular roses and flowers, being a cat-parent but also feeding stranger's cats and the rare talent of tying cherry stems with your mouth alone!!! Finally we discover that all 3 of us were born under the Scorpio star sign... Scorpio's unite for this special Talk Art episode!!!Follow @JonathanLyndonChase on Instagram, their official website https://www.jonathanlyndonchase.com/ and please also visit Jonathan's gallery @CompanyGallery and their website https://companygallery.us/. Special thanks to Sophie Mörner. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art Season 6 continues! Recorded during lockdown on 19th April 2020 from the Mexican jungle, Russell & Robert chat to Rose McGowan, leading activist, author, singer, actress and creative polymath.We discuss her debut album 'Planet 9', how creativity can promote healing, why Rose sees America as a cult, growing up as a child in the Children of God cult, Rose & Robert's shared admiration for her previous partner Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals album & the song Coma White that written about Rose's life story. We discover why she loves collecting art and how the works she's chosen are closely linked to her own life story, including a painting she bought, whilst filming Charmed, by artist Eric Blum of an invisible woman and more recently works by Claire Falkenstein, Grant Haffner and Stanley Donwood of a figure "holding back the waves of the ocean" which she sees as representing her strength in the face of adversity.We learn about Rose's father, a skilled painter & airbrush artist, who made futuristic surreal paintings as well as Kodak commercials and Baci chocolate box packaging designs, the inspiration she drew from Edward Hopper works while directing 2014 thriller 'Dawn', her love of Ernest Hemingway, a memorable visit to Rothko's Chapel of fourteen black paintings at the Menil Collection in Houston, her admiration for latter-day Magritte, buying a fake Magritte painting from a garage sale as a teenager and her passion for Rodin & Camille Claudel's sculptures.We reminisce about her 2018 collaboration with shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood for the 'Hacker' live show in London, and her later performance at Venice Biennale 2019. Rose is also influenced by architecture including Zaha Hadid and Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House in LA. and her loves of two time periods 1930s and 1970s, her respect for "seminal artist" Yoko Ono and Artemisia Gentileschi, the 17th Century Baroque painter and Frida Kahlo whose house she visited recently in Mexico City!Rose's debut album 'Planet 9' is OUT NOW! We also recommend reading her memoir 'Brave'. Follow @RoseMcGowan on Instagram, @RoseMcGowan on Twitter, her official website https://www.rosemcgowan.com/. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Season 6 of Talk Art! Recorded on 10th April 2020, we chat to Troy Michie, the acclaimed American collage artist, painter, interdisciplinary installation artist, and sculptor based in New York City. Michie's work is often in dialogue with the canon of collage; as well as investigating society's understanding of race, gender, sexuality, and other fields of identity and power. This episode is released on the anniversary of the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles from June 3-8th 1943, which has been frequently referenced in Michie's work.We discuss the history of collage, vintage erotic and pornographic magazines, his hometown of El Paso, a border city between USA and Mexico, growing up bilingual, lies about immigration, racial stereotypes, media misconceptions and the ‘fear of the other’. We explore woven paper collage, a new development in Troy’s practice, as well as assemblage works on wooden panels, and sewing through paper.We explore the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots and his body of work referencing the dapper & flamboyant Zoot Suit style, Jazz music, Pachuco culture and its long lasting impact on popular culture including mainstream films Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bugsy Malone and Dick Tracey. We discuss camouflage theory & Roland Penrose's disruptive patterning theory, Razzle Dazzle warships, queerness and the camouflaging the self within society, safety of marginalised communities and in particular the violence and murders of the transgender community in New York.His admiration for Nancy Brooks Brody, Mark Bradford, Magritte and the Surrealists, Méret Oppenheim, Frida Kahlo, Hannah Höch, Nouveau réalisme, Kara Walker, John Stezaker, Wangechi Mutu and Wilfredo Lam. We reflect on his works in shows at New Museum, the Whitney Biennial 2019 and his primary gallery Company. We discover the inspiration he drew from The Invisible Man novel and how he hopes to honour the memory of his grandmother and his family of hard working women, growing up listening to eclectic music by Sugar Cubes to Aretha Franklin and writing songs himself.Follow @TroyMichie on Instagram, his official website https://www.troymichie.com/ and please also visit Troy's gallery @CompanyGallery and their website https://companygallery.us/. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. 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. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded in New York on Sunday 26th January 2020, Russell & Robert meet leading artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, best known for her multimedia drawings and works on paper, which explore the malleability of identity and the possibilities in visual story-telling. Interested in the topography of skin, Ojih Odutola has a distinctive style of mark-making using only basic drawing materials, such as ballpoint pens, pencils, pastels and charcoal. This signature technique involves building up of layers on the page, through blending and shading with the highest level of detail, creating compositions that reinvent and reinterpret the traditions of portraiture. Ojih Odutola credits the development of her style from using pen, which holds a special significance through its function as a writing tool, as her work is also akin to fiction. She often spends months crafting narratives that unfold through series of artworks like the chapters of a book.Her work is inspired by both art history and popular culture, as well as her own personal history—being born in Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria then moving as a child to America where she was raised in conservative Alabama. The idea of traveling or transporting the self is a recurring theme in her work and, for Ojih Odutola, the construction of her figures is a means of discovering an individual’s character and personal story. Though the representation of skin has been a core focus of her practice, she has also explored depictions of landscapes, architecture and domestic interiors in more recent series.We discuss Toyin's forthcoming Barbican solo exhibition 'A Countervailing Theory', her first-ever in the UK, currently postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This epic cycle of new work will explore an imagined ancient myth, with an immersive soundscape by artist Peter Adjaye. Ojih Odutola, recognising the pen as a ‘writing tool first’, plays with the idea that drawing can be a form of storytelling. Working exclusively with drawing materials including pastel and charcoal, she approaches her process of drawing as an investigative practice. She proposes speculative fictions, inviting the viewer to enter her uncannily familiar yet fantastical world. Working like an author or poet, she often spends months creating extensive imaginary narratives, which play out through a series of works to suggest a structure of episodes or chapters. Drawing on an eclectic range of references, from ancient history to popular culture to contemporary politics, Ojih Odutola encourages the viewer to piece together the fragments of the stories that she presents.Follow @ToyinOjihOdutola on Instagram and view Toyin's new online exhibition via her gallery @JackShainman's website www.jackshainman.com 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 chat to leading English actor Josh O'Connor. We discuss family connections to art with his artist/ceramicist grandmother Romola Jane, the ongoing search to buy back her previously sold studio art pottery, his sculptor grandfather John Bunting who's wooden sculptures, bronzes & stone works was a contemporary of Henry Moore and teacher to artist Antony Gormley. We explore Josh's love of Modern British Art, learning to draw as taught by his grandfather, continuing to create his own drawings in adulthood which filmmaker Xavier Dolan has expressed admiration for.We explore his experiences working with Jonathan Anderson at Loewe for numerous advertising campaigns shot by Steven Meisel, Dwayne Michaels and Grace Sorrenti in Japan. the beginning of his own art collection including an abstract painting by Max Wade (Cob Gallery), his love of craft and pots and ceramics, his respect for photographer Alasdair McLellen and artist Alvaro Barrington. Finally we discuss the power of simplicity learned during filming with director Francis Lee in the movie Gods Own Country and his challenge to do 30 wild swims in his 30th year to raise funds for Mind charity.... and we decide Josh is the male Tilda Swinton!Follow @Joshographee on Instagram and @JoshOConnor15 on Twitter. 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 & Robert chat to critically acclaimed German artist Lenz Geerk. Recorded at the start of lockdown, we discuss his psychologically charged paintings that are seemingly removed from any specific time or place. Emphasizing his subjects in such a way as to draw out the hidden emotions of the human psyche, Geerk depicts people at the threshold of excitation and in the throes of exploration or emotional tension. We discuss his daily journey to the studio, links in his work to art history icons Morandi, Hopper & Modigliani, growing up painting Knights and football players, 1920s style & the film Call Me By Your Name, the popular computer game The Sims, his decision to fly less to help tackle climate change, the theme of food in his paintings including a painting of an apple (that Russell recently acquired), plus we discover artworks he lives with by artists like Louis Fratino and Jenna Gribbon. We learn how he gave up painting for one year after seeing Vermeer's paintings in real life, his love of Manga and comic books such as Tintin, listening to audio books of classics including Cervantes' Don Quixote and Marcel Proust, why he enjoys painting in hotel rooms, and his aim for the people in his works not to be objects and to be active and powerful and readdressing art history.Follow @LenzGeerk https://lenzgeerk.com/ and Lenz’s gallery @RobertsProjects https://www.robertsprojectsla.com/. 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 & Robert meet legendary fashion writer Tim Blanks, Editor-at-large of Business Of Fashion and a passionate art fan/collector. We discuss growing up in New Zealand, hanging out in the late 70s with artist collective General Idea in New York, meeting Andy Warhol in Toronto, the influence of David Bowie, his love of The Photographer’s Gallery, collecting photography including Juergen Teller and a classic Horst photograph of Marlene Dietrich. We learn of his admiration for a new generation such as photographer Jack Davison, stylist Ib Kamara and designer Craig Green plus we hear his perspective on the future of art and fashion worlds after the Covid-19 pandemic.We reflect on successful art & fashion collaborations including Raf Simons & Sterling Ruby, Maria Grazia Chiuri & Judy Chicago and Kim Jones who has worked with artists throughout his career from KAWS to Raymond Pettibon to Jake & Dinos Chapman. We discuss his favourite contemporary artists including Lisa Brice, Jordan Casteel, Gregory Halpern, Trisha Donnelly, Kevin Beasley and AA Bronson, and his longterm friendship with Casey Kaplan, the leading NY gallerist who he’s also collected artworks from. We explore the history of Illustration in fashion from Erte and Yves Saint Laurent to more recent illustrators/artists such as Julie Verhoeven, Mats Gustafson, Clym Evernden and Howard Tangye. Finally we hear Tim sing a classic Velvet Underground song!Follow @TimBlanks on Instagram and @Tim_Blanks on Twitter. 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 & 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.

Russell and Robert meet British artist Somaya Critchlow whose figurative paintings of women explore facets of race, sex and culture. Working mostly on a small scale, her works depict bold, curvaceous and self-possessed female characters, of her own creation, that simultaneously combine and subvert the culture expectations of race, gender and power in the history of portraiture. They are self-reflective and personal, and at the same time commentary of the cultural, class and political dynamics of contemporary society.We discuss the bringing together of pop culture influences including 'Love and Hip Hop', Cardi B, Lil' Kim, Nicki Minaj with artistic influences of Rubens, Renaissance masters and European miniatures. We explore her alienation from the art history she studied growing up and the lack of representation, tying in autobiographical references in her new works, her response to the death and problematic life of rapper XXXTentacion, the paintings of Lisa Yuskavage, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Lucy Stein, cartoonist Robert Crumb, architect Carlo Mollino and filmmaker David Lynch. We discuss the appeal of 1960s-70s style, kitsch, vintage erotica, life-drawing and the writing of Angela Carter including her feminist reappraisal of the Marquis de Sade’s books. We also chat about the more recent movement to openly discuss body image, sexuality and representation in the mainstream including writer/documentary maker Chidera Eggerue and Instagram community iWeigh.Somaya’s forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Underneath a Bebop Moon’ will be at Maximillian William, London. Follow @SomayaCritchlow on Instagram or @Maximillian_William. https://maximillianwilliam.com/somaya-critchlow/For all images discussed in today’s episode visit @TalkArt and we are also on Twitter @TalkArtPodcast. Thanks for listening!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ladies and Gentleman, the category is TALK ART!!!! Russell and Robert chat to superstar Billy Porter, the leading actor, singer, writer, fashion icon and star of award-winning TV show POSE. We chat about the lockdown closure of Broadway and New York's theatres, losing two friends to the Coronavirus pandemic, his appreciation for Lady Gaga, Erykah Badu, Boy George and Madonna, writing new music and a recent conversation with Salma Hayek that helped him realise that he makes & lives performance art! We explore his show-stopping red carpet outfits designed by Christian Siriano, Rick Owens and The Blonds (the fashion duo behind his iconic gold-winged look at the Met Gala 2019), we learn about his childhood singing in the church, discovering his muscular singing voice and his journey to winning both a Tony and a Grammy award for his lead role in Kinky Boots musical. Plus we hear all about the exciting beginnings of his art collection by discovering artists whilst travelling in Cuba, his admiration for the art of Kara Walker, Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, painting diptych he commissioned inspired by his favourite play 'Angels in America', his passion for the Whitney Museum in New York and his love of European architecture including the Royal Academy in London and Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona. Follow @TheeBillyPorter on Instagram, you can watch POSE television series on BBC and FX, @PoseOnFX. For images discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt and we are also now on Twitter @TalkArtPodcast. Thanks for listening!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet artist Doron Langberg, an Israeli-born, Brooklyn-based painter. Langberg paints in the style of genre painting and portraiture, addressing issues of gender and sexuality creating a shared experience of love and desire through the surface and subjects of his paintings. Langberg paints large-scale portraits of family, close friends and lovers. These visualizations of queerness—both his own and those of the many queer subjects depicted—move beyond the traditional shorthand of signs and easily recognizable queer iconographies. Instead, Langberg contextualizes queer sexuality and intimacy within larger narratives of everyday life. Follow @DoronLangberg on Instagram and Yossi Milo Gallery @YossiMilo. For all images discussed today visit @TalkArt and check out our new Twitter is @TalkArtPodcast Thanks for listening!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert return for Season 5! Recorded primarily during quarantine lockdown, we’ve reached out to international creative guests from art, design, music, sport, fashion, TV and film. Every Tuesday & Friday (yes, twice a week!) we will bring you voices that inspire us and that we hope will inspire you too. These are unprecedented, scary, challenging and deeply sad times. We strongly believe in art and in its power to unify, to resonate, to bring hope through adversity, to offer encouragement but most of all to shine light in the darkest of moments.For episode 1 of Talk Art's QuarARTine series, Russell and Robert chat with legendary singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright from his home in Los Angeles.We discuss his iconic song ‘The Art Teacher’, his love of Whistler and John Singer Sargent’s paintings, his childhood passion for making zines and his baroque alter ego Bella von Herzgold. We hear about the time Rufus met legendary artist Erté in late 1980s New York, the influence of Aubrey Beardsley, Mucha's posters and Art Nouveau. We explore the realist paintings of Andrew Wyeth, his husband Jorn’s love of art and friendships with curator Klaus Biesenbach & artist Marina Abramović, visiting the Venice Biennale, and living with artworks by Timothy Cummings, Jonathan Meese, Clementine Hunter, Robert Wilson and even an iconic Andy Warhol polaroid of Grace Jones! We explore the psychology behind composing & developing characters for his recent opera’s 'Prima Donna' and 'Hadrian' and he reminisces about a travelling exhibition of art from the Russian Hermitage museum that made a big impact in his youth and New York afternoons hanging out with performance icons Penny Arcade, Jack Smith and Quentin Crisp. Follow @RufusWainwright and be sure to watch Rufus' daily 'Quarantunes/Robe Recitals' live performances streaming free via his Instagram. Pre-order Rufus' new album 'Unfollow The Rules' out from 10th July 2020. Lead single 'Damsel in Distress' is available now with a stunning animated video created from Rufus' own drawings!! www.RufusWainwright.com For images of all artworks discussed in this episode, visit us @TalkArt on IG or @TalkArtPodcast on Twitter. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet Mark Gatiss, the influential British actor, screenwriter, director and novelist. We discuss Mark's recent BBC4 art documentary 'John Minton: The Lost Man of British Art', celebrating the life and work of the highly prolific and successful 20th century English artist whose work is now all but forgotten. A contemporary of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, Minton suffered psychological problems, self-medicated with alcohol, and in 1957 died by suicide. We chat in depth about Mark's forthcoming documentary on the life of illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, a peer of Oscar Wilde, whose black ink drawings revealed the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. We explore Mark's own passion for drawing and painting portraits, the psychology behind The League of Gentlemen, his admiration for Alan Bennett, and how he came to write the series of 8 monologues ‘Queers’ in response to the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act. This episode was recorded in early January 2020.Follow @TalkArt on Instagram for images of all artworks discussed in this episode! Follow @MarkGatiss on Twitter, and check out @TalkArtPodcast, our new Twitter.Thanks for listening to Season 4! We will be back NEXT WEEK with the all new Season 5 'Talk Art: QuarARTine' series, recorded remotely from the global lockdown. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet leading British photographer Alasdair McLellan. World-renowned for his sensitive approach to photography across fashion, portraiture, landscape or documentary, his work embraces references high and low, classical and pop, and continues to reflect contemporary conversations around gender, sexuality and identity. McLellan’s photography has been exhibited at the ICA, Somerset House, National Portrait Gallery and Phillips. We discuss the British male nude, his recurrent photography of Yorkshire hometown Doncaster, a longterm collaboration with skateboarder/artist Blondey McCoy and striking front-cover portraits for The Gentlewoman of subjects as varied as Margaret Atwood, Beyoncé, Julia Davis, Vivienne Westwood and Björk. We explore his admiration for the photography of Tom Wood, Corinne Day, Herb Ritts and Nigel Shafran, the music & album sleeves of bands including The Smiths and Pet Shop Boys, and artists Mark Leckey, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gilbert & George and Jeremy Deller. We discuss shooting the album cover for Adele's iconic album '25', whilst Russell recalls the experience of being photographed himself by McLellan almost a decade ago... plus one of Russell's favourite subjects Joey Essex! In 2016/17 he directed three celebrated music videos for The xx. He has published numerous books including Ultimate Clothing Company (2013), Ceremony (2016), The Palace (2016) and Blondey 15-21 (2019). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet the one-and-only legend that is Princess Julia!!!! We discuss her endless creativity across different worlds of music, fashion and art, life-drawing and her weekly trip to ‘Sketch Sesh’, her friendship with DJ Jeffry Hinton, and how she started DJing herself at queer spaces in London. We find out what it’s like to be photographed by Wolfgang Tillmans, her memories of being the coat check girl at Blitz & Taboo nightclubs, Leigh Bowery, Boy George, Jordan (a Malcolm McLaren protégé who featured in Derek Jarman’s film Jubilee) and the long lasting influence & legacy of that era. We discuss being shy, her love for Old Master paintings, emerging artists like Richard Porter and Lydia Blakley, her passion for Fashion East, modelling for Kylie Minogue, our mutual admiration for Pet Shop Boys plus her favourite performance artists including David Hoyle, Justin Vivian Bond and Christeene!! Finally discover how Robert first met Julia almost 20 years ago at the early 2000s clubs Kashpoint, Nag Nag Nag and Electrogogo resulting in a duet for Rob’s then electropop-band Temposhark. Follow @HRHPrincessJulia on Instagram and @TalkArt for photos of artworks discussed in this episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet British artist Ima-Abasi Okon. Ima's current solo exhibition is at VOID, Derry~Londonderry and runs until 25th April 2020. This episode was recorded in July 2019 during an earlier iteration of Ima's solo exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery, London. Ima works with sculpture, sound and video to produce installations that explore exhibition-making as an exercise in syntax, adopting linguistic and grammatical structures within her installations as a way of complicating the construction of knowledge. For the VOID iteration of the commission, a series of industrial air conditioners are adapted to become hosts for a new multi-channel sound piece comprising an existing audio track that has been slowed down. Acting as both a cooling system for the gallery and as a vehicle for the sound work, the fans perform at various speeds and durations. In another gallery the ceiling has been partially lowered using a standardised modular system, often found within offices, retail spaces, waiting rooms and other administrative environments. The mass-produced ceiling tiles have been smeared with an invisible mixture of morphine, insulin, ultrasound gel and gold, imbuing the otherwise everyday objects with a personal, totemic charge. Hand-crafted glass light shades, each adorned with an opulent design and filled with palm oil and Courvoisier VS Cognac, hang from the ceiling. With the introduction of these liquids, the lights emit a golden glow, further highlighting an atmospheric friction between Okon's production processes, pointing to the possibilities of magic as a sculptural act. Okon's ongoing use of oriented strand board, painted with varnish and framed with 'exotic woods' further explore how value is assigned to a given object or material through its categorisation, modes of display and origin. Ima-Abasi Okon is currently participating in the residency programme at Rijksakademie Academy for fine arts, Amsterdam. For more about Ima’s work please visit http://www.imaokon.co.uk or follow @i_a_okon. For exhibition images: @DerryVoid and @ChisenhaleGallery. Special thanks to Polly Staple & Ellen Greig at Chisenhale and Mary Cremin & Tansy Cowley at VOID. Finally, THANK YOU for listening! We love to hear your feedback. @talkart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell and Robert meet American artist Louis Fratino in London! Drawing inspiration from personal experience and, more recently, photographic source material, Fratino makes paintings and drawings of the male body. His work includes portraits, nudes, and intimate scenes of male couples engaged in activities ranging from the mundane to the graphically sexual. The result is a body of work that is a loving and honest expression of the contemporary gay experience. With great attention to surface and color, features such as an earlobe, belly button, body hair, or the curves and planes of the body are accentuated and stylized in Fratino's work, complimenting the sensual appeal of his subject.Born in 1993, in Annapolis, MD, Fratino received his BFA in Painting with concentration in Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD in 2015. Recent exhibitions include Night and Day, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY (solo); Heirloom, Antoine Levi Gallery, Paris (solo); Youth and Beauty!, MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Nuoro, 2018 (group); and Matisse + Fratino, Cabinet Printemps, Düsseldorf, 2018 (group). He is a recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Painting, Berlin (2015-16) and a Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship, Norfolk, CT in 2014. Fratino lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.For more details on Louis' works, check out #LouisFratino hashtag on Instagram or visit his galleries @SikkemaJenkins (New York) or @AntoineLevi (Paris). If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email [email protected] as we love hearing your feedback! @TalkArt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art NYC!!! Russell & Robert meet artist Brian Donnelly aka KAWS at his Brooklyn studio for a rare glimpse into the private world of one the world's most iconic creative figures. KAWS engages audiences far beyond the museums and galleries in which he regularly exhibits. His prolific body of influential work straddles the worlds of art and design to include paintings, murals, large-scale sculptures, street art, graphic and production design. Over the last two decades KAWS has built a successful career with work that consistently shows his formal agility as an artist, as well as his underlying wit, irreverence, and affection for our times. The nature of his work possesses a sophiticated humour and thoughtful interplay with consumer products and collaborations with global brands from DIOR (with Kim Jones), to his own, now dormant, streetwear label OriginalFake.He often draws inspiration and appropriates from pop-culture animations to form a unique artistic vocabulary for his works across various mediums. Now admired for his larger-than-life sculptures and hardedge paintings that emphasize line and color, KAWS' cast of hybrid cartoon and human characters are perhaps the strongest examples of his exploration of humanity. KAWS has been exhibited at the Doha Fire Station Museum, National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, High Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.Follow @KAWS on Instagram or visit www.KawsOne.com If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email [email protected] as we love hearing your feedback! @talkart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art Live in London! Russell & Robert meet British artist Helen Cammock, nominated for the Turner Prize 2019 and winner of the 2018 Max Mara Arts Prize for Women. This special episode was recorded live in front of a sold-out audience at Art Assembly in Walthamstow, organised by Art Fund and the National Art Pass. Learn more at: www.artfund.org/talkartHelen Cammock works across film, photography, poetry, spoken word, song, printmaking and installation. We discuss 'The Long Note' (2018), her film that celebrates the involvement of women in the civil rights movement in Derry in 1968. Originally commissioned by Void Derry to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland.Cammock produces works stemming from a deeply involved research process that explore the complexities of social histories. Central to her practice is the voice: the uncovering of marginalised voices within history, the question of who speaks on behalf of whom and on what terms, as well as how her own voice reflects in different ways on the stories explored in her work. Cammock’s practice is characterised by fragmented, non-linear narratives. Her work makes leaps between different places, times and contexts, forcing viewers to acknowledge complex global relations and the inextricable connection between the individual and society.You can view Cammock's film 'The Long Note' and a room of screen prints as part of the Turner Prize exhibition at Turner Contemporary, Margate until January 12th 2020. Free entry! https://turnercontemporary.org/whats-on/turner-prize-2019/Recorded live on stage at the Mirth, Marvel & Maud venue on Saturday 23rd November 2019, part of this awesome brand new one-day festival! Follow @ArtFund on Instagram and @TalkArt for images of all artworks discussed in this episode. Use #TalkArtPodcast and #ArtAssembly to tag us in your posts & stories from the day and we'll share our favourites! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

WARNING: this episode of Talk Art contains strong language! Russell & Robert meet legendary English artist Caroline Coon. We discuss 50 years of painting in Ladbroke Grove, feminism, her longterm political activism, the importance of being socially conscious, decriminalising sex work, growing up in Kent, punk rock, managing The Clash & writing for Melody Maker in the 1970s. We explore the influence of artist Pauline Boty who helped found British Pop art, and was the only female painter in the movement, inheriting Boty's paints after her early death at the age of 28, and we consider the lasting power of painting but also ceramics and artworks made by hand. Her first solo exhibition ‘Caroline Coon: The Great Offender' was held in 2018 at The Gallery Liverpool, followed by her current first solo London exhibition at TRAMPS (running until 22nd December 2019) curated by artist Peter Doig & curator Parinaz Magadassi. The works span the 1980’s to 2019, demonstrating how Coon, in her explicit social and political commentary, has made art that rebels against binary conceptions of gender and challenges orthodoxy in ways that are particularly relevant today. The exhibition travels to TRAMPS New York, in Spring 2020. Art historian Maria Elena Buszek, in her catalogue essay for the exhibition, writes: “Artist, writer and activist Caroline Coon is one of the towering ‘disappeared’ women of her generation; she was a catalyst and witness to some of the most critical moments of art, music, and politics, only to see her participation muted and marginalised, and her male contemporaries canonised.” Learn more at www.TrampsLtd.com and www.CarolineCoon.com Special thanks to Martin Green. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet artist David Dawson for a private, after-hours tour of 'Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits', the breathtaking new exhibition he has curated at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. We discuss being assistant/head of studio for the last 20 years of Freud's life, Leigh Bowery, going to Taboo nightclub, Freud's early drawings and paintings inspired by surrealism, his grandfather Sigmund Freud and how Freud got all his information for his paintings from looking. We explore Freud's friendships with Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, what it's like to be a nude model for Freud's paintings - Dawson was subject in 7 paintings and 1 etching - and discover how Freud protected his own privacy and his unparalleled discipline of painting 7 days a week, every day of the year! We learn about David's own painting of urban landscapes and also his photography including timeless portraits of Freud. Follow David on Instagram @davidelidawson and see images of all artworks discussed in this episode @talkart. Special thanks to Alexandra Bradley at the RA @royalacademyarts.We strongly recommend visiting this exhibition. 'Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits' runs until 26 January 2020 and is in the RA's smaller, Sackler Wing of galleries and they expect demand to be high. To ensure the best possible experience, all visitors (including Friends of RA) must book a timed ticket to see this show.In a world first, more than 50 paintings, prints and drawings are brought together by this modern master of British art. One of the most celebrated portraitists of our time, Lucian Freud is also one of very few 20th century artists who portrayed themselves with such consistency. Spanning nearly seven decades, his self-portraits give a fascinating insight into both his psyche and his development as a painter – from his earliest portrait, painted in 1939, to his final one executed 64 years later. They trace the fascinating evolution from the linear graphic works of his early career to the fleshier, painterly style he became synonymous with. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet iconic British actor Sir Ian McKellen CBE at his home in East London. We have a private tour of Ian’s art collection including stunning works by L.S. Lowry, David Hockney, Andrew Logan, textile artist John Allen and an Antony Gormley cast iron figure he chose to display in the River Thames at the end of his garden! We learn about Ian’s childhood in Bolton and how his father’s natural talent for art meant Ian chose a different way to express himself on stage and screen! However his own passion for art led him to buy a work to commemorate every part he’s played around the world and he even set up an artist residency in the house next-door. Ian remembers Andy Warhol taking his photo at The Factory in 1970s New York (& buying a screen print of Mick Jagger), being painted twice by his longterm friend David Hockney and why he sees the paintings of L.S. Lowry as stage sets. We also discuss the 20 portraits of Ian at the National Portrait Gallery collection by artists as varied as Cecil Beaton, Lord Snowdon, Mary McCartney, Trevor Leighton and Clive Smith who won the BP Award from the National Portrait Gallery and was given the commission to paint McKellen for their collection. Whilst, Christian Hook painted McKellen in the final episode of Portrait Artist of the Year on TV and won the prize also! Plus, find out which legendary Hollywood actor is also a secret painter - Ian owns not one, but two, of his colourful paintings!! ‘The Good Liar’ starring Sir Ian & Dame Helen Mirren (and our very own Russell Tovey!!) is out today in UK cinemas. Follow Ian on Instagram @IanMcKellen and the film at @GoodLiarMovie. If you enjoy this episode, please leave us a review at Apple Podcasts and visit @TalkArt for images of all artworks discussed in this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet artists Teresa Farrell and Alvaro Barrington (Tt x AB) at their joint show at Emalin gallery, East London. Titled 'TALL BOYS & A DOUBLE ESPRESSO', the exhibition celebrates creative collaboration and the importance of friendships/conversation when making art. We discuss how the duo first met at Hunter college and the ways they continue to inspire, critique and challenge each other to grow as artists. We discuss being a contrarian, hosting live music, art performances and even dancing within the gallery context to build and expand community. We explore concepts within Alvaro's concurrent solo at Sadie Coles gallery, London 'GARVEY: SEX LOVE NURTURING FAMALAY' and how Teresa's advice helped Alvaro work out certain paintings for that exhibition. As well the extending future exhibitions at further galleries including Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris and Corvi Mora, London inspired by the writing of Marcus Garvey, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Special thanks to Emalin gallery's Leopold Thun and Angelina Volk @emalinofficial. For images of all artworks discussed in this episode, please visit @talkart on Instagram. Follow Teresa @tuh_nesta and Alvaro @alvarobarrington. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert & Russell meet music icon Michael Stipe, best known as lead singer of R.E.M. We discuss his lifelong love of taking photographs (more than 37,000 so far), his childhood Nikon camera (a gift from his father), self-portraits, making sculptures, his friendship with Patti Smith, meeting members of the Beat Generation such as Allen Ginsberg & William Burroughs and why he dislikes his own handwriting. We explore his recent collaboration with Sam Taylor-Johnson on the video for his new solo single ‘Your Capricious Soul’ (which is also raising funds for charity Extinction Rebellion), his admiration for artist/poet John Giorno, British poet Edith Sitwell, photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Wolfgang Tillmans, sculptors Bernini and Brancusi, meeting Andy Warhol (and buying one of Warhol’s Polaroid cameras), a moving story related to the play Angels in America, why German artist Hans Haacke is one of his greatest heroes and the last impact of his early Athens relationship with artist Jeremy Ayres.Michael’s new book of photography ‘Our Interference Times: A Visual Record’ is available now. We also recommend his earlier book ‘Volume 1’ (both published by Damiani, 2019 & 2018). His first solo single ‘Your Capricious Soul’ can be downloaded as a bundle with video and artwork exclusively from MichaelStipe.com and you can follow his former band (and the 25th anniversary of their album Monster) on Instagram @rem Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Talk Art's ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Russell & Robert meet American painter Jamian Juliano-Villani in her Brooklyn studio to discuss topics as varied as being a noisy neighbour, Weezer's Green Album, an encyclopedic knowledge of both music & art history, watching Live Leak to stay tough, political correctness, a childhood growing up in her parents silk-screening factory printing merchandise for pop bands, her friendships with NYC artists Brian Belott, Billy Grant & Borna Sammak, her favourite artists including Mario Merz (and Arte Povera), Chilean painter Roberto Matta, Ivan Albright, Allen Jones, Walter Price and Ashley Bickerton, plus we explore her extensive & entertaining lists of potential topics for future paintings!!! Thanks to everyone who has been listening to Talk Art over the past year!! Visit Jamian at Instagram @psychojonkanoo and view images of artworks we discussed in this episode @talkart. Jamian is represented by JTT Gallery @jtt_nyc - check out our interview with JTT founder Jasmin Tsou from earlier this season! This episode was recorded in New York at the end of May 2019 while Jamian was finishing painting new works for recent solo show 'Let's Kill Nicole' for Massimo De Carlo Gallery, London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.