The Art World: What If...?!

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The Art World: In Other Words, Collector Sylvio Perlstein on Trading Diamonds with Man Ray Jun 15, 2018

Show notes

"Because Sylvio is courageous, I was able to buy more hamburgers to keep up my strength, and more paint to continue painting," said artist Robert Ryman about collector Sylvio Perlstein, who was a patron of his at a time when few others were interested.

Born in Belgium, Perlstein grew up in Rio de Janeiro, where his family moved when fleeing the Nazis in 1939. Perlstein bought his first work of art from a florist in Brazil; over the course of the next five decades, he would add more than 1,000 works to his collection by artists including Man Ray; Duchamp; Carl Andre; Diane Arbus; Hans Bellmer; Magritte Solowitz; Donald Judd; Hannah Kirk; Max Ernst; Bruce Nauman; Edward Shea; and Andy Warhol—to name just a few.

"For me, it was not even a collection. It was things that I saw, and I liked," Perlstein says. "To tell you the truth, I never count them. I'm not well organized."

A selection of works from the Perlstein collection is now on show at Hauser & Wirth, New York ("A Luta Continua", until 27 June). Reflecting on the differences between the art world then and now, Perlstein tells host Charlotte Burns: "Today, it's not so much art anymore; it's a real business. At that time, you could easily acquire works from the artist because it was more about friendship."

From exchanging diamonds for art with Man Ray to hanging out with artists in New York in the 1970s at the legendary Max's Kansas City, Perlstein talks about a life in art and his tastes ("ugly can be nice, too," he says).

"What does it mean, art? Anything. You can make art from shoes, from a nice bag, from a hat— it's also art. Everything is art," he says. "Buy what you like."

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-sylvio-perlstein/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, Don't Stop Believing, with Artist Glenn Kaino May 31, 2018

Show notes

"When people ask me how to describe the work or describe myself, I always just start by saying artist," says Glenn Kaino. "Everything stems from the art practice."

The visionary American conceptual artist's work has led him to become an off-Broadway producer, a performer, a magician, a social activist and the technological innovator who helped legalize the music download platform Napster.

A "horrible" trip to an art fair in 2008 caused Kaino to close his studio for a year, unhappy with "how much influence an overall, overriding economic system" was having on art making. He decided instead to "go hang out with a bunch of magicians and see what happens—because they know something about believing".

Magic is "why we do what we do, as artists", says Kaino, who went on to co-produce the off-Broadway magic show "In and Of Itself"—which is smashing box office records. Both magic and art are about belief for Kaino, who says: "Belief has always been at the core of the practice; it's really belief about the power of art."

One of his long-term collaborations is with the Olympian Tommie Smith, who famously accepted the gold medal for the 200m race in 1968 with his fist held aloft, in solidarity with the fight for human rights. "We, as beneficiaries of his sacrifice, can create systems that pay homage to—and also pay—him," Kaino says. "The art I know actually has tangible change, in that it makes people think in different ways or makes people engage in different ideas."

During today's podcast, which was recorded in Los Angeles with Matthew Thompson (vice president of AAP in Los Angeles) and our host Charlotte Burns, Kaino talks about subjects as diverse as Jurassic Park; diversity in tech; partnering with actor and activist Jesse Williams; his interest in "connecting ecosystems that don't normally have a chance to meet"; upcoming projects—and much more.

Tune in today.

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-glenn-kaino/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, Our Take on the May 2018 Auctions May 24, 2018

Show notes

Huge sums of money—more than $2.6bn—have been spent on Impressionist, Modern and contemporary art over the past two weeks in New York. On today's podcast, Nicholas Maclean (of London and New York dealership Eykyn Maclean) and Allan Schwartzman (co-founder of AAP), discuss with our host Charlotte Burns (editor of In Other Words), what happened: what the surprises were; what trends we can detect; and what's going to happen next.

Here are some choice soundbites:

"It is a sign that the market is starved for broadening what it sees as valuable. This is a big triumph; this is a turning point in perception" — Allan Schwartzman

"I honestly thought that this could be the death knell for the Impressionist market. And then we saw it: that change between 2005 and 2008 was extraordinary" — Nicholas Maclean

"This question of identities seems to me to be a very American one. I think Americans, and perhaps the American market, are more open to approaching their own identities" — Charlotte Burns

"True collectors who will just look across the board and look at artists that tell the whole story are becoming rarer" — Nicholas Maclean

For this and more, tune in today.

Transcript link:

http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-auction-analysis/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, Wrestling With Artist Carroll Dunham May 17, 2018

Show notes

"There's no goal to being an artist—you keep doing it and then, in theory, one dies," says Carroll Dunham, who Allan Schwartzman describes as one of the greatest painters of the past 40 years.

Art is a "kind of lustful driving forwards" for Dunham, who has moved from abstraction to figuration over the course of his varied career. Works from his "Wrestlers" series are currently on show at Gladstone Gallery in New York (until 16 June). "I wanted to try to find a male equivalent to the women that I had been drawing and painting, which I had thought of as being rather primeval in some way," Dunham says. "They are naked white guys beating the crap out of each other. I'm not claiming any special relevance or meaning for these things. They just allow me to keep making paintings."

Dunham talks to Schwartzman and host Charlotte Burns about how his life and work—and the broader art community—have changed since moving from the bustle of New York, where he spent his early career, to the solitude of rural Connecticut.

Known for his incisive writing about other artists' work, Dunham discusses how this exercise has helped his practice. The essays included in the recently published Into Words: The Selected Writings of Carroll Dunham (2017) represented "a diagram of my issues with myself and things I was grappling with in my own work", he says.

For this, and much more, tune in today.

Transcript link:

http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-carroll-dunham/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, Art World Outliers, With Lynne Cooke May 03, 2018

Show notes

One of the most talked about exhibitions this year, "Outliers and American Vanguard Art", closes next week at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (13 May), after which it will travel to the High Museum in Atlanta and then to LACMA.

Our guest today is Lynne Cooke, the senior curator of special projects at the NGA who spent five years researching the exhibition. Talking to our host Charlotte Burns, Cooke says much of the art on show was made by people on the peripheries, often in marginalized positions because of their gender, race, class or age. "A great deal was made by African-American artists. Their work is simply not entered into the circuits and orbits of the contemporary art world for lack of opportunity, for lack of education, for lack of money. As I said: class, race."

The exhibition comprises around 270 works by more than 80 artists and focuses on periods of social, political, economic and cultural upheaval in the United States, during which times the boundaries between the avant-garde and the outliers—self-taught, marginalized, Outsider artists—became more porous.

One of the most thoughtful curators working today, Cooke talks to us about her experience preparing the show, which "called into question a whole set of ideas about creativity and the basis on which innovation and originality and exploration take place".

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-lynne-cooke/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, The Future Of The Museum Apr 19, 2018

Show notes

This week we bring you a special episode from Hong Kong, where we staged our first ever live In Other Words event on 29 March, a panel discussion on "The Future of The Museum". Our guests included Michael Govan, director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Doryun Chong, deputy director and chief curator, M+ in Hong Kong; and Allan Schwartzman. The panel was introduced by Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby's Asia and moderated by Charlotte Burns.

Joining us remotely was Budi Tek, the founder of the Yuz Museum and Foundation, Shanghai, who broke the news of an unprecedented collaboration between Yuz and LACMA. This opened a discussion about the increasing willingness of museum directors and private patrons to collaborate and share. Our panelists also spoke about where innovation is taking place geographically; about cultural norms and how they manifest differently region to region; and about new technologies, such as augmented reality, and how they might impact museums and exhibition making. These are, of course, just a few of the topics covered. Tune in for the rest.

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-the-future-of-the-museum-2/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, The Man Behind Bowie: the V&A's Geoffrey Marsh Apr 05, 2018

Show notes

Almost two million people so far have visited the blockbuster exhibition "David Bowie Is", on show now at the Brooklyn Museum (until 15 July).

The exhibition was masterminded by Geoffrey Marsh, the director of London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) theater and performing arts department. He has organized several other major "immersive" exhibitions, harnessing state-of-the-art audio and visuals to tell narratives in new ways, such as "You Say You Want A Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970" (2016-17) and "Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains" (2017).

He joins our host Charlotte Burns in London to talk about combing through Bowie's collection to tell the story of how this music legend evolved.

Marsh also talks about how new technologies—specifically augmented reality—are about to change the ways in which exhibitions are curated and experienced, as well as the role of the museum itself.

He also discusses his dream exhibition: "a show so powerful that probably 10% of people would walk out because they hated it. For the other 90%, it would have had a very profound effect. I know it's possible," Marsh says. Pointing out that most people can remember seeing their first dinosaur skeleton in museums, he believes there is "something hardwired into us about profound visual experiences which, in a weird way, I think we may have lost in museums and galleries." That sense of curiosity and wonder is something Marsh is working to bring back as we enter what he calls a "golden age of museums being able to engage with completely new publics in different ways".

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, What's On The Menu, With Daniella Luxembourg & Amalia Dayan Mar 22, 2018

Show notes

The gallerists Daniella Luxembourg and Amalia Dayan specialize in cutting-edge Contemporary art and overlooked 20th-century art. They have in common with AAP co-founder Allan Schwartzman a passion for postwar Italian art and, during this podcast, the trio discuss the market for art from this period.

They also discuss this current moment as one of real transition in the broader market, during which time tastes and demand are shifting. During the conversation, moderated by host Charlotte Burns, Luxembourg & Dayan speak about the difference between their London and New York businesses (Europe sells and America buys) and what impact Brexit might have. They talk about ugliness and struggle in art; the fall of Empires; their own personal obsessions—art and food.

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-daniella-luxembourg-amalia-dayan/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, The Art of Criticism with Jerry Saltz Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

Jerry Saltz, perhaps the most well-known art writer working today, has been the senior art critic of New York magazine since 2006. During this interview with our host Charlotte Burns, which was recorded in the downtown offices of New York magazine, Saltz talks about a range of topics: from how he approaches viewing and reviewing art, to what he calls the "ass-holeness" of his social media persona.

Before becoming a critic, Saltz was an artist and a long-distance truck driver, and he discusses the benefits of being a late-bloomer. He defines what great art means to him and describes a recent exhibition of work by an artist who could be the "strongest to emerge this century in America." We are, he says, "living in a crisis and it's time to look at the art of the present. I want to see what artists say now."

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-jerry-saltz/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

The Art World: In Other Words, Dealing Art with Thaddaeus Ropac Feb 22, 2018

Show notes

From fetching beer for Joseph Beuys to the implications of Brexit and new borders, the Austrian art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac talks frankly about a range of topics in a conversation with our host Charlotte Burns, including the dangers of becoming too corporate; plans for his own collection; and his expectations for the art market in 2018.

Recorded in London, where Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac recently opened a fifth space (there are four others across Salzburg and Paris), Ropac shares his views on topics including the emerging art centres in the Middle East and China; the vibrancy of the Paris art scene; the pervasiveness of art fairs; and the importance of maintaining the trust of his artists.

Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-thaddaeus-ropac/

"In Other Words" is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby's, produced by Audiation.fm.

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