The Art Show

Dylan Mooney's work celebrates young Black characters embodying queer love. And he does it in a bold, heartfelt graphic style that is proving irresistibly popular with audiences. Plus, Ali Tahayori on the poet Hafez, and creating art about queerness and otherness, through kaleidoscopic mirrors.

Jennifer Higgie talks about her new book on women artists and the spirit world. Plus, Daniel visits the largest collection of artworks by the Victorian medium Georgiana Houghton, held at a spiritualist church.

2023 is going to be the year of AI art . If you’ve been playing around with text-to-image apps like DALL-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, you know how remarkable the technology is and how fast it’s moving. UNSW AI Institute's  Prof Toby Walsh talks about the history of artificial intelligence and art, artist Kim Leutwyler on the experience of having your artwork used to ‘train’ AI (without consent) and Ro...

Five years ago, Texta Queen was riding high with a mid-career survey show, that should have marked a significant  achievement for the artist. Instead, it resulted in a kind of burnout with the whole system. It led the artist to find new ways to have a career independent of the gallery system and build towards a residency project for other queer, disabled and BIPOC artists, called They Swarm. 

Jerry Saltz   is the Pulitzer prize-winning art critic for New York Magazine. Before he turned his hand to writing at the age of 40, he drove long-haul trucks and was a failed visual artist. Jerry reckons the gatekeepers of the art world have effectively 'effed off' and now anyone can —and must— take part. Jerry Saltz's latest book of essays is Art is Life .

Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators.

Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators.

Enter the eclectic studio and thought-provoking work of the Wiradjuri installation artist Karla Dickens. Plus, we look at ‘wild clay', the DIY-trend for gathering your own. But before you pull on gumboots and pick up a shovel – what are the ethics of digging up your own clay? 

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian-Ukrainian photographer who captures human activity on Earth that's normally too big to perceive, except through aerial photography.

Cressida Campbell is best known for beautiful scenes of domestic interiors and still life arrangements, achieved through an intriguing technique. Kind of a cross between painting and printmaking. She is now the subject of a big solo show. Plus we visit the big new Sydney Modern Project.

Classicist Mary Beard examines art inspired by the lives and excesses of the Caesars, who wielded power in cruel and immoral ways.

You know the Japanese superstar artist Yayoi Kusama for her polka dots and infinity mirror rooms, and giant spotted pumpkins.

A trash-talking episode of The Art Show. We live on a planet choking on post-consumer waste and single-use plastics, so is it any wonder that more and more artists are using it as a serious material?

Dame Barbara Hepworth is a revered figure in British art, who has never had a dedicated solo show in Australia. Her abstract sculptures echo the coastal landscape where she lived, and the human body. She wanted viewers to touch her artwork and move around it, and she rejected the pristine art gallery. For Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium , Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan chat to Daniel about cur...

We meet a member of Taring Padi , the Indonesian artists' collective at the centre of an art controversy at Documenta 15 , the prestigious art show held every five years in Germany. In 2022 the show was plagued by accusations of antisemitism, but the Indonesian artists say the ensuing maelstrom prevented meaningful dialogue. Featuring Alex Supertono from Taring Padi, art historian Terry Smith and...

British filmmaker Phil Grabsky is responsible for a prolific number of documentaries about famous artists, often in collaboration with large museums. Plus, Julia Gutman on 'painting with fabric' and finding a relatable muse. And Leila Jeffreys' inimitable bird portraits seem to reach into the avian soul. 

We look at the love story between two of modern art's greats: Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns... but is it visible in their work? Plus, meet Patrick Pound: the artist who's lovingly collected 60-thousand photographs for his fascinating photographic arrangements. And for My Art Crush, curator Prof Natalie King on why seeing Botticelli's the Birth of Venus led her to switch a law degree for art...

Australian-born Polly Borland is best known for photographing kink sub cultures, Nick Cave and the late Queen, but she has also long been experimenting with the surreal. She tells Daniel about her shift to sculpture and her true feelings about photographing the late monarch. Plus, who was Janet Sobel? The unlikely abstract artist who used paint drips and splatters before Jackson Pollack 'furtively...

In the 1960s Vivienne Binns scandalised critics with her joyfully sexual paintings of giant genitalia and Dada-inspired pop art. But instead of following her expected path, Binns abandoned painting and devoted herself to community art projects and the Feminist art movement. Plus, a spotlight on pioneering ceramic artist Thanakupi, from Napranum (Weipa). And a short history of the smile in western...

Paul Yore's colourful artworks riff off pop culture, queer identity, religion and politics. In 2014, he was embroiled in a censorship scandal that saw him charged with child pornography (later dropped) over images he used in a collage, part of an exhibition in honour of the Australian avant-garde artist Mike Brown. Paul talks to Daniel about the impact of the case and his new survey show, full of...

Kara Walker is one of America’s most significant living artists, known for cut-paper silhouettes and gigantic public sculptures, using the visual artefacts of slavery in nightmarish black and white scenes. Daniel speaks with Kara from her Brooklyn studio, for the National Gallery f Australia's Annual Lecture. Plus, pick up a pen and draw your plants! Our resident drawing instructor Lily Mae Martin...

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian-Ukrainian photographer who hangs out of helicopters to capture aerial scenes of rapid industrialisation and destruction, on Earth. So how does he pick his monumental subjects? And what has he witnessed over his 40-year career? Plus, this week on The Drawing Board, Daniel and Lily Mae Martin talk about how to draw hands. Why can they be so hard to get right?! And Aust...