'Every time you put a mark on a painting and you can't take it off, you are running the risk of destroying the painting,' says artist Glenn Brown. 'But that's what makes it exciting to paint.'
In the sixth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast 2025, British artist Glenn Brown – who has pioneered the use of visual appropriation in his work – and curator Arturo Galansino discuss the jeopardy and excitement of mark-making, and what it means to collect, display and distort the work of old masters.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.
About the speakers
Glenn Brown CBE is a British contemporary artist known for the use of appropriation in his paintings. His solo presentation was also a highlight of the Studio section at Frieze Masters 2025. He is joined by Arturo Galansino, art historian, curator, director general of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence and this year's curator of the Frieze Masters Talks programme.
About the Frieze Masters Podcast
The Frieze Masters Podcast is back for 2025, bringing you seven conversations across art history curated by Arturo Galansino (Director General of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence).
Entitled 'Woven Histories' and recorded live at Frieze Masters 2025, this year's series features artists, curators and thinkers, whose conversations weave together geographies and chronologies, and challenge us to look at history in new and unexpected ways.
Topics range from the evolving relationship between fashion and art to the role of the archive in Black history, the last Mughals and their cultural influence in India and the enduring inspiration of the old masters and renaissance art on contemporary making. Speakers include artists Tracey Emin, Glenn Brown and Antony Gormley, museum directors and curators Nicholas Cullinan, Émilie Hammen, Elizabeth Way and Carl Strehlke, and writers Edward George, Matthew Harle, Christopher Rothko and William Dalrymple.
Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.
Image credit: detail, Glenn Brown, Rabbit Hole, 2025. Acrylic and India ink on panel, 30 x 20 inches (76.2 x 50.6 cm). Framed: 40 x 29 3/4 x 2 inches (101.4 x 75.4 x 5 cm © Glenn Brown, Photo: The Brown Collection, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian