Twenty years ago Kathryn Scanlan (Kick the Latch, The Dominant Animal) acquired a diary at a public estate auction. It was kept by Cora E. Lacy, an eighty-six-year-old woman living in a small Illinois town, from 1968 to 1972. Scanlan began to compulsively read and reread the stranger’s diary. In the years following she edited, arranged and rearranged the dia ... Show More
Feb 25
Liliane Lijn & Jennifer Higgie: Liquid Reflections
In 1958 the 18-year-old Liliane Lijn left New York for Paris, determined to become an artist. Her captivating memoir Liquid Reflections (Hamish Hamilton) tells the story of her meetings with poets, painters, philosophers and revolutionaries and of the development of her groundbre ... Show More
1 h
Feb 11
Jeremy Atherton Lin & Diarmuid Hester: Deep House
Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Deep House (Allen Lane) is an unexpected romantic comedy haunted by centuries of gay ghosts. It’s 1996, and Jeremy, a young American, has met the British boy of his dreams – just as, amid a media frenzy, US Congress prepares the Defense of Marriage Act, deny ... Show More
1 h
Nov 2024
Maria Balshaw on Museums (+ Tracey Emin, Frida Kahlo, and more!)
I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is Maria Balshaw. Currently serving as Director of Tate, a position she has held since 2017, Balshaw began her career as an academic and lecturer in cultural studies. At the dawn of the 2000s, she swapped this to become Dire ... Show More
44m 22s
Nov 2023
A brush with... Sutapa Biswas
Sutapa Biswas talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Biswas was born in Santinekethan, India, in 1962, and her work in painting, drawing, photogra ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2024
American sculpture—race and racism, Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art, Jusepe de Ribera in Paris
<p>Shortly after the US election on 5 November, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington opens The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, a radical new perspective on the history of the discipline from 1792 to now. Ahead of its opening, Ben Luke speaks t ... Show More
1h 5m
Sep 2024
Episode 606 - Dmitry Samarov
Artist Dmitry Samarov returns to the show to bail me out after a stressful couple of weeks and to explore his fantastic new book, MAKING PICTURES IS HOW I TALK TO THE WORLD, a survey of his art from the '80s to today. We talk about the process of selecting pieces for the book, wh ... Show More
1h 35m
Apr 2025
S09E02 - Art Deco⏐Raymond Templier, a passion for speed
Movie stars have always worn jewelry. In the 1920s, the Art Deco style gradually took over red carpets and film reels. Worn by some of the greatest actresses of the day, from Louise Brooks to Brigitte Helm, Art-Deco jewelry was the epitome of modern beauty. Raymond Templier, one ... Show More
14m 23s
