Art from the Outside

This episode, we are hugely excited to be joined by the artist Igshaan Adams.

Born in Bonteheuwel, a suburb in Cape Town, South Africa in 1982, Igshaan draws upon his background to contest racial, sexual and religious boundaries. This intersectional topography remains visible throughout his practice. Speaking about his work, Igshaan has said: "I’m interested in the personal stories recorded on the surface. What is recorded is not necessarily always a factual account but can be what is imagined – a combination of myth-making and meaning-making."

Igshaan has had solo exhibitions around the world, including at The Art Institute of Chicago, the Hayward Gallery in London, and the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, just to name a few. Plus, this June, we can look forward to a new solo exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield (which, as someone from the UK, Will is especially excited about).

Igshaan has also participated in numerous international group shows, including the Islamic Arts Biennale (2023) in Jeddah, the Venice Biennale, and – where Will had the pleasure of getting to meet Igshaan in person, the São Paulo Bienal. He is also included in the show Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at the Barbican Gallery in London. It will run from the 13th of February to the 26th of May 2024.

Igshaan is represented by blank projects, Thomas Dane Gallery, and Casey Kaplan.

This episode, we are thrilled to be joined by the visionary collector, philanthropist, Pamela Kramlich. Over the last 35 years, alongside her husband Richard Kramlich, Pamela has built one of the most distinguished and expansive collections of time-based media art. The collection, which includes over 200 works of film, video, slide, and installation, as well as more than 250 works of photography, sculpture, painting, and drawing is predominantly located in their home in Napa Valley California, where they commissioned Herzog and de Meuron to design a residence and exhibition space.

Pam is also the founder of the New Art Trust, one of the most important nonprofits leading the conversation around conservation, presentation, and public education for “new media” art. This incredible organization has been instrumental in building new practices around how we view, maintain, and think about art work today.

In addition to that, Pam is a distinguished philanthropist, sitting on the board of SF MoMA in addition to many other organizations.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Bill Viola
• Dara Birnbaum
• P Staff
• Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron
• Matthew Barney
• Leo Villareal
• Loie Hollowell
• Lynn Hershman Leeson
• Nan Goldin
• Christian Marclay
• Isaac Julien
• Robert Mapplethorpe
• William Kentridge

This episode we have the privilege of speaking with the legendary photographer and artist Ming Smith.

During a career spanning almost six decades, Smith has documented everyday moments while pushing the limits of photography as a medium. Her distinct style combines a deliberate blurriness with experimental post-production techniques including double exposure, collage, and painting to amplify the works’ dream-like qualities.

Well known for her in-action portraits of notable cultural icons - from James Baldwin to Grace Jones - Smith’s ethereal compositions celebrate the richness of Black culture and the African diaspora. In 1972, Ming joined the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of Black photographers established in New York City.

Born in Detroit, Michigan and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Smith earned a Bachelor of Science from Howard University before moving to New York in the early 1970’s, where she now lives and works.

Smith’s work has been exhibited in critically-acclaimed exhibitions including MoMA’s ‘Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography’; Brooklyn Museum’s ‘We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85.’ and one of my personal favorites - ‘Soul of a Nation’ which opened at Tate Modern, and traveled to Brooklyn Museum, Crystal Bridges and The Broad.

In addition, Smith’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C. - just to name a few.

Some artists and individuals discussed in this episode:

• Diane Arbus
• Roy DeCarava
• Romare Bearden
• David Hammons
• Linda Goode Bryant
• Jacob Lawrence
• Ed Clark
• Elizabeth Catlett
• Jayne Cortez
• Michael Jordan
• Thelma Golden

This episode we are excited to be joined the pioneering artist and activist Marilyn Minter.

Minter deftly explores American culture’s pathology of glamor through painting, photography, and video works which focus primarily on the female body and its treatment in popular media. 

Well known for her meticulous technical mastery, Minter’s details often highlight natural corporeal qualities that are omitted in mass-media depictions of women, such as body hair and stretch marks.

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1948, Minter earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida at Gainesville and a Master of Fine Arts from Syracuse University before moving to New York in 1976, where she now lives and works.

Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Tate Modern in London; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and the Perez Art Museum in Miami - just to name a few.

In addition, Minter is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist's Fellowship Grant - among many others.

Marilyn is represented by LGDR, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Baldwin Gallery, Aspen.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Jackson Pollock
• Lizzo
• Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski
• Bruce Nauman
• Diane Arbus
• Joan Mitchell
• David Hammons
• Helen Frankenthaler
• Robert Gober
• John Currin
• Jenna Gribbon
• Cindy Sherman
• Laurie Simmons
• Kara Walker
• Jessica Stockholder
• Larry Clark

This episode, we are honored to be joined by the incredible, Turner Prize-nominated artist and filmmaker, Isaac Julien.

Born in 1960 in London, Isaac is one of the leading artists working in film and video today. His 1989 film Looking for Langston garnered a cult following with this poetic exploration of Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.

Over the past three decades he has made work using multi-screen installations to express fractured narratives exploring memory and desire. 

Earlier this year, he was commissioned by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia to create a work to celebrate the museums’ centennial. Titled Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die), the immersive five-screen installation b explored the relationship between the museum’s founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, and the famed philosopher and cultural critic Alain Locke.

In even more exciting news, next year, Isaac will be the subject of a solo exhibition at London’s Tate Britain in April, presenting a survey of his work from the last 40 years. Isaac was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2017 and was knighted by the Queenin the 2022 for services to diversity and inclusion in art.

Some artists, curators, and actors discussed in this episode:

• Sankofa Film and Video Collective
• Maggie Cheung
• David Bowie and Marc Bolan
• Barry Jenkins
• Mark Nash
• James Franco
• Tilda Swinton

This episode we are so excited to be joined by a brilliant artist who we both greatly admire: Derrick Adams.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1970; Derrick's work spans painting, collage, sculpture, performance, video, and sound installations. His multidisciplinary practice engages the ways in which individuals’ ideals, aspirations, and personae become attached to specific objects, colors, textures, symbols, and ideologies. 

This April, Adams was awarded a $1.25 M. grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an archive devoted to Black culture in Baltimore. He will also soon be opening a residency for Black creatives in Baltimore called The Last Resort Artist Retreat (TLRAR). You can read more at tlrar.org.

Derrick earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute and a Master of Fine Arts at Columbia University. His work resides in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art - just to name a few. In addition, Derrick is a recipient of a Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship, a Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award - among others.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Kehinde Wiley
• Rirkrit Tiravanija
• Michael Joo
• Mark Dion
• Kara Walker
• Coco Fusco
• Ed Clark
• Frank Bowling
• Howardena Pindell
• Senga Nengudi
• Al Loving
• Mickalene Thomas
• Shinique Smith
• Nathaniel Mary Quinn
• Leslie Hewitt
• Mika Tajima
• Chitra Ganesh
• Patrick Kelly (fashion designer and artist)
• Bob Thompson 
• Richard Mayhew
• Albert Chong

This episode we are so excited to be chatting with the incredible artist Kahlil Robert Irving. Currently living and working in St. Louis, MO, Kahlil's work encompasses ceramics, sculpture, site-specific wallpaper, and other mediums to mine the archive of visual culture and explore notions of Blackness.

In December 2021, Kahlil opened his first museum solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, titled Projects: Kahlil Robert Irving. His work has been exhibited at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas; the Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles; and the RISD Museum in Rhode Island - amongst others. He was selected to participate in the 2019 Great Rivers Biennial hosted by Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis where he had a solo exhibition in May 2020. In 2018 his first institutional solo exhibition “Street Matter decay and forever: golden age” took place at Wesleyan University Center of the Arts in CT and was accompanied by a full color catalog with essays and an interview. 

His work is in the collection the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas; and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh; and the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. He received his MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art in Washington University in St. Louis; and he got his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in Art History & Ceramics. 

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Dayanita Singh
• Kelley Walker
• Alex Da Corte
• Elizabeth Catlett
• Robert Gober
• Chuck Close
• William Pope.L
• Willie White
• Royal Robertson
• Lee Bontecou
• Glenn Ligon

This episode we are beyond thrilled to be joined by incredible artist Chitra Ganesh. Born and raised in Brooklyn and Queens, and currently based in Brooklyn, Chitra’s multi-disciplinary practice encompasses drawing, painting, animations, collages, and many more media to question and disrupt narratives around gender, sexuality, power, and identity.

Anchored in the history of South Asia, her gorgeous and detailed works combine a vast array of influences including South Asian iconography, science fiction and queer theory, with the visual languages of vintage comics, Bollywood posters, and video games to stunning effect.

Chitra’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, and the Gothenburg Kunsthalle in Sweden - just to name a few.

Her work is represented in the collections of museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Kiran Nadar Museum in Delhi, India.

Beyond her list of awards and fellowships, what makes this especially exciting is that an exhibition of Chitra’s work will be opening on February 18th at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel
• Hothead Paisan by Diane DiMassa
• Louise Bourgeois
• Howardena Pindell
• Kara Walker
• Janine Antoni
• Zarina
• Martha Rosler
• Coco Fusco
• Mariam Ghani

This episode, we are thrilled to be joined by brilliantly creative artist Barbara Kasten. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Barbara originally trained as a painter and textile artist at the University of Arizona (BFA), the California College of Arts & Crafts (MFA), before turning to photography in the early 1970s. 

Working for over 40 years, she frequently uses mirrors, lights, and props for conceptually-based pieces that explore notions of perception and reality, figuration and abstraction. 

Barbara’s work has been exhibited extensively around the world. In 2015, she was given her first (and long overdue) survey of her work at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. Since then, she has been the subject of solo exhibitions at major institutions including the Aspen Museum of Art and the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in Wolfsburg, Germany. Last fall, she was the subject of yet another solo exhibition at the prestigious Sammlung Goetz in Munich, Germany. Her work is also in the permanent collection of many exceptional institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate in London, and the Pompidou in Paris.

Barbara is also a widely lauded thinker and the recipient of multiple awards and prizes. She holds the position of Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago and was notably the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Magdalena Abakanowicz
• Ansel Adams
• Imogen Cunningham
• Jacques Henri Lartigue
• László Moholy-Nagy
• Helen Frankenthaler 
• Jackson Pollock
• Florence Henri
• Lisette Model
• Diane Arbus
• Louise Dahl-Wolfe
• Gisèle Freund
• Eiko Yamazawa
• Lorraine O'Grady

WELCOME TO SEASON 2 OF ART FROM THE OUTSIDE!!

We are so excited to kick off season two with the innovative artist Nari Ward! Originally from Jamaica; Ward works across a variety of media including: sculpture, installation, performance, photography and video. 

He is best known for his use of found-objects, such as baby strollers, cash registers and shoelaces, to compose sculptural installations that provoke complex thoughts regarding racism, poverty, and consumer culture. 

Ward earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from City University of New York, Hunter College and a Master of Fine Arts from Brooklyn College. 

His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas - just to name a few.

In addition, Ward is the recipient of numerous honors including the Fellowship Award from United States Artists; the Rome Prize from American Academy of Rome; and awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts - among many others.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Piero Manzoni
• Mark Rothko
• Jacob Lawrence
• Romare Bearden
• David Hammons
• Howardena Pindell
• Lee Bontecou
• Melvin Edwards
• Betye Saar

This episode, we are delighted to be joined by the multi-disciplinary artist and dear friend Paul Maheke.

Based in London but originally from France, Paul’s practice focused on dance but encompasses a collaborative body of work comprising performance, installation, sound and video. His work considers the potential of the body as an archive in order to examine how memory and identity is formed and constituted.

Recent solo exhibitions include “A fire circle for a public hearing” at the Chisenhale gallery in London (2018) and Vleeshal Middelburg (2019), and “I Lost Track of the Swarm” at the South London Gallery (2016).

Paul has also performed his work at major events across the world, including at the 2019 Venice Biennale (which was curated by another guest, Aaron Cezar), the 2019 Performa Biennial in New York, and the 2018 Baltic Triennial in Estonia (which is where I actually had the true pleasure of getting to meet Paul).

He completed an MA Art Practice from École nationale supérieure d'arts de Cergy (2011) and was an Associate of Open School East's Programme of study. He is represented by Galerie Sultana and Goodman Gallery.

His most recent work, Taboo Durag, is a new solo performance touching on personal trauma and healing and is part of the Glasgow International 2021. It is viewable every Saturday from 19 June – 31 July, midnight – midnight BST as part of the Digital Programming for the Glasgow International. In June it was announced that he had been commissioned by Artangel to produce a sound art and installations at Orford Ness, a barren shingle spit on England's Suffolk Coast, exploring the history of 'the island of secrets.'

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Surya Bonaly (ice skater)
• Michael Jackson
• Audre Lorde
• Felix Gonzalez-Torres
• Édouard Glissant (writer)
• Paul B. Preciado (writer)
• Grace Jones
• Lauren Hill
• Beyonce
• Björk
• Hannah Black
• Fred Moten
• Wu Tsang
• Bruce Nauman

This episode, we are very fortunate to be joined by the fabulous Aaron Cezar. Aaron is the Director of the Delfina Foundation, a London-based artist residency program that, since its founding in 2007, has hosted over 300 artists from more than 70 countries. Some familiar alumni include Kevin Beasley, Rana Begum, Michael Rakowitz, Wael Shawky, and Eric N. Mack, just to name a few.

Aaron is also an active curator and was somewhat of a trailblazer as the curator of the performance program at the 2019 Venice Biennale. As part of the official public program, he conceived the opening week and final weekend performances with Ralph Rugoff. 

We’re especially excited to be chatting with Aaron as he is one of the jurors for the Turner Prize, one of the most important art prizes in the UK. 

Aaron has curated external exhibitions, performances and programs at Hayward Gallery Project Space, SongEun Artspace, ArtBo, and Art Dubai, to name a few. Aaron has moderated high profile discussions in conferences as well as in the context of art fairs including Art Basel, Frieze and Art Brussels. He has written for The Art Newspaper, Harper’s Bazaar, and ArtAsiaPacific, among others.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Gilbert and George
• Anne Imhoff
• Zadie Xa
• Solange Knowles
• Array Collective
• Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S)
• Cooking Sections
• Gentle/Radical
• Project Art Works

This episode, we are extremely lucky to be joined by the pioneering artist, Phyllida Barlow. We talk about her early memories of the art world, how she continues to evolve her practice, what it's like to be a working artist and a parent, getting a CBE, and much more!

Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne in England, Phyllida works across media including painting, sculpture, and drawing. She is known for using materials such as plaster, cement and scrim to turn the conventions of sculpture on its head. Phyllida has been widely exhibited across the globe, including, most recently, a solo show at the Royal Academy in London in 2019 and, just this month an exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany. She presented an installation for the Tate Britain Commission 2014 in the museum's Duveen Galleries. Phyllida was also included in the 2013 Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, PA, which was co-curated by another Art from the Outside guest, Tina Kukielski. Phyllida Barlow is represented by Hauser and Wirth. 

In addition, among an almost never ending list of (very intimidating) accomplishments, Phyllida was was made a CBE for her services to the arts in 2015 and, in 2017, Barlow represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Francois-Xavier Lalanne
• François Lalanne
• Robert Clatworthy
• Elisabeth Frink
• Henry Moore
• Barbara Hepworth
• Fabian Peake
• Eddie Peake
• Florence Peake

This episode we are thrilled to be joined by an amazing gallerist - and friend - Jessica Silverman. Jessica founded her namesake gallery in 2008 in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district; after completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art at Otis College in Los Angeles and a Master of Arts in Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. 

Since then, the gallery has moved to a newly renovated space in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood, with an impressive roster of artists such as: Judy Chicago, Hugh Scott-Douglas, Isaac Julien, Andrea Bowers, and (one of our personal favorites) Hayal Pozanti - just to name a few. 

Renowned for punching above its weight, the gallery has an international reputation for curating compelling exhibitions and building artists’ careers. 

This episode we are hugely excited to be joined by the definition defying artist Dayanita Singh.

Based in New Delhi, India, Dayanita started taking photographs in the early 1980s, soon expanding into photojournalism. Her practice has grown to span photography, bookmaking, installations, and perhaps most famously since 2012, museum directing.

Her work has been presented at the Hayward Gallery in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, as well the Venice Biennale. Her work is also in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate in London, as well as the subject of several books.

She is the winner of multiple awards and perhaps most well-known for her Museum Bhavan, which won the 2017 PhotoBook of the Year in the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards and, in 2018, was awarded the Infinity Award of the International Center of Photography. 

This episode, we are very lucky to speak with the visionary collector, philanthropist, and our personal art world hero, Pamela Joyner.

Based in San Francisco, California, Pamela is a true champion for artists of African descent. Together with her husband Fred Giuffrida, she has built one of the world’s leading collections of  artworks by Black and African diaspora artists, including deep holdings of works by artists including Alma Thomas, Mark Bradford, Jack Whitten, and Sam Gilliam - among many others.

Their collection has been the subject of several museum exhibitions, including shows at Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The collection is also documented in the beautiful book, Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art.

Pamela is also a distinguished and highly active philanthropist, sitting on the boards of multiple non-profit institutions, including the San Francisco MoMA, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tate Americas foundation. She is also a founding member of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums an organization of and for Black trustees currently serving on the boards of art museums within the United States. 

Some artists discussed:

• Doron Langberg
• Leonardo Drew
• Alma Thomas
• Norman Lewis
• Sam Gilliam
• Mark Bradford
• Emanoel Araujo
• Rachel Jones
• Charles Gaines
• Malik Gaines
• Lauren Halsey
• Rodney McMillian
• Catherine Opie
• David Huffman
• Jordan Casteel
• Kerry James Marshall 
• Lorna Simpson
• William Kentridge
• Christina Quarles
• Michael Armitage
• Jean-Michel Basquiat

In this episode we speak with the inspiring and brilliant artist, Jeffrey Gibson.

Jeffrey Gibson’s practice combines the cultural and artistic traditions of his Cherokee and Choctaw heritage with the visual languages of Modernism and themes from contemporary popular culture. 

Born in Colorado Springs, CO in 1972, Gibson grew up in urban centers in the United States, Germany, Korea, and England; which helped to influence his cross-cultural aesthetic. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master of Arts in painting at the Royal College of Art in London. 

Gibson’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Denver Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas - among many others. 

Gibson’s previous exhibitions include, Jeffrey Gibson, ‘LIKE A HAMMER,’ organized by the Denver Art Museum, and ‘This Is The Day,’ organized by The Wellin Museum. Other notable solo exhibitions include: ‘The Anthropophagic Effect’ (2019) The New Museum, New York; ‘Look How Far We’ve Come!’ (2017), Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee; ‘Jeffrey Gibson: Speak to Me,’ (2017), Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Oklahoma City; and ‘A Kind of Confession’ (2016), Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, Savannah. He was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial and was featured in the outdoor exhibition “Monuments Now,” at Socrates Sculpture Park, in Long Island City.

Gibson is a recipient of numerous awards, notably a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship; Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant; and Creative Capital Foundation Grant. He is currently an artist-in-residence and professor at Bard College and is based in Hudson, New York.

This episode, we’re honored to be joined by curator, writer, and museum director Laura Raicovich.

Laura is currently the interim director of New York’s Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, one of the world’s only museums dedicated to the presentation queer art. Prior to assuming this role, Laura was the President and Executive Director of the Queens Museum in New York, where she was instrumental in transforming the museum to better serve its community, as well as expanding its roster of world-class exhibitions. During her tenure, she oversaw exhibitions of Mel Chin, William Gropper, and a show called Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk, an exploration of the band's punk ethics of resistance and roots in Queens.

Before the Queens Museum, Laura spent several years at Creative Time, the Dia: Art Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum, and many other incredible institutions.

Laura has also authored and edited several books, including "At the Lightning Field" (Coffee House Press, 2017) and "A Diary of Mysterious Difficulties" (Publication Studio, 2014). This year, she will also be launching a book on museums and the myth of neutrality titled "Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest," published by Verso Books.

Some artists (and others) discussed in this episode:

• Keith Haring
• Mel Chin
• Tracy Reese
• The Ramones
• William Gropper
• Rebecca Solnit
• Duke Riley
• Mariam Ghani
• Alfred Jensen
• Dan Graham
• Jorge Pardo
• Gerhard Richter
• Mierle Laderman Ukeles
• Elie Wiesel (who wrote, "we must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere")
• Michelle Alexander (author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)

This episode we are extremely excited to be talking to the boundary defying collector, philanthropist, and general art world powerhouse, Nadia Samdani. 

Based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Nadia is the founder and director of the Samdani Art Foundation, which she launched in 2011 and has now become one of the leading non-profits focused on supporting the arts in and across South East Asia. 

In her role as Director of the Samdani Art Foundation, Nadia led the launch of the Dkaha Art Summit in 2012, a multifaceted, interdisciplinary biennial that brings together curators, artists, and other arts professionals from around the globe. 

Nadia is also very active philanthropically. She and her husband Rajeeb were founding members of the Tate’s South Asian Acquisition Committee.  And In 2017, with her husband Rajeeb, she was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. 

In 2014 the Samdanis were nominated in the Young Collector of the Year category for the Forbes India Art Award, in recognition of their impressive collection of artists such as Anish Kapoor, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat, Ravinder Reddy, Chitra Ganesh, and Subodh Gupta. 

Nadia and Rajeeb plan to soon expand their art empire with another major achievement: the opening of the Srihatta–Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park, which is currently slated to be inaugurated in 2021 in Sylhet, a city in eastern Bangladesh. 

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
• Haegue Yang
• Adrián Villar Rojas
• Ayesha Sultana
• Munem Wasif
• Reetu Sattar
• Yasmin Jahan Nupur
• Sadie Benning

This episode, we welcome the legendary artist Ursula von Rydinsvard. Known for her highly personal and often monumental sculptures in cedar and bronze, Ursula  has been working in Brooklyn, New York for the past 30 years. 

This episode we are delighted to be joined by one of the most hard-working, inspiring people we know - the Iranian-American Brooklyn-based artist and activist - Amy Khoshbin. Amy’s practice pushes the formal and conceptual boundaries of art-making to foster progressive social change through performance, social practice, video, rap music, installation, tattooing, teaching and writing. 

She has shown at venues such as The Whitney Museum, The Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts, and Socrates Sculpture Park - just to name a few. In addition, Amy has received residencies at The Watermill Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Anderson Ranch. 

Wendy Olsoff is the co-founder of P.P.O.W. an incredible gallery in New York that she opened in 1983. Today, the gallery represents the estates of David Wojnarowicz, Carolee Schneeman, and Martin Wong, as well as contemporary artists like Carlos Motta, Betty Tompkins, Robin F. Williams, and Judith Linhares. 

Some artists we discuss in this episode:

• Carrie Mae Weems
• Peter Hujar
• Sue Coe
• Anton van Dalen
• Search Results
• Nicolas Moufarrege
• Nancy Spero
• Guadalupe Maravilla
• Terry Adkins
• KAWS