The Art Show

British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien on his latest works: a spellbinding interpretation of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi and a portrait of 19th C. abolitionist Fredrick Douglass. Plus, Heather B. Swann's potent retelling of the Greek myth 'Leda and the swan', where Leda is at the centre of the story. And why you should know the name Thanakupi -- the pioneering ceramic artist...

Jennifer Herd is a Mbarbarrum artist and founding member of Brisbane's proppaNOW art collective.

Floods have ravaged art galleries and studios in northern New South Wales. We hear from a gallery director and artist Megan Cope. Plus Ukrainian-Australian artist Stanislava Pinchuk. And a spotlight on the bold modernist printmaker Ethel Spowers.

Dianne Jones is a provocative photo-media artist who manipulates images from colonial art to give prominence to Indigenous people.

The goddess of love has reigned supreme through Western art, but her roots are darker, more ancient and shape-shifting than you'd expect. Historian and TV presenter Prof Bettany Hughes joins Daniel to tell the surprising history of Venus/Aphrodite. Plus, a seascape painter who lives on a yacht, and step into the studio of Yul Scarf, who uses ceramics, old bricks and the revived tech of QR codes, t...

Laurel Nannup is a Noongar artist and elder who grew up near Pinjara in Western Australia. As part of the Stolen Generation she was taken from her mother at the age of 8 and sent to the Wanderling Mission.

Who makes up “the canon” in Art today? A new book picks 50 artists from around the world, and across centuries, to take a meaningful snapshot of art masters. Plus, a curator on 16th C. artist Lavinia Fontana, Europe's first female professional painter. And Atong Atem's panoramic collage that charts 10 years of life, family and art.

Julie Gough is a Trawlwoolway artist whose practice often refers to her family's experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people and is held in many private collections and major galleries in Australia.

Patricia Piccinini is Australia’s foremost artist exploring the relationship between humanity and technology, and the ethical tensions it inspires in the viewer. Plus, introducing our new segment My Art Crush. Jess Cochrane on the impact of Édouard Manet's Olympia on her work. And Thea Anamara Perkins on family legacy and NFTs.

Julie Dowling is considered one of Australia's greatest exponents of the family portrait, but always with an Indigenous focus.

Vivienne Binns shocked critics in the 1960s with her joyful paintings of giant genitalia and Dada-inspired assemblages. Now aged 81, she looks back at a vast arts practice that has never stopped questioning: what is art, and what do we want to say with it? Plus, Jazmina Cininas' magical take on a DIY folk instrument that conjures Pagan myths and Lithuanian folk lore.

Know My Name Series Two: interviews with Indigenous women artists from the ABC archives. In this episode meet Fiona Foley, a Badtjala artist from K'gari in Queensland

How does mindfulness stimulate artists? Meet the artists and curators of a new exhibition exploring mindfulness and meditation, called Presence of Mind. Plus, meet Gulnara Samoilova, founder of the global project Women Street Photographers.

Enter the eclectic studio and thought-provoking work of the Wiradjuri installation artist Karla Dickens. Plus, is the Aboriginal flag, now freed from copyright restrictions, a work of art? And the 'wild clay' movement, where potters dig their own.

How has social media giant Instagram changed how we experience art? Experts, artists and critics weigh in on the photo sharing platform, an evolution that's allowed artists to build careers outside of the gallery system, while drastically changing our consumption of art.

Anne Wallace paints film-like scenes of intimacy and psychological tension that speak to iso life and the female gaze. Plus, the found photo archive that documents China's embrace of capitalism.

The rediscovery of Hilma af Klint's abstract paintings has taken the art world by storm, but what meaning can we find in her powerful, mysterious work? Plus, artist and designer W.H. Chong on the secret behind the perfect book cover. And head into the bush with immersive landscape painter Mary Tonkin.

Performance art tests the limits of the body and the gallery space. Fiona Kelly McGregor's latest book relives its bracing ascendancy in Sydney's queer and underground scene, and the well-known and lesser-known artists who lived and breathed it. Plus, performance artists Justin Shoulder and Stelarc. And, how do art galleries preserve performance art?

What if the use of white in classical sculpture was just a construct? For the ancient Greeks and Romans, sculptures were brightly-coloured affairs, clad in vivid red gowns with red lips, and pink or olive skin. Now scholars and artists want us to see that, too.

Franklin Sirmans is the curator of Family: Visions of a Shared Humanity, an exhibition of video works by renowned Black American, British and Canadian artists, including Arthur Jafa and Garrett Bradley. Plus, 'hyper-surreal' sculpture made with fake food. And enter the studio of Darwin plein air painter Max Bowden  as she works through the Top End’s Build Up season.  

The enduring power of Jeffrey Smart's urban wastelands, and his comparatively beautiful life in Tuscany, as told by the late artist's partner Ermes De Zan. Plus, visit the studio of Natalya Hughes as she works on an installation of mid-century aesthetics and Freud's psychoanalytic theory.

US artist Doug Aitken looks to the future through the hyperconnected present, in New Era.|Plus, enter the studio of Robert Andrew, whose programmable machines imprint ochre residue and missing histories. And a real-life art thriller documentary centred around the 'lost Leonardo da Vinci'.

We take stock of NFTs and hear from three people invested in the future of tokens, including Jonathan Zawada, collaborator to musician Flume. Plus, Bruno Booth on being an 'unwilling inspiration'. And Taloi Havini reclaims connections to land, culture and identity of Bougainville, PNG.

Christopher Pease wanted to create his own visual language, one that spoke to European art tradition and the hidden iconography of his Nyoongar ancestors. Plus, the horses that inspire Michael Zavros. And what happens when a painter loses half her hand? After a bad accident, Kaye Strange adapted.

A history of feminist art in Australia, painting western Tasmania and ice from a warming planet, at COP26.