Exhibitionistas: Notes on Art

Visual artist Ed Atkins’s work is an existential theatre with avatars, CGI, motion capture technology, traditional figural drawing, Unreal Engine, filmed performance, experimental writing and much more.  Architect and first-time guest on the podcast, Nick Taylor, and I, get lost, fall into the temporary exhibition through a faulty door, rush through the show to watch the timed film, return a secon...

Giuseppe Penone is a visual artist associated with the Arte Povera art movement . He reinvented sculpture , drawing , conceptual photography, art installation , through proto environmental art with the sensibility of a late late romantic . Curator and art critic Germano Celant created the term #artepovera in 1967 to highlight a tendency toward a use of reduced materia l or idea to its archetype ....

Contemporary drawing is one of art's best kept secrets: associated with sound, language and writing, it turns contemporary art into a meditative form of art-making engaging the spectator in a poetic and existential voyage. Led by Blank's discovery of sound within the daily practice of drawing, this episode is a sonic wandering and a philosophical exploration of the artist's work, en...

A pioneer of experimental cinema, but also conceptual technology (yes, I made this one up), Anthony McCall has built a unique place in the recent history and present of contemporary art. From the UK to the US, from analogue to digital, McCall has created a body of work as playful as it is culturally relevant. For more information about the exhibition go here . My co-host is Liberté Nutti, who you...

Emily is the co-host of this episode about art, transgression, female desire and the male gaze through photo montage, as cultural commentary and self-exploration. We re-visit the exhibition "Danger Came Smiling" at Hayward Gallery. A punk goddess whose image was used in the Buzzcocks’ EP Orgasm Addict (1977), Linder is an under-exposed contemporary artist. 99p glue, a scalpel, vintage ma...

What do our Gen X host and art curator Joana P. R. Neves and two Millenial guests see British contemporary artist Hardeep’s Pandhal’s exhibition “Inner World”? And how does neurodivergence (ADHD, Dyslexia, Synesthesia) affect perception and art appreciation? In fact, how does history and displacement come up in Pandhal’s European artistic culture? How does it blend with his Sikh culture, with his...

Alfredo Cramerotti and Auronda Scalera are a curatorial duo specialising in art and technology, dedicated to bridging digital and contemporary art. Why did the two curators choose to work together, and around the hot topic of art and AI? And why do we fear AI’s impact on creativity? Can we have a real assessment and definition of the metaverse and its potential as an art space? Are women artists s...

Contemporary art writer and curator, and host of the podcast, Joana P. R. Neves, is joined by art advisor Liberté Nuti, who pitched On Kawara’s ‘Date Paintings’. Why was the Japanese contemporary artist so elusive? As an art historian, Joana should introduce his artistic career, but also his biography. But how to go against the artist’s careful erasure of self? Indeed, why did On Kawara do everyth...

Friends Emily Harding, the art lover and exhibition goer, and Joana P. R. Neves, the art curator and writer, examine Lauren Halsey's exhibition. What was the Los Angeles-based black artist’s strategy with her maximalist, object laden environment? By being so specific to her community, how did it reposition what a spectator is and is their role in a show?   Did you enjoy the episode? Think abo...

The two friends who host the podcast, Joana, the art professional, and Emily, the dedicated art lover, are faced with a question: can contemporary art be a form of activism? Zanele Muholi is a South-African non-binary, queer photographer whose art-making focuses on their marginalized community as "visual activism". How, then, do portraits and self-portraiture pierce South-Africa’s LGBTQI...

Contemporary art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves interviews Stephen Ellcock on the occasion of the release of his fabulous book “Elements”. What drew him to this fascinating topic? And how did his ecological trepidation make it into the book? It’s impossible to ask a visual culture curator how they manage to present beauty and dread, spirituality and fear… But this delightful conversation wil...

The two Exhibitionistas friends, contemporary art curator Joana P. R. Neves and art lover Emily Harding examine the unexpectedly sensorial exhibition “Leap Year” by South Korean artist Haegue Yang. How did she accomplish such enchanting aesthetics–and huge sculptural objects–with simple, domestic materials?! Why are they so strange and yet familiar, almost nostalgic? Where do the Korean elements s...

Emily Harding, our favourite exhibition goer, is back for another exhibition discussion. Along with art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves, they visit beloved and prematurely deceased American contemporary artist Mike Kelley’s survey exhibition at Tate Modern. Is this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition an accurate experience of his work? What part did his upbringing and irreverent personality play in...

Joana P. R. Neves is an art curator but also an art fair artistic director. So, she invited art advisor Liberté Nuti to ask her: what does an art advisor do? And why is her job somewhat maligned? How does one decide to work in the modern art sector? But before anything else, what drew her to art in the first place? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a smal...

Our two Exhibitionistas friends, art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves and dedicated exhibition goer Emily Harding, visit The Curve at The Barbican to see the first institutional exhibition of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum's work in the UK, titled “It Will End in Tears”. How does the combination of film noir with its femme fatale characters resonate with Phatsimo’s mixed race characters? What i...

What art journey takes a female British contemporary artist from the status of provocative, unskilled [insert derogatory term for women] to national treasure and cancer survivor–stoma advocate? How did Tracey Emin become one of the most revered British artists, a recognized sculptor, drawer and painter? And why did she self-destroy so visibly at the beginning of her artistic career, which, in turn...

If this was a Friends episode, we would have titled it "The One Where Emily and Joana ask Each Other Questions". But it's not, so we decided to describe it as an origin story: we go back to the reasons why we decided to do this podcast and why it has such a distinctive format: an arts specialist and an exhibition goer candidly discussing solo exhibitions. This intro is a way to ease...

In art spaces, there is a sort of overlooked paradox: visitors are free, everything is made for them to enjoy the art and yet, there are written and unwritten art rules.   Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista Are art spaces intimidating? And if so, why? Do art professionals also experience the discomb...

Who is Judy Chicago, beyond her status of feminist pioneer and powerhouse? Our two Exhibitionistas friends, art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves and dedicated art lover and exhibition goer Emily Harding engage in an art conversation about the female American contemporary artist’s debut abstract works, up to the more figurative and activist art for which she is known. This is a retrospective ex...

Do artists mourn with their art? What is the very special power of painting–and drawing–in matters of the soul? Our two Exhibitionistas friends, art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves and dedicated art lover and exhibition goer Emily Harding engage in an art conversation about Matthew Krishanu’s contemporary painting exhibition at Camden Art Centre “When the Bough Breaks”.  Did you enjoy the epi...

Dedicated art lover, Exhibitionista Emily Harding and art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves chose an understated exhibition at the heart of the Royal Academy in London: Lubaina Himid’s drawings for her life-size Turner Prize installation “Naming the Money”.  British Artist and advocate for Black Artists’ visibility, Lubaina Himid, shows here small sized portraits, delightfully drawn, depicting...

Our two friends, dedicated art lover, Exhibitionista Emily Harding and art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves visit Moroccan contemporary artist Soufiane Ababri’s exhibition at The Barbican. How do the artist’s colourful, appealing drawings decolonise the mind while being totally truthful to the queer, trans, gay environment he depicts? How does the artist ask us to engage with notions of diaspo...

As seasoned an art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves might be, and as used to exhibitions non-art expert but dedicated art lover Emily Harding has been for a while, nothing had prepared them for an exhibition that changes your heart rate, slows you down, and inspires you to take a nap with a cat! How can a ‘simple’ painting exhibition produce such a strong impact? And how did the two friends en...

Art Lover and dedicated exhibition goer Emily Harding discusses with art curator Joana P. R. Neves the exhibition of US artist Aria Dean at the I.C.A. in London. Will Abattoir U.S.A.! with its gaming inspired video offer a critique of today’s America? Why does Dean use the theme of the slaughterhouse? And will Dean's book Bad Infinity: Selected Writings (Sternberg Press) with several referenc...

Friends Joana and Emily, an art curator and an art lover, cannot believe they managed to talk about the exhibition but... they used their imagination, and so will you. Follow them virtually in this exploration of Ono's life and work, and, more importantly, her exhibition.  From Part 1: Was Yoko Ono a conceptual artist before she hit the mainstream by falling in love with one of the most famou...