Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast

Dialogues is pleased to present an episode podcast from our colleagues at The New York Review. Private Life is hosted by Jarrett Earnest and this episode features an interview with writer Namwali Serpell on Toni Morrison, criticism, and narrative empathy.  Namwali Serpell is a professor of English at Harvard University. In addition to On Morrison, she is the author of the novels The Old Drift (201...

In this bonus live episode, Lucas Zwirner returns to the mic for an interview with Nicholas Fox Weber, the director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, to celebrate Weber’s new biography, titled Anni Albers: A Life. Over the course of the exchange, Weber opens up about the writing process behind this major new biography and shares some rare anecdotes from a lifetime spent working closely with t...

This special episode with Helen Molesworth and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh was taped in front of a live audience at David Zwirner New York for a 2023 exhibition of Gerhard Richter’s final paintings. A new exhibition of Richter’s celebrated photorealist landscape paintings from the 1960s to the 2000s, Gerhard Richter: Landschaften, is now on view at our 20th Street gallery in New York. The illuminating...

An interview with Michael Armitage about his unique use of material and color, and his singular approach to narrative on the occasion of his major retrospective at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. Titled The Promise of Change, the show is presented concurrently with the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale and on view through January 10, 2027. Armitage is also the founder of the N...

A conversation with artist Rachel Harrison and art historian Alex Kitnick on the occasion of a once-in-a-generation retrospective of Marcel Duchamp at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Alex Kitnick teaches art history at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.  Rachel Harrison is a Brooklyn-based artist. Learn more about the exhibition at MoMA.org.

Art historian Lisa Saltzman discusses Walter Benjamin’s final days in Paris before his suicide in 1940 and the network of intellectuals who saved his most prized possessions from World War II, including the Paul Klee drawing that inspired one of his most famous and trenchant texts, the Theses on the Philosophy of History.  The exhibition Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds is on view at the Jewish Mu...

Helen speaks to Rachel Hunter Himes, author of the essay “Black Block” in Triple Canopy, about the long history of black artists underserved by white critics, museums’ moral and political responsibility to the public, and more. Rachel Hunter Himes is an art writer, museum educator, and PhD candidate at Columbia University. Read “Black Block” here: https://canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/black-bloc...

Award-winning filmaker Todd Haynes and his longtime collaborator, film producer Christine Vachon, discuss their thirty-year creative partnership, from the emergence of the new queer cinema to the culture wars of the nineties.  In 1987, Haynes directed the short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. His first feature film, Poison, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. After Safe, which feature...

We revisit a conversation from the first season of Dialogues with critically acclaimed painter Rose Wylie, OBE RA, and actor Russell Tovey. Rose Wylie is the subject of a major retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, on view from February 28–April 19, 2026.Wylie, an admirer of cinema, and Tovey, a fan and collector of Wylie’s work, en

Acclaimed artist Amy Sillman and curator Donna De Salvo join Helen Molesworth for a deep dive into how an art exhibition comes to life. Amy Sillman is widely recognized as one of the most significant painters of her generation. Amy Sillman: Oh, Clock!, the artist’s first major institutional solo exhibition in Europe, was presented at Kunstmuseum Bern in 2024, before traveling to Ludwig Forum Aache...

Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and producer Matt Wolf joins Helen Molesworth to discuss his latest documentary series, Pee-wee as Himself, a revelatory documentary about the late Paul Reubens.   The HBO original two-part documentary Pee-wee as Himself is available to stream now on HBO Max. 

Every era has its own version of Leonardo da Vinci, according to art historian Stephen J. Campbell. Campbell joins Helen Molesworth to unpack the 21st century myth of the tech genius that surrounds the Renaissance artist.  Stephen J. Campbell is the Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor in the Department of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University. His books include Andrea Mantegna: Human...

Last week the Trump administration sharply escalated its impossible demands on the Smithsonian Institution. It's hard not to wonder when, rather than if this administration will come for the rest of our museums. With this in mind, Helen Molesworth invited Jill Medvedow, the former director of the ICA/Boston, for an explainer on how museums are funded, with the hopes of arming listeners with a deep...

Helen Molesworth and Steve Locke sort through the many exhibitions of the last year to highlight their favorites, from Jack Whitten at MoMA and Stanley Whitney at the ICA/Boston, to Bo Bartlett and Lisa Yuskavage. 

Helen Molesworth invites curator Mark Godfrey and artists Arthur Jafa and Steve Locke to discuss the work of Kerry James Marshall on the occasion of his acclaimed survey exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Kerry James Marshall: The Histories is on view through January 18, 2026 and will travel next to the Kunsthaus Zürich in Zurich, Switzerland, and the Musée d’art Moderne in Paris, Fr...

Helen is joined by writer Francine Prose, artist David Salle, and photographer Neil Selkirk for a conversation about Arbus’s singular importance. Francine Prose’s new novel, Five Weeks in the Country, will be published in May. David Salle is a painter and essayist living in New York. Neil Selkirk is a photographer and filmmaker and the only person to print the photographs of Diane Arbus other than...

An episode dedicated to Yayoi Kusama: arguably the most famous artist in the world and yet among the most indefinable, elusive, and transformative. Helen Molesworth is joined by scholar Jennifer DeVere Brody, art critic Johanna Fateman, and curator Catherine Taft to unpack the many versions of Yayoi Kusama—and her singular importance in 20th and 21st century art. A global travelling retrospective...

Helen Molesworth speaks to art historian and culture critic Jonathan Crary, whose recent books Scorched Earth and 24/7 constitute both a polemic against what he calls the “internet complex”—and a diagnosis of where society is now. Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University and is a founding coeditor of Zone Books.

With higher education facing existential threat under the current administration, Helen Molesworth speaks to art historian, critic, and educator Darby English about the difficulties of understanding this precise moment and the importance of discourse, independent thought, and history. Darby English is the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at University of Chicago and the author of numerou...

On the occasion of Joan Mitchell’s centennial year, Helen Molesworth speaks to artist Julie Mehretu and poet Eileen Myles about what Mitchell’s life and work means to them.  Julie Mehretu, (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Mehretu is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry...

Academy award-winning actor and writer Julianne Moore goes in depth on her craft, the art of filmmaking, and passion for design.  Julianne Moore has starred in numerous award-winning films since the 1990s, most recently in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door.  

Celebrated architect Annabelle Selldorf on her life and work, which includes numerous cultural spaces, from commercial galleries to major museums.  Selldorf Architects's most recent project, a critically acclaimed expansion of the Frick Collection in New York, opens to the public on April 17, 2025. David Zwirner’s new Chelsea building at 533 West 19th Street, also designed by Selldorf Architects,...

Helen Molesworth invited artists EJ Hill and Sarah Sze to listen to archival audio interviews with Ruth Asawa and discuss her ideas and art. Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, the first major posthumous retrospective of the artist, will be on view at SFMOMA from April 5–September 2, 2025 before travelling on to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, and to the Fondation B...

A revealing look into the real life behind the icon and Warhol Superstar Candy Darling. Cynthia Carr, author of the acclaimed Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz discusses her newest biography: Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. Carr is joined by MacArthur Fellow, singer-songwriter, and actor Vivian Bond, who narrated the audiobook. Cynthia Carr is a New York-based wri...

The history of a radical cooperative farm at Black Mountain College that defined both daily life and pedagogy at the birthplace of American art education. David Silver, an expert on the farm at Black Mountain college, tells the story of how Black Mountain students collaborated in order to survive.  David Silver is a professor of environmental studies and urban agriculture at the University of San...