The Art Newspaper Weekly

This week, we look at two great women artists: at last, we visit the postponed Artemisia exhibition at the National Gallery in London, taking a tour with its curator Letizia Treves, and picking out some of the extraordinary highlights of the show. And we also explore a new biography of Frida Kahlo with its author, Hettie Judah. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With UK museums and galleries in crisis, might the Royal Academy of Arts be forced to sell its Michelangelo? We look at the story that has emerged in recent days that some Royal Academicians—the artists and architects that run the RA—are suggesting selling the Taddei Tondo to prevent huge job losses and keep the Academy afloat. Also this week: Margaret Carrigan speaks to Legacy Russell, the author of a new book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, about how her ideas relate to the world of art and museums. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, Imma Ramos of the British Museum chooses 19th-century figure of the goddess Kali, which features in the Tantra exhibition she has curated at the museum, which has just opened. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week: the artist Grayson Perry has a new exhibition and documentary series about the United States. What can a British artist and broadcaster tell us about the faultlines in American culture? Louisa Buck talks to him in his show at Victoria Miro in London. Ben Luke talks to the curator and art historian Robert Storr, the author of a huge new book about the painter Philip Guston. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, Margaret Carrigan talks to the artist Jacolby Satterwhite about Édouard Manet’s masterpiece Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the grass). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It’s Berlin Art Week, and unusually for 2020, art fairs, a biennale, and a range of exhibitions are all opening at once in the German capital. But is Berlin still the thriving art centre it’s been over the last two decades? We talk to the Canadian artist and adoptive Berliner AA Bronson about participating in one of the big shows opening this week, at the legendary Berghain nightclub, and about his experience of living in the city. We hear from the veteran art dealer Thomas Schulte about Berlin’s return to normality. And, in this episode’s Work of the Week, we talk to the artist Jadé Fadojutimi about an Untitled painting by Laura Owens in the Tate Collection. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this first episode of the new season, we talk to Erich Hatala Matthes, associate professor of philosophy at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, US—who’s writing a book on immoral artists—about how useful the notion of “cancelling” may be. With The Art Newspaper’s correspondent Tom Seymour and the photographer and lecturer Lewis Bush we explore the cases of Martin Parr and David Alan Harvey, two photographers whose activities have recently come under scrutiny. And, In this episode’s Work of the Week, the artist Tavares Strachan talks about Robert Smithson’s seminal earthwork from 1970, the Spiral Jetty. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Week in Art, sponsored by Christie’s, is The Art Newspaper’s topical news podcast, released every Friday. Each week, we look at the big stories in the art world, from museums and the major exhibitions to heritage and the art market. We talk to the top artists and museum directors; we take tours of the essential shows; and our experts analyse the latest events and trends across the art scene. Plus, in every episode we ask a leading art-world figure—from artists and curators to critics and art historians—to choose a favourite piece of art in our Work of the Week. Join us every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A new series of The Week in Art podcast will begin on 4 September; expect all the latest art world news, exclusive interviews, exhibition tours and much more. In the meantime, why not subscribe to A brush with..., the brand new podcast from The Art Newspaper, which we launched this week. You can hear the trailer in this podcast. The first episode, A brush with... Michael Armitage, is out now, and three more in-depth conversations with painters are released in the coming weeks. There are also details of the next event in The Art Newspaper Live series on our YouTube channel: on 13 August, our host Ben Luke will talk to Russell Tovey and Robert Diament from the art podcast Talk Art. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, in our last episode of this series, we look at the top exhibitions you can see this summer in the UK, Europe and the US, with Anna Brady and Gareth Harris joining Ben Luke in London, and Helen Stoilas, Nancy Kenney and Jillian Steinhauer in New York. We also reflect on the anxieties and ethics of visiting galleries as Covid-19 remains widespread.And we have our usual Work of the Week, this time chosen by the artist Hassan Hajjaj, who looks at an album cover, Doctor Alimantado’s 1978 debut The Best Dressed Chicken in Town, and discusses how it influenced his own photography. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We explore the Serpentine Galleries’ new report into Future Art Ecosystems: with existing art industry models under threat, can new ones emerge in the post-coronavirus era? We talk to Ben Vickers, the Serpentine Galleries’ chief technology officer, about art and advanced technologies. As his BBC radio series Great Gallery Tours continues, we hear from a Simon Schama, who is marooned in Trump’s America yet yearns for a sunlit morning on the Thames in London: his choice for our Work of the Week is J.M.W. Turner’s Mortlake Terrace: Early Summer Morning in the Frick in New York. And as unemployment in the US surges past Great Depression-era levels, we look at a historic cultural programme that may have pointers for this moment: the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act or CETA, a response to the economic crisis of the 1970s.Links:The Art Newspaper: theartnewspaper.comThe Serpentine Galleries' Future Art Ecosystems report: https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/future-art-ecosystems/Simon Schama's B

This week, as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown hit museums, we’re seeing unprecedented layoffs on both sides of the Atlantic. We ask: are museums doing all they can to save their staff? We look at the latest developments in the UK and US, where hundreds of museum workers are losing their jobs.Our museums editor, Hannah McGivern sets the scene in the US and Europe, our senior editor Margaret Carrigan speaks to Dana Kopel, the New Museum Union’s unit chair, and Frankie Altamura, one of the union’s stewards, both of whom lost their jobs at the museum this week, about the growing movement for museum workers’ rights across the US and whether institutions can care for their workers. And we speak to Steven Warwick of the Public and Commercial Services union about the effect of the job cuts in UK museums on his members.This week’s Work of the Week is chosen by Emily Butler, a curator at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, about Rhea Storr’s film Junkanoo Talk (2017). You can see the full film h

What is the future of the art world in Hong Kong now that a new national security law curbs human rights and threatens freedom of expression? We look at the effects on artists and the wider art scene with two people based there: the artist Kacey Wong and the commentator Alexandra Seno.And in our Work of the Week Alyce Mahon, the author of the new book The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde, explores one of Leonor Fini’s illustrations for Story of O by Pauline Réage. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, we look at the destruction on 24 May of sacred Aboriginal sites in Western Australia by a mining company. We talk to Sven Ouzman, an archeologist and activist at the University of Western Australia about the most recent events and the wider context. Can anything be done to better protect Aboriginal country and Australia’s ancient heritage? Also, this week, as a Russian referendum approves Vladimir Putin’s new constitution—a foregone conclusion, of course—we look at the Russia's alarming crackdown on artists.And in the latest in our series Lonely Works, in which explore art behind the doors of museums closed due to Covid-19, we look at a work that will soon be lonely no more. The artist George Shaw tells us about Thomas Jones’s A Wall in Naples, which will be seen for the first time in more than three months at the National Gallery in London when it re-opens on 8 July. Links:Our full guide to gallery openings in UK, Europe and the USThomas Jones's A Wall in Naples at the National GalleryTh

Plus, artist Rita Keegan on her postponed show and Julia Peyton-Jones on Leonardo See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week we address the toppling of statues around the world amid the Black Lives Matter protests: is this an airbrushing of history as some claim or a long overdue corrective to historic prejudices?We explore what happens now: we talk to Richard Benjamin, the director of the International Slavery Museum (ISM) in Liverpool, UK, about the events which saw the pulling down of the statue of the slaver Edward Colston in Bristol and how museums like ISM can respond to the increased focus on histories of the transatlantic slave trade. We speak to Astrid de Bruycker, the alderwoman for equal opportunities in Ghent, Belgium, where a bust of Leopold II, the king responsible for one of the most brutal of all the colonial regimes, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is being removed. And Hew Locke, the artist who has made works about problematic statuary in various parts of the globe for many years, tells us about his work as some of the statues he has addressed become flashpoints for a new movement. H

On this week's podcast, as galleries in London re-open amid a pandemic, we ask: what does the new normal look like for the art world?Ben Luke takes his first steps in an art gallery for three months and talks to Stefan Ratibor and Millicent Wilner at the Gagosian Gallery in London as they plan to re-open on the 15 June. We look at the ways that galleries across the British capital have joined together to share information and plan for the future. Is this a new, kinder era for commercial galleries? Jo Stella-Sawicka from the Goodman Gallery offers her views. And in the latest in our series of Lonely Works behind the doors of closed museums, the artist Deborah Roberts explores Benny Andrews’s No More Games in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, we talk about the history of black resistance in the US and how the art world can respond to this latest tragedy. As protests grow throughout the country, Margaret Carrigan, one of The Art Newspaper’s senior editors in New York, speaks to Spencer Crew, the interim director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, about the museum’s Talking About Race online portal. Also this week, we pay tribute to Christo, who died earlier this week. With his collaborator and wife Jeanne-Claude, Christo most famously wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin in coloured fabric. And in the latest in our series of Lonely Works behind the doors of closed museums, Caro Howell, the director of the Foundling Museum in London, explores William Hogarth’s portrait of Thomas Coram, the painting that is the cornerstone of the Foundling’s collection—which she now hasn’t seen for months because of the coronavirus lockdown. See acast.c

As cultural institutions across the world are faced with deciding if and when to re-open, we look at two extremes: we hear from Brandon Zech, the publisher of the Texas-based art publication Glasstire, about a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, one of the first museums in the US to re-open. And we discuss the Southbank Centre in London’s announcement that it’s at risk of closure until April 2021, with Ralph Rugoff, the director of the Hayward Gallery, one of the centre’s venues. And in the latest in our series Lonely Works—about objects in museums that are closed due to the virus—the artist Michael Rakowitz tells us about some ancient Sumerian figurines in the Oriental Institute in Chicago. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode begins by celebrating good news: that the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of works by Raphael at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome—which only opened for three days before being closed due to Covid-19 in March—will re-open on 2 June and run for three months until 30 August. The show, which begins with Raphael’s death and moves back in time, is the jewel in the crown of the celebrations across Europe and the US marking the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death. Hugo Chapman, the Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and a Raphael specialist, heralds the genius of an artist whose fame has somewhat unfairly been eclipsed by Leonardo and by his great rival Michelangelo.Also this week: the renaissance of mail art. Margaret Carrigan looks at the radical history of art in the post with Mariam Kienle, assistant professor of art history at the University of Kentucky, and about its revival as the US postal service is under threat from the Trump administration.And in the latest in the series Lone

This week would have been so-called "gigaweek", with the major auctions of Impressionist, Modern and contemporary art in New York. The events have, of course, been postponed. But are collectors buying art online instead? An explosion of digital initiatives and online galleries or viewing rooms followed the cancellation of fairs and the closure of auction houses and galleries over recent months due to the coronavirus. So this week, we’re looking at the implications of going digital for the art market.We talk to Scott Reyburn, who writes on the art market for The New York Times as well as The Art Newspaper, and our art market editors Anna Brady and Margaret Carrigan take us through some of the initiatives including their experience of the viewing room for Frieze New York. Also this week, in the latest in our Lonely Work series, exploring art behind closed doors in museums… Rebecca Salter, the president of the Royal Academy in London, tells us about Cemetery (1900-02) by the Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert, and g

This week, we have an exclusive interview with Marina Abramovic: what's the future of performance in the post-pandemic art world? Also, as the lockdown steadily eases in Germany, we ask Catherine Hickley, The Art Newspaper's correspondent in Berlin, how it feels to step foot in a museum again. And in the latest in our Lonely Works series, the painter Ian Davenport tells us why he’s made a new body of work inspired by Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in the Bath (1936). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.