Frieze Masters Podcast

In the final episode of the 2025 Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Antony Gormley and curator Arturo Galansino discuss how sculpture can help us reconnect with our bodies and the world around us. Gormley asks, 'how can we make it about feeling and collective futures – rather than particularly powerful individuals?' 'How can we make it intimate again?' Sir Antony Gormley CH OBE RA is a British sculpto...

'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...

Is fashion art? Curators Émilie Hammen, Elizabeth Way and Arturo Galansino discuss the overlapping histories of fashion and art, and how contemporary designers are reconfiguring fashion's place in culture.   'Art, going back to the Renaissance, is emotional. It's intellectual, is apart from the body even as they paint are painting real life.' says Way. 'The Pre-Raphaelites and the arts and crafts...

'Bahadur Shah Zafar writes poetry in six different languages and through the sheer brilliance of his example, he provokes this last great renaissance in Delhi.' – William Darymple   In th e  fourth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast 2025, writer  and broadcaster  William Dalrymple discusses  the  art,  poetry  and politics of  the last  Mughals with  curator  Arturo  Galansino .  T ogether, t h...

The Image of the Black archive at The Warburg Institute comprises more than 30,000 images documenting representations of people of African descent from antiquity to the civil rights era. In 2025, image s from this collection w ere shown in public for the first time as part of 'Black Atlas', an exhibition and moving-image essay directed by Edward George and produced by Matthew Harle – Arturo Galans...

When Mark Rothko  visited Fra Angelico's frescoes at the  c onvent of San Marco in Florence, he was   ' overwhelmed ,' recounts his son, the psychologist and writer Christopher Rothko.   ' That's  what he wanted for his viewer ,' says Rothko,   't o look at his artwork as sources of inspiration,  spirituality and contemplation.'   In the  second episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast 2025, Christop...

' M y discovery of early Renaissance art was completely by accident in the National Gallery, by just walking down a few more stairs ... I'd  stay there for about an hour, and then I would come out,  I'd  close my eyes, and as I pushed the doors, I would imagine my paintings ' .   –Tracey Emin   In the first episode of the  2025  Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Tracey Emin, Nic h olas Cullinan (dire...

' Whe n yo u mak e a painting, yo u wan t to mak e a good painting. You are more intereste d in the composition of the thing s , tha n in the precis e description of the thing s .' – Nathalie Du Pasquier   In the seventh and final episode of Series 3 of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Nathalie Du Pasquier, architect Annabelle Selldorf and Curator Abraham Thomas discuss the plasticity of the cre...

'If I can let the viewer stand in front of my painting and question – if they can ask a question – this is success.' – Glenn Ligon   How does the written and spoken word relate to the visual language of painting, sculpture and installation? To discuss this connection and the power and potential of poetry , the sixth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast brings together artists Glenn Ligon and Dia...

' What's left for art? Art can offer ritual and ceremony, a communal place where bodies can gather. It's a place where t hings can happen visually, musically, sonically, and in dance and with the voice. ' – Mark Leckey   In the fifth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, a rtist Mark Leckey, curator Polly Staple and D irector of Art Fund Jenny Waldman reflect on the le gacy and future of British...

'Isn ' t to exhibit to historicize?' – Julian Rose   Artist Nairy Baghramian , D irector of the Museum of Modern Art Glenn Lowry and historian Julian Rose all have extensive experience of presenting art in public places and thinking about civic spaces. In th e fourth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast , they come together to rethink the role and design of museums in shaping cultural exchange. ...

' The viewer makes the painting alive. Without the viewer, that thing doesn't exist .' – Shirazeh Houshiary   What happens to our understanding of painting when we expand the canon across eras and cultures? In the third episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, a rtist Shirazeh Houshiary , D irector of the National Gallery Gabriele Finaldi and arts editor Jan Dalley reflect o n the celebration and su...

'You have an idea and it goes off in another direction and you either pull it back or you go on the journey. I knew I wanted to make some portraits, but I also knew I didn't want to. I wanted to create some tension.' – Barbara Walker   In the second episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artists Barbara Walker and Ming Smith, and writer and curator Lou Stoppard discuss the evolution of portraiture...

'What do we want the UK to look like in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years in terms of culture?' – Victoria Siddall The first episode of the 2024 Frieze Masters Podcast brings together Sir Chris Bryant MP, artist Jeremy Deller and new director of the National Portrait Gallery Victoria Siddall to talk about 'Good Governance'. How can everyone in the UK access art? And what role should government play in...

'Sex, death, race and religion' – these are the topics that the London-based artists Gilbert and George announced they wanted to cover in this talk with Dr Nicholas Cullinan of the National Portrait Gallery. On Context offers insights into the artist's relationship to concepts: from sculpture to the city, 'picture making' to posterity. Gilbert and George resist many of the contexts and interpretat...

The London home of Galerie Thaddeus Ropac is a traditional eighteenth-century Mayfair townhouse, once home to the Bishop of Ely. But for artist Mandy El-Sayegh 's 2023 exhibition 'Interiors', its spaces were transformed into a riot of colour and pattern across paintings, textiles and furniture. In On Interiors , El-Sayegh talks to Dr Flavia Frigeri of the National Portrait Gallery, and Valerie Cas...

The year 1993 marked a watershed for the famous Turner Prize, when it was awarded for the first time to a woman. That artist was Rachel Whiteread and the work was House in East London. In On Space , Whiteread is in conversation with the art historian Briony Fer . Together, they discuss the urges and concerns that underpin Whiteread's work, from seminal works of the 1990s to her more recent project...

In On Power , London-based multidisciplinary artist Thomas J Price is in conversation with Dr Gus Casely-Hayford , the inaugural Director of V&A East. Together, they reflect on how monuments created for the public realm are not just aesthetic objects but artefacts often bound up in values, ideologies and power systems. Price, in his words, wants to convey 'the sense of another person' and has spen...

In 2023, Frieze Masters fair sought to break the artist's studio open to a new audience with a new section, Studio , curated by Sheena Wagstaff – the former Chairman of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Met and now Met's Chair Emerita. In  On Studios , Wagstaff talks with one of the Studio artists, Arlene Shechet , exploring how central the place and space of making is to her wo...

On Photography asks what it means today for an artist to work with a living, breathing icon, like the actress Tilda Swinton . Tim Walker , the noted artist and photographer, is joined by his long-time collaborator, stylist Jerry Stafford , to talk about their work together with Tilda Swinton. Dr Nicholas Cullinan , Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, moderates the conversation. 'Whe...

In  On Display , artist Shirin Neshat is in conversation with Jamie Fobert , the architect of London's newly reopened National Portrait Gallery, and its Director, Dr Nicholas Cullinan , moderated by Tim Marlow , Director of the Design Museum. Neshat reflects on her 2018 portrait of Nobel Peace Prize awardee Malala Yousafzai that was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery. The conversation e...

In 2005, British artists Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas met at the historic Colony Room Club in London's Soho. There, they discovered that they shared the same irreverent and unapologetic attitude – and even the same birthday. In  On Rebellion , chaired by Louisa Buck , these two British artists discuss their influences, their reactions to rules and expectations, facing up to mortality and being e...

Frieze Masters presents this conversation with Anthea Hamilton & Nicholas Cullinan in partnership with Studio Voltaire @studiovoltairelondon . Their conversation explores the trajectory of Hamilton's work, the geopolitical basis of her identity as a 'Londoner' and how elements from the 'fourth dimension' shape her work.   "We're actually functioning in a four-dimensional space, and I tried to thin...

Frieze Masters presents Love Lucian: The Letters and Early Life of Lucian Freud in partnership with the Freud Museum ( @freudmuseum )   . This episode features Hannah Rothschild in conversation with Martin Gayford and David Dawson , speaking on their new publication and the first exhibition of Lucian Freud's works at the Freud Museum London.   Exploring the overlapping themes present in both Love...

Frieze Masters presents this conversation with Kamala Ibrahim Ishag and Hans Ulrich Obrist in partnership with the Serpentine ( @serpentineuk ). To celebrate the opening of her solo exhibition at Serpentine, Ishag returns to the RCA where she studied in the 1960s. She discusses her background, her relationship with nature and the influence of the Sudanese Zār cult on her work.   "If people are rea...