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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben Luke talks to Ai Weiwei about his influences, from art to literature, film and music, and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Ai, born in Beijing in 1957, is an artist who needs little introduction; he is among the most famous artists in the world, principally due to the activism which led him to be incarcerated in his native China for months without charge in 2011. Since his release he has not let up and he continues to be a thorn in the Chinese government’s side, relentlessly documenting and publicly speaking out against its attacks on freedom and manifold other human rights abuses. And while this conversation addresses his political activities it also explores his wider work, including the early objects inspired by Marcel Duchamp, his first pieces made with ancient Chinese ceramics, his middle-finger salutes, Study of Perspective, and the huge actions, like Fairytale at Documenta in 2007, for which he has come to be best known. He also answers the questions we ask all our guests, including the ultimate: what is art for?Ai Weiwei: The Liberty of Doubt is at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, UK, until 19 June. His show Intertwine is at the Serralves Museum in Porto, Portugal, until 9 July. The opera Turandot is at the Rome Opera House from 22-31 March. His book, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, is published by Bodley Head in the UK, priced £25 and Crown in the US, priced $32. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Allison Katz about her influences in the realms of literature, music and, of course, art, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Born in Montreal in 1980, Katz is an artist who probes the complexities of painting, drawing on diverse imagery, a range of painterly techniques and distinctive forms of display to create environments that are by turns delightful and perplexing, but always enthralling. The longer you spend in the company of Katz’s work, the more the associations, the playful connections, and the fundamental rigour of her thinking emerge. In this conversation, she discusses the influence of being a life model at a young age, and making numerous “portraits” of a painting of a woman by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. She reflects on paintings by Edgar Degas and Andrea del Verrocchio, among others, discusses how the poet and translator Richard Howard helped her read poetry and see that frivolity could be serious, and expresses wonder at British radio programmes, including sporting commentary. And she answers the questions we ask all our guests, including the ultimate one: what is art for?Allison Katz: Artery, Camden Art Centre, London, until 13 March. That exhibition originated in a slightly different form at Nottingham Contemporary, and a catalogue accompanying the two versions of the show will be published in early 2023. An exhibition of Katz’s posters is at Canada House, London, until 26 March. Her paintings are in The Milk of Dreams, the central exhibition at the Venice Biennale, 23 April-27 November. She has a solo exhibition at Luhring Augustine, New York, in September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Charles Ray about his influences and the cultural experiences that shape his life and work. Ray, born in 1953 and based in Los Angeles, is one of the most singular voices in contemporary sculpture, with a extraordinary grasp of the key elements of the discipline—space, material, surface, scale, weight and mass—and a unique approach to imagery, drawing on a huge range of sources to create absorbing, yet deeply ambiguous works. Carved and cast by hand and using cutting-edge technology, they often take years to come to fruition, and are made and remade in a variety of different patterns and prototypes in a range of materials and scales before being completed. Ray engages deeply with the history of sculpture, and in this conversation reflects on his admiration for everything from Anthony Caro’s abstract metal sculpture Early One Morning to the ancient Greek Great Eleusinian Relief. He also reflects on the significance to his work of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and the importance of his daily walks to his practice. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?The exhibition Charles Ray is at the Bourse de Commerce and the Centre Pompidou in Paris from the 16 February and continues until 6 June at the Bourse and until 20 June at the Pompidou. Charles’s exhibition Figure Ground is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until 5 June. Charles is in this year’s Whitney Biennial, called Quiet as it’s Kept, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, from 6 Apr–5 Sept. And the third special installation of Ray’s works at Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland continues until spring 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first episode of 2022, Ben Luke talks to Dayanita Singh about her influences, from art to literature, music and film, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Singh, who was born in 1961 in New Delhi, India, is one of the most pioneering photographers of recent decades. She resists the idea of a single, decisive image, and instead presents her richly diverse, poetic photographs in the context of constructed environments, bespoke archival structures and artists’ books. She continues to push the presentation of her photography in new directions. In the conversation, she recalls how her mother’s photography was a “traumatic” part of her childhood and remembers an early opportunity to photograph the celebrated tabla player Zakir Hussain. She talks about her passion for the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and Michael Ondaatje, the revelatory visits to Shankar’s Dolls Museum in Delhi, and about her remarkable project documenting Mona, a lifelong friend and collaborator. Plus, she answers all our usual questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for? Dayanita Singh: Dancing with My Camera, Gropius Bau, Berlin, 18 March-7 August 2022. The exhibition tours to Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, MUDAM Luxembourg, the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, and Les Rencontres d’Arles, France.This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Kehinde Wiley about his influences, including artists, writers, composers, musicians and filmmakers, and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Perhaps more than any other contemporary artist, Wiley has situated himself within the history of Western portrait painting. He makes direct reference to the art of the past, quoting from artists like Holbein, Titian, Rubens, Gainsborough and David, but replacing the royal, noble and ecclesiastical figures depicted by the Old Masters with ordinary people he has encountered on the street. These “moments of impact” happen mostly in New York, where he lives much of the time, but also—in his grand ongoing project The World’s Stage—in cities in Jamaica, India, Haiti, Nigeria, Brazil and beyond.As well as his project at the National Gallery in London, Wiley discusses the early influence of John Singer Sargent, his latest works relating to Caspar David Friedrich, the influence of museums like The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens and a formative visit to the Soviet Union. Plus he tells us what work of art he would most like to live with and ponders the ultimate question: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Kehinde Wiley, The Prelude, National Gallery, London, until 18 April 2022; The Obama Portraits Tour is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until 2 Jan 2022. He features in 30 Americans, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, until 17 January 2022. And his work is in Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear, at Victoria and Albert museum, London, from 19 March 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Isaac Julien talks to Ben Luke about his influences, from art to literature, music and film, and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.Julien's films and video installations are often swooningly beautiful, and always deeply engaged in diverse cultural histories, reflecting on, among other things, diaspora and Blackness, queer identity and the movement of people. His work actively involves other art forms, and is often produced from collaborations with choreographers and actors. He responds repeatedly to the art, literature and cinema of the past, but is also pushing video installation into new territory, using multiple screens—sometimes as many as ten—to create fractured narratives which envelop the viewer, encouraging distinctive readings of the complex stories he tells, and constantly expanding the frames through which we see his subject matter.He discusses the epiphany of seeing Max Beckmann at the Whitechapel Gallery, his admiration for Peter Doig, Stan Douglas and Glenn Ligon, the influence of poets including Aimé Césaire and Derek Walcott, the architect Lina Bo Bardi, the cultural scene in London when he began his film-making journey in the 1980s, and discovering, in his archive, his student photographs of early 1980s protests against police brutality—images that he had forgotten he had even taken. Plus, he answers our familiar questions, including the ultimate one: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pablo Bronstein talks to Ben Luke about the art, literature, music, film and much more that have influenced him and inspire him today, and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Bronstein was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1977, but came to the UK as a child and grew up in suburban London. He makes beautifully executed drawings, performances and video works. They reflect on the architecture, design and cultural traditions of mostly pre-20th-century eras and what they tell us about the role of aesthetic taste both when they were made and as we see them today. Pablo’s work is often funny, though with a sardonic edge, but its impact is heightened by the fact that it is also deeply learned—his knowledge of the intricacies, pretensions, quirks and excesses of art, design and architectural history are crucial to the effectiveness and precision of his work. He discusses his early fascination with drawing buildings, his love of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, his admiration of Mark Leckey, the power of Emile Zola’s The Beast in Man and JG Ballard’s Crash and much more. He answers our usual questions about his working life in the studio and has perhaps the most unexpected response to our final question—What is art for?—to date. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

South African artist Candice Breitz talks to Ben Luke about the artists, writers, musicians, film-makers and other figures that have influenced her and inspire her today, and the cultural experiences that have defined her life and work. Breitz is a film-maker whose work, mostly in the form of video installations, explores selfhood and identity, community, race and gender, and reflects on how mass media like television, cinema and music shape our response to them. Among much else, she discusses her recent work Digest, and how it was influenced by the Middle Eastern folk tales One Thousand and One Nights and On Kawara’s Today series, or date paintings. She reflects on the power of Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction and her complex response to the South African novelist JM Coetzee. She talks about her video works telling the stories of refugees and sex workers. And she discusses growing up in Apartheid South Africa and its bearing on her choice of subjects and media. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Billie Zangewa talks to Ben Luke about the art, literature, music and film that have influenced her and inspire her today, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.Zangewa hand-stitches images, often featuring herself, using raw silk, in highly coloured, intricate compositions, and hopes to challenge existing representations of Black women. Born in 1973 in Blantyre, Malawi, she grew up in Botswana and then studied at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, in the 1990s. She now lives and works in Johannesburg. Zangewa’s imagery is both highly personal and universal—in recent years, particularly since the birth of her son, Mika, she has focused increasingly on depictions of herself at home, as a woman and a mother in domestic space, engaging in humdrum activities. By training her eye on the mundane moments of daily existence, she says she wants to explore the overlooked aspects of women’s lives—she refers to this as “daily feminism”. She discusses her use of silk and how she began working with it out of necessity rather than by design. She recalls her early love of Vincent van Gogh, her response to the films of Jane Campion. She reflects on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on her life and practice, and how she still works at her kitchen table, even despite the fact she has a dedicated studio. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas J Price talks to Ben Luke about the art, books and music that have influenced him and continue to inspire them today, and the cultural epiphanies that have defined his life and work. For two decades, Price has been making work about a subject that has now become a major cultural issue across the world: how power is transmitted through statuary and public sculpture and how diverse people in society are represented, or mostly not represented, in our streets and squares. Price was born in London in 1981, and studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, and his works ask questions of the nature and history of his medium and of the perceptions and biases of the viewer. He talks about his early shift away from performance art, his long journey into the history of classical statuary, his passion for Alberto Giacometti and Giorgio Morandi, his early love of opera and his conflicted engagement with the British Museum. Plus, he ponders the questions we ask all our guests, about his studio rituals and the one work of art he’d choose to live with, and answers the ultimate one: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Thomas J Price: Thoughts Unseen, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, UK, until 3 January 2022. Witness, for the Studio Museum in Harlem’s inHarlem series, Marcus Garvey Park, New York, until 1 October 2022. Reaching Out has just been permanently installed at the Donum Estate, Sonoma, California. Price’s work for the Hackney Windrush Art Commission, will be unveiled in June 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Sze talks to Ben Luke about ​​the art, literature, music and film that have influenced her and continue to inspire her today, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Sze, who was born in 1969 in Boston and studied at Yale University and the School of Visual Arts, New York, takes objects and images and gathers them into intricate, uncanny assemblages which often envelop and overwhelm the viewer. Her works are often categorised as sculptural installations but exist on the boundary between many different disciplines, with painting, printmaking, drawing and video alongside found and made sculptural elements. A first encounter with Sze’s work is never forgotten: she has an extraordinary knack of making her works directly embody a gallery space, seeming to grow from it and extend into it in surprising, even magical ways. In the podcast she talks about the remarkable sense of scale, light and space in Vermeer, about the prints of Hokusai, Emily Dickinson’s preoccupation with death, the profound effect of seeing Chris Marker’s La Jetée and her transformative experiences of historic Indian architecture. And, of course, she answers our regular questions about what images she has around her in the studio, the rituals of her working life, and what, ultimately, art is for. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Tacita Dean, whose 16mm and 35mm films, drawings on blackboard, photogravures, collages, sound works and found object pieces form one of the most poetic bodies of work in contemporary art. Dean was born in 1965 in Canterbury in the UK, but for most of her life as an artist has lived outside of Britain, first in Berlin, which has provided the location for some of her most compelling works, and now between the German capital and Los Angeles. As the three-venue group of museum shows she had in London in 2018 proved, Dean has a deep engagement with the traditional genres of art, making numerous moving portraits on film, as well as stirring and lyrical works exploring landscape, seascape and cityscape. Although film is her primary medium, her works are intimately connected in form and content. Her films regularly have a distinctive painterly quality, evoke the process of collage, and relate directly to her drawings. In this podcast she talks about her love of film as a medium, the pioneering techniques she uses, her encounters with the work of Giotto, with Cy Twombly and Julie Mehretu, and the influence of writers including WG Sebald and JG Ballard. She also discusses her work for The Dante Project, a new production at the Royal Opera House in London with choreography by Wayne McGregor and music by Thomas Adès, for which she has provided the costumes and set designs. Plus, she responds to the ultimate questions we ask all our guests: if you could live with just one work of art what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philippe Parreno talks to Ben Luke in depth about his cultural experiences and influences. A master of exhibition-making, Parreno was born in 1964 in Oran, Algeria, but grew up Grenoble in France. Ever since he emerged in the 1990s, he has used the spaces he shows in and the immediate environment around them as an active presence in his work. Architectural elements in the gallery might be animated at certain moments, lighting might flicker according to scores we don’t see, screens might descend to show examples of Philippe’s diverse video works, at unexpected times. Often these actions are triggered by hidden environmental forces that Philippe harnesses as data to orchestrate his shows. He talks about his close network of collaborators, the group shows they put on early in their careers, his interest in science fiction, his new work about Francisco de Goya's Black Paintings, his aim to make a film about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from the monster's point of view, and the unlikely experience of getting Angus Young from AC/DC to contribute to one of his works. Plus, he responds to the ultimate questions we ask on each podcast: if he could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And, what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.Links for this episode:Philippe Parreno at Pilar CorriasDanny/No More Reality at LUMA ArlesJaron Lanier, computer scientist, composer, artist and author Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, artist, at Esther SchipperGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of PhilosophyPier Paolo Pasolini biography on BFI websiteDaniel Buren, artistPeter Plagens on Michael Asher in Artforum in 1972 Goya's Black Paintings in the Museo del PradoSchatten/Le Montreur d'Ombres/Warning Shadows at IMDbFiona Sampson on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at 200The Year Without a Summer on the In Our Time podcastAdam Thirlwell at Granta, and his book Conversation: A Script with Philippe ParrenoPierre Huygh, artist, at Marian Goodman GalleryDanny the Street at DC ComicsNathalie Heinich on Les Immatériaux, exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 1985 in Tate PapersAuthor Kenric MacDowell’s Pharmako-AIPhilippe Parreno’s Federico, initially made for the Lorca’s family home, the Huerta de San Vicente in GranadaNeal Stephenson, authorMarko Nikodijević, composer, at sikorski.deAngus Young on SpotifyDmitri Shostakovich, Fugue no24 in D MinorRobert Filliou, artist, at Peter Freeman, Inc Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Glenn Ligon talks to Ben Luke about the artists, writers, musicians and other cultural figures who inspire and intrigue him, and the pivotal cultural moments in his life. Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1960, Ligon works across various media, from painting to film and neon, and primarily uses text and found images to produce powerful ruminations on contemporary politics, culture and African American identity. Despite the array of media he uses, Ligon’s work is hugely consistent in its language and subject matter, with an economy and directness of form allied to a capacity for rich ambiguity and diverse meaning. Ligon joins us as he prepares to show the epic conclusion to his series Stranger, which he started in 1997, featuring excerpts from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay, Stranger in the Village, in which the American writer uses his experiences in a remote Swiss village to reflect on the nature of Blackness and the embeddedness of white supremacy, among much else. In this conversation, he discusses Baldwin and the Stranger series, along with other writers, from Gertrude Stein and Charles Dickens to Toni Morrison. He talks about his visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to draw Cézanne as a teenager, the depth and enduring power of Andy Warhol’s work and the abiding influence of David Hammons. He reflects on his musical references, from Steve Reich to Stevie Wonder, and on his interest in Korean ceramics. And, of course, he answers the questions we ask all our guests, about his daily rituals, the cultural experience that changed his view of the world and, ultimately, what art is for. This episode is sponsored by ARTIKA.Glenn Ligon: First Contact is at Hauser & Wirth, Zürich, 17 September-23 December and a big show of his work opens at Hauser & Wirth in New York on 10 November. A new publication from Hauser & Wirth Publishers is out this autumn. A show at the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, France, opens in 2022.Links for this episode:Glenn Ligon StudioGlenn Ligon: First Contact at Hauser & Wirth, ZurichJames Baldwin interview in the Paris Review and Collected Essays, edited by Toni Morrison, including the collection Notes of a Native Son, in which Stranger in the Village featuresCézanne at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtCézanne Drawing at the Museum of Modern ArtAndy Warhol's Shadows at Dia BeaconCalvin Tomkins on David Hammons in the New Yorker and Glenn Ligon’s text on Hammons, Black Light: David Hammons’s Poetics of EmptinessLite Brite NeonThree Lives by Gertrude SteinWillem de Kooning's Pirate (Untitled II) (1981) at the Museum of Modern ArtRobert Mapplethorpe at the Mapplethorpe Foundation and Glenn Ligon's Notes on the Margin of the Black Book at the Guggenheim MuseumStudio Museum, HarlemWhitney Museum of American ArtWhite porcelain “moon jar” at the British MuseumRaku MuseumExtract from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man at penguin.co.ukZora Neale Hurston official siteToni Morrison Society and audiobooks narrated by Toni Morrison at AudibleÉdouard Glissant at Global Social TheoryStuart Hall FoundationCharles Dickens's Tale of Two CitiesDeForrest Brown Jr as Speaker Music at bandcampWNYC New York public radioDon Cherry on SpotifySonny Sharrock on SpotifyAphex Twin on SpotifyChrissie Hynde on the Pretenders’ I’ll Stand by You Jessye Norman on Spotify and Jessye Norman singing Richard Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder/Four Last SongsSteve Reich’s Come Out on Spotify and a Pitchfork article on the piece and the Harlem SixStevie Wonder on Spotify and a link Music of My Mind, which came out when Glenn Ligon was 11 years oldUncle Tom's Cabin by Thomas Edison and Edwin Porter at the University of Virginia’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin multimedia archive, Death of Tom by Glenn LigonJason Moran official site Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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

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

Ellen Gallagher talks about her life and work through the art, literature, music and other cultural experiences that have profoundly affected her. She tells Ben Luke about the extraordinary opportunity she had to live with an original Keith Haring print while at Oberlin College, Ohio; her love of Diego Velázquez and Stanley Brouwn; the influence of the Afrofuturist mythology of the Detroit techno band Drexciya; how Herman Melville, in his novels and novellas, wrote more perceptively about race than he is often credited with, and much more. And, of course, she answers the ultimate questions we ask in each episode: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.Links for this episode:Ellen Gallagher at Hauser & WirthEllen’s page for the Sonsbeek 20-24 quadrennialThe Freud Museum, LondonMatisse: The Fabric of Dreams, His Art and His TextilesKeith Haring's Untitled (1982), The Keith Haring FoundationDiego Velázquez at the PradoVelázquez’s Infante Felipe Prospero (1559) at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, ViennaHeadrest: Female Caryatid Figure (19th century) by the Master of the Cascade CoiffureEllen Gallagher’s Ecstatic Draught of Fishes (2020) at Hauser & Wirth, LondonPieter Paul Rubens’s Miraculous Draft of Fishes in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne from the Rheinisches Bildarchiv, CologneThe Art Newspaper’s report on the racist joke beneath Kazimir Malevich’s Black SquareEllen Gallagher’s Art Institute of Chicago exhibition, Are We Obsidian?, featuring her series Negroes Battling in a CaveOscar van den Boogaard on Stanley Brouwn in Frieze magazineGo-go legend Chuck Brown on Spotify Hugo van der Goes’s Diptych with the fall of man and redemption (Lamentation of Christ) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, ViennaWoods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionThe Dew Breaker by Edwidge DanticatMaryse Condé at World EditionsOde à la Guinea by Aimé Césaire and more on Césaire at the Poetry FoundationLéopold Sédar Senghor at the Poetry FoundationDrexciya’s Futuristic Electro—a guide, by Albert Freeman at Bandcamp and Drexciya on SpotifyHerman Melville at Penguin BooksKraftwerkAlice Coltrane’s album Kirtan: Turiya Sings Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone, BBC Radio 6 MusicJan Mostaert’s Portrait of an African Man (Christophle le More?) (1525-30) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As her retrospective opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Ethiopian-born, New York-based artist Julie Mehretu talks in depth about her life and work. She discusses the rich language she uses in her paintings, drawing on geopolitical subject matter but pushing towards abstraction. She talks about the influence of contemporary artists like David Hammons, Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon, her collaboration with the British artist Tacita Dean, how Rembrandt made his mark on her as a child and the way she uses news photography as the basis for her most recent works. She talks about her literary influences, from Toni Morrison to Chris Abani, on the music she listens to in her studio, from Sun Ra to Joan Armatrading, and her fruitful collaborations with the jazz pianist Jason Moran and the theatre and opera director Peter Sellars. Among much else, she also talks about the cultural experience that changed the way she sees the world, the one work of art she would choose to live with, and answers our ultimate question: what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the last of the present series, Ben Luke talks to Tala Madani, the Tehran-born, Los Angeles-based artist, about the influences and cultural experiences behind her remarkable paintings and animations. She talks about art's role in shaping her experience in the US after she had moved to Oregon from Tehran as a teenager, about the early influence of Francis Bacon, and about a range of artists she continues to think about today, from Giorgio de Chirico to Lee Lozano and Paul McCarthy. As always on A brush with... Tala is asked about the literature and music that have played key roles in her life, and reflects on the influence of Iranian poetry, her enduring fascination with Stanisław Lem's Solaris, her love of Miles Davis and Léo Ferré and about how "sometimes I need to go to Iran, in my brain, and I listen to music that emotionally puts me in Iran". Plus, she answers the other questions we ask all our guests, about studio rituals, the one artwork they would want to live with and, ultimately, what art is for. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Charles Gaines, one of the key figures in American conceptual art, about his influences and cultural experiences and how they have affected his life and work. Gaines discusses the impact of visiting the Metropolitan Museum's collection of African art during a period in which he "completely rethought who I was, not only as a person but as a Black person in America". He talks about the early influence of Magritte and Matisse. He discusses the impact of writers and activists like Edward Said and Frantz Fanon. He enthuses about jazz (he is jazz drummer himself) including Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, and classical music, including Beethoven and Bruckner. And he answers our usual questions, including those about his daily studio rituals and the one work of art he would want to live with. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Ben Luke interviews the Danish artist Tal R about his influences and cultural experiences. In this in-depth conversation, the painter and sculptor discusses his early love of art and frustration with art school, the unlikely ritual that keeps his art fresh, and why pursuing mystery is perilous for an artist. He talks about the writers and music that he returns to, and discusses painters including Georges Rouault, Marsden Hartley and Alfred Wallis. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including which cultural experience changed the way he sees the world, what work of art he would most want to live with, and what he thinks art is for. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Tracey Rose about how her influences and cultural experiences have affected her life and work. Among other things, she talks about her education as the only Black child in a catholic school in South Africa and her performances in which she explored gender and race, pushing her body to extremes. She talks about the seismic effect of seeing international contemporary art after the end of Apartheid, about how Duchamp is the most "African" artist in the Modernist canon, and how exploring her ancestry has led her to research the East African slave trade and the earliest forms of human creativity. Plus, she answers the questions we ask all our guests, including: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Rachel Whiteread about how her influences and cultural experiences have affected her life and work. Among other things, she talks about the influence of her parents on her work; the enduring power of Piero della Francesca; the seismic effect of seeing Bruce Nauman's art; how poetry informs her sculpture; and she recalls memorable trips to Egypt and the Soviet Union. Plus, she answers the questions we ask all our guests, including: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the US artist Roni Horn about her life and work, with reference to the art, music and literature that are her influences and touchstones. Among much else, they discuss Horn's enduring engagement with the poems of Emily Dickinson, and the sculptures and installations that she has made as a result; her unique friendship with Felix Gonzalez-Torres and the works it inspired; the jazz and R&B singers that she has listened to throughout her life; and her profound experiences in Iceland, the subject of her new book, Island Zombie: Iceland Writings (Princeton University Press). Plus, the questions Ben asks all the guests on A brush with..., including: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the Los Angeles-based painter Christina Quarles about her life and work through her influences and cultural experiences. Quarles discusses her powerful figurative paintings. "I see them," she says, "as being portraits not of looking at a body, but portraits of being within your own body." She discusses the effect of living in Los Angeles and arriving there as a child at the point when the city was engulfed in riots prompted by police brutality; how her work might be as influenced by tchotchkes found in a thrift store just as much as works in museums; how writers like Audre Lorde and James Baldwin influenced her thinking; and how she listens to epic musicals as she works. Plus, the questions asked of all the guests on A brush with..., including which contemporary artists she most admires and which work of art she would most like to live with. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson in depth about his influences and cultural experiences. Among much else, they discuss Kjartansson's love of 18th-century art and him being "horny in Rococo class" in school; his admiration for the painter Elizabeth Peyton; how reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray changed his life; and the collaborative ethos behind his video-installation masterpiece The Visitors (2012)—which emerged from "longing to do something with your friends and people you admire". Plus, the questions asked of all the guests on A brush with..., including: if you could live with one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.