The Art Show
Episodes
A Timor Leste artist heads to the Venice Biennale + a Yucky exhibition
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Maria Madeira escaped the Indonesian invasion of Timor Leste in 1975, to end up in a refugee camp in Portugal. In 2005 she returned as the first art...
The artist who takes you to West Africa, through sound and taste
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Emeka Ogboh used years of field recordings to create layered soundscapes of his hometown, Lagos in Nigeria. When he moved to Berlin, he added music...
The power couple behind this year's Sydney Biennale
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So, you're given the keys to Australia's largest visual art festival, what next? Romanian-born curator Cosmin Costinas and Colombian Inti Guerrero ...
Helen Molesworth on death of Carl Andre + Olana Janfa + Brent Harris
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Molesworth is a curator and writer who became widely known for her hit podcast Death of an Artist, about the artist Ana Mendieta, whose husban...
David Shrigley's sublimely silly, dark universe
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When you see a David Shrigley picture â at worst, youâll chuckle, at best youâll laugh out loud every time you think of it (which is sometimes...
Tacita Dean + Hydraulic Press Girl + conflict avocados
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tacita Dean is one of the UK's most acclaimed artists, best known for working with 16mm analogue film. Daniel speaks with her about recent work on i...
An artist paints her lush Far North home + the secrets of Vermeer
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi Hobson grew up on some of the most beautiful country on the continent, Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland, and is named after the hoo...
In the studio with painter Prudence Flint + photos of 'Humpty Doom'
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Painter Prudence Flint has a career spanning 35 years, best known for enigmatic pictures of female protagonists in surreal domestic scenes. Despite...
Catherine Opie's photos chart life changing decades for LGBTQI subjects + Rosie Westbrook
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel speaks with the pioneering US photographer, activist and UCLA Professor Catherine Opie, whose early portraits of her genderqueer community c...
The rise and rise of the artist-in-residence + Rosa Bonheur
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When did artists begin doing âresidenciesâ? From the patronage system of Renaissance Italy, to artistsâ colonies of the 19th Century and the ...
Jerry Saltz says 'show up' (you big scaredy cats) + the women artists who spoke to spirits
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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-ha...
Emily Kam Kngwarray took the art world by storm â but did it understand her?
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On our final show of the year, we look at the work and career of the great Emily Kam Kngwarray. A senior Anmatyerr woman from Utopia who took up...
Thomas J Price makes monuments to the real world + fairy tales in Art
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the middle of a rarefied gallery or in a busy city square, a bronze statue of a woman looms in front of you. But this figure isnât on a plinth o...
Lee Miller's glamorous Surrealism and dark wartime photography
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lee Miller cut a glamorous figure among the Bohemian art circles of Paris. As a fashion model she captured the eye and heart of Man Ray; as a gifted...
Meet world-building printmaker Brian Robinson + the art critic who wrote an encyclopedia
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators.
How psychoanalysis influenced the art of Louise Bourgeois
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Motherhood, childhood wounds and Freudian nightmares preoccupied the great sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who was especially iconic to younger followers...
Why are hundreds of ancient Thai relics locked in legal limbo?
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A culture that flourished 3,500 years ago in Thailand. They made jewellery and ceramics, not war.  You may never have heard of Ban Chiang âThat...
Kandinsky: the visionary artist 'brought back down to earth'
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vasily Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract painting, writing influential theories on spirituality and colour. But for all his correspondence, his inn...
An outback monastery hides the biggest art heist you've never heard of
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The town of New Norcia in WA is a monastery in the bush, home to a community of Benedictine monks and a treasure chest of 17th and 16th c. European r...
The artist who recreates 'petrichor' plus James Tylor and painting house flies
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine Sarah Young is an artist working with science to talk about the climate crisis. Most recently, she's making art about petrichor -- the s...
Lonnie Holley's creative universe plus Mary Beard on how the Caesars used Art to wield power
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
US artist Lonnie Holley is a prolific maker of things - whether itâs his assemblages of found objects or the fluid, jazz-style improvisations of h...
85,000 oyster shells at Sydney Opera House and an Impressionist video game
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We start this week's episode on a lapping city harbour where Quandamooka artist Megan Cope has prepared 85,000 oyster shells for her monumental ar...
Spencer Tunick's naked crowds plus fossil fuel sponsorship in the arts
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How important is the 'social license' provided by arts events to fossil fuel companies? How significant is the money provided to art festivals by tho...
Care ethics + can joining an art collective make you happier?
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do the much-talked about principles of care ethics apply to visual arts? Whether it be the treatment of others in the commercial art world, the...
Newell Harry sparks connections + Jim Moginie's Colour Wheel + the Whitely Art Scandal
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Newell Harry is one of those people that finds the connections, the invisible networks and chance encounters - that link us all. In his exhibition E...
Photographer Hoda Afshar: from Manus Island to whistleblowers and Iran's uprising
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hoda Afshar is a photo media artist known for examining people denied a voice, or those risking everything for freedom, or truth. At the same time, ...
Kara Walker stirs the pot with nightmarish visions of Antebellum America
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kara Walker is one of Americaâs most significant living artists, known for cut-paper silhouettes and gigantic public sculptures, using the visual ...
Art mirrors life in the work of these fiction authors + the ethnographic vision of Gary Lee
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There's an enduring appetite for novels about artists and their muses. Australian writers Kylie Needham (Girl in a Pink Dress) and Edwina Preston (Ba...
NATSIAA awards showcase the best of Australian Indigenous art
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A life-size sculpted tree complete with parrots and a wandering dog won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Art Awards (NATSIAA). Every eleme...
Tove Jansson's Moomins and the perfect art of picture framing
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Finnish artist Tove Jansson lived a richly unconventional life as a visual artist and writer and is best known as the creator of the troll characte...
She's got your number: 15 years of the Countess project + Gail Mabo + Mayco Naing
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2008 CoUNTess has been commenting and reporting on art institutions, prizes and journalism, exposing the unequal gender representation in the A...
Anne Zahalka turns her lens on her archive + gritty industrial scenes âin needlepoint
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1989 photographer Anne Zahalka recreated a well-known painting of stylised, muscular white Australians frolicking on the beach, into a multi-ethni...
Chinese-Australian dissident artist Badiucao + Anna Emina El Samad
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Badiucao is a Chinese-Australian political cartoonist and artist who makes work primarily about China's human rights record and role in internationa...
Prudence Flint's character studies + a beginner's guide to art openings
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Painter Prudence Flint has a career spanning 35 years, best known for enigmatic pictures of female protagonists in surreal domestic scenes. Despite a...
Maree Clarke looks deep into a rich material + Ida Sophia bears witness and Frida Kahlo returns to Australia
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maree Clarke is a key figure in the reclamation and revival of South East Australian Indigenous art, over a three-decade career. For Between Waves ...
The rise and rise of the Artist-in-Residence
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When did artists begin doing âresidenciesâ? From the patronage system of Renaissance Italy, to artistsâ colonies of the 19th Century and the d...
Hayley Millar Baker in Shadow Spirit + Marc Chagall at The Jewish Museum
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gunditjmara artist Hayley Millar Baker sets her latest film work at the witching hour, when the spirit world and physical overlap. Hayley previously ...
An introduction to Pierre Bonnard, misty seascapes and Marikit Santiago
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pierre Bonnard was a key artist in a movement that came after Impressionism: Les Nabis. Influenced by the flat colour and decorative elements of Jap...
Richard Bell takes his Embassy to UK's Tate Modern + what happens when an artist puts you in charge of their estate?
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Browning travels to London's Tate Modern, to speak with artist Richard Bell about his ongoing installation Embassy, inspired by the original A...
Louise Zhang on colour, the frying pan studio and Zico Albaiquni
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Louise Zhang uses a multi-hued palette and traditional Chinese symbols to explore the horror genre, spiritual beliefs and her own cultu...
Mithu Sen on being a provocateur, GPS Art and Danelle Bergstrom's Swedish journey
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Indian conceptual artist Mithu Sen talks about the idea of 'radical hospitality' and how she pokes fun at the art world's hierarchies. Plus, scien...
Mark Valenzuela, inside Vermeer's world and photos of 'Humpty Doom'
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Valenzuela makes magical sculptural installations based on a military upbringing and living in two worlds - Australia and the Philippines. Plus...
Julia Gutman wins the Archibald Prize and finding the real Clarice Beckett
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Julia Gutman won Australia's most prestigious painting prize for a portrait sewn with fabric. She chats to guest host Rosa Ellen about her winning ...
A famous portrait tells an uncomfortable story + artists take over a sewerage plant
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Portrait of Mai (Omai) by Sir Joshua Reynolds depicts a youthful Polynesian man who visited England in the 1770s and spent time on James Cookâs...
Why Charmaine Papertalk Green writes poetry about the work of one artist
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charmaine Papertalk Green writes poetry inspired by individual paintings of the late Nyoongar artist Shane Pickett. The ancient Greeks called this g...
'It felt radical at the time': Catherine Opie's photos chart life changing decades for LGBTQI subjects
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel speaks with the pioneering US photographer, activist and UCLA Professor Catherine Opie, whose early portraits of her genderqueer community ch...
Janet Laurence goes to Antarctica and an art space faces an uncertain future
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental artist Janet Laurence tells us the story behind her latest exhibition, based on life-changing trips to Antarctica and Iceland. Plus, ...
Melbourne Now and Sydney's The National: different outlooks on Australian art
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Itâs a bit like the art world State of Origin: two rival cities go head to head with big exhibitions showcasing the best of Australian contempora...
Betty Muffler: the artist healing country, plus the artist and the iPhone miniature
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this highlights episode of the show, Daniel speaks to guests Sally Scales and Nici Cumpston about the meteoric rise of the Pitjantjatjara artist B...
How will AI change our understanding of Art?
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
2023 is going to be the year of AI art. If youâve been playing around with text-to-image apps like DALL-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, you know how remar...
What would Andy Warhol do with social media? Be an influencer.
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What can a new Andy Warhol exhibition teach us about social media and the cult of celebrity? Plus, an artist spends a year working at a 1930s Georgia...
Women, Life, Freedom: art from Iran's female-led uprising
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hoda Afshar on the impact of protest art and photography in the Women, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. Plus, the unconventional life of 19th Century ...
An artist paints her lush Far North home + a city's hidden 'bits of Brutalism'
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, two artists and two very different takes on place and belonging. Callum Morton focuses on the built environment and Naomi Hobson is...
Dylan Mooney's hero lovers and Ali Tahayori's poetic mirror works
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dylan Mooney's work celebrates young Black characters embodying queer love. And he does it in a bold, heartfelt graphic style that is proving irresi...
The women artists who spoke to spirits and were left out of the canon
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Higgie talks about her new book on women artists and the spirit world. Plus, Daniel visits the largest collection of artworks by the Victori...
How will AI change our understanding of Art?
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
2023 is going to be the year of AI art. If youâve been playing around with text-to-image apps like DALL-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, you know how remar...
What Texta Queen did next + thinking through pink + Marian Tubbs
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Five years ago, Texta Queen was riding high with a mid-career survey show, that should have marked a significant achievement for the artist. Inste...
Jerry Saltz says: 'Show up' (You big scaredy-cat babies) + imagine a city with monuments to women?
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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-ha...
Kiki Smith on tapestry, Kirtika Kain explores Dalit oppression + women street photographers
17 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators.
David Noonan's mystery collage and Hoda Afshar on the people possessed by the wind
10 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators.
Isaac Julien's marvelous entanglement + tattoos and watercolour with eX de Medici
03 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Karla Dickens' fearless found objects + clay gone wild
27 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Enter the eclectic studio and thought-provoking work of the Wiradjuri installation artist Karla Dickens. Plus, we look at âwild clay', the DIY-tren...
Edward Burtynsky, painting the Holy Family and Dennis Golding's Redfern.
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian-Ukrainian photographer who captures human activity on Earth that's normally too big to perceive, except through ae...
Alexander McQueen's spectacular art and high stakes fashion + how do you make an exhibition about the air itself?
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How Cressida Campbell makes things beautiful + what do we think of Sydney Modern?
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cressida Campbell is best known for beautiful scenes of domestic interiors and still life arrangements, achieved through an intriguing technique. Kin...
Imants Tillers on his credo and why he had to 'fire' his parents, and mixed reactions to climate activism in galleries
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Beard on how the Caesars used Art to wield power, plus why did climate activists target a Gustav Klimt?
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Classicist Mary Beard examines art inspired by the lives and excesses of the Caesars, who wielded power in cruel and immoral ways.
Inside Yayoi Kusama's world with Stephanie Rosenthal, plus Nalini Malani + Katie West
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You know the Japanese superstar artist Yayoi Kusama for her polka dots and infinity mirror rooms, and giant spotted pumpkins.
Art that's rubbish: why more artists are using post-consumer waste
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
What to know about the great Barbara Hepworth, an artist asks for family stories + fish traps, re-told
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 coast...
'Shaken to the core': the Indonesian art collective at the centre of the Documenta 15 controversy + Bertie Blackman
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 hel...
Filming art for the big screen, sewing my feminist muse and soulful bird portraits
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
British filmmaker Phil Grabsky is responsible for a prolific number of documentaries about famous artists, often in collaboration with large museums...
Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenburg's creative and romantic partnership
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 P...
Polly Borland on her pivot to sculpture and how it felt to photograph the Queen
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Australian-born Polly Borland is best known for photographing kink sub cultures, Nick Cave and the late Queen, but she has also long been experiment...
The radical work of Vivienne Binns + when did people start smiling in western Art?
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1960s Vivienne Binns scandalised critics with her joyfully sexual paintings of giant genitalia and Dada-inspired pop art. But instead of foll...
After censorship scandal, Paul Yore returns with joyful, trademark trash
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Yore's colourful artworks riff off pop culture, queer identity, religion and politics. In 2014, he was embroiled in a censorship scandal that sa...
Kara Walker stirs the pot with nightmarish visions of Antebellum America
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kara Walker is one of Americaâs most significant living artists, known for cut-paper silhouettes and gigantic public sculptures, using the visual a...
Edward Burtynsky, how to draw hands + an artist goes to Burning Man
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian-Ukrainian photographer who hangs out of helicopters to capture aerial scenes of rapid industrialisation and destruct...
Why viruses can have style and molecules look beautiful
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drew Berry is a biomedical animator, who brings to life microscopic molecular processes in vivid colour. Heâs won an Emmy for his visualisation of...
Afghan artists on Taliban anniversary, and how to start drawing?
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One year on since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, we speak to Adelaide-based Hazara artist and poet Elyas Alavi and photographer and conc...
The lake that vanished + Rachel Griffiths + Catherine Woo
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Fifty years ago, a stunning glacial outwash lake in southwest lutruwita/Tasmania disappeared under an inundation of river water for a hydro-electric...
Meet the Tennant Creek Brio â a thrilling new voice in art
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tennant Creek Brio is a collective of artists who met in a menâs art therapy group. Their latest show Shock and Ore is generating serious buzz. P...
A call to heroines + Michaye Boulter's seascapes + Joel Sherwood Spring
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Singing stars, anti-apartheid activists, writers and mavericks are among the Southern African women honoured by visual artists in a new exhibition, A...
Artists head to 'Europe's most divided city' in Kosovo + how do you judge a landscape art prize?
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Curator Petrit Abazi fled Kosovo as a child with his parents and now heads a contemporary art centre in Darwin. This month heâs returned to the cit...
'It was like I'd been plugged into the mains': Bruce Munro's lights + the search for a Hong Kong street artist
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce Munro is the hugely popular light installation artist who filled the foreground of Uluru with a Field of Light. He talks to Daniel about his ca...
What's left unsaid at this Picasso blockbuster? Plus, Snuff Puppets work with Ukrainian refugees
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can you separate the misogynist from the art? If you walk around the winter blockbuster The Picasso Century at the National Gallery of Victoria, youâ...
Richard Bell at Documenta 15, Sebastian di Mauro, and 1980s New York artist Edward Brezinski finally finds his 15 minutes of fame
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Bell is one of the few individual artists curated into Documenta 15, the highly-anticipated global survey of contemporary art. This year, for...
Daniel Boyd's solo show, Sally Ryan's Holy Family, and reclaiming Arnhem Land's art
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A conversation with artist Daniel Boyd whose work has focussed on reframing Eurocentric images from Australia's past. Plus, Sally Ryan discusses her ...
Chiharu Shiota's epic threads, Wura Ogunji and a history of light in Art
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever walked through an epic entanglement of red cotton thread, by the artist Chiharu Shiota? The Japanese installation and performance artis...
Colour is my medium: David Sequeira, colourblind art and the magic of Autochrome
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why artist and curator David Sequeira doesn't believe in just a 'pop of colour'. How a colour-blind artist adapted to colours he couldn't perceive. A...
Tattoos, watercolour with eX-de-Medici + Angelica Mesiti at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We start the show at the Parade for the Moon in Melbourne's Chinatown, part of the city's RISING festival.Then Daniel speaks with tattoo and visual a...
Abdullah brothers, Leeroy New and the return of a William Barak painting
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel chats with artist brothers Abdul-Rahman and Abdul Abdullah, who are close in life but not so much in their art. However, thorny issues unite t...
Kiki Smith, Kirtika Kain and Reclaim the Earth at the Palais de Tokyo
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The American artist Kiki Smith talks about tapestry and her long career.My Art Crush: painter and printmaker Kirtika Kain makes tactile work about th...
Blak Douglas wins the Archibald, NFT artist Beeple and embroidered organs that get personal
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How often does a political artwork fall into the national spotlight during a federal election? Hear from Archibald portrait prize winner Blak Douglas...
The Venice Biennale: electric sounds, new voices and open borders
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Greetings from the 22nd La Biennale di Venezia, in Italy!The Venice Biennale is known as the Olympics of the art world, complete with golden awards, ...
Public art, toppled monuments and the statue in the crate
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do artists think about when making huge public art? Lindy Lee is making the most expensive work commissioned by the NGA, and Judy Watson's bara ...
First Nations Canadian artist Rebecca Belmore, Sally Smart's dance-inspired studio and Yuki Kihara's Paradise Camp
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca Belmore is one of Canada's most important artists and is now having her first Australian solo show.Plus, visit Sally Smart's studio, inspired...
Marco Fusinato, Lala Deen Dayal and an art gallery mines its collection for queer stories
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Marco Fusinato is representing Australia at the 2022 Venice Biennale with work for 'monstrous times'.Plus, artworks that tell queer stories selected ...
Victor Ehikhamenor + Benin bronzes, pottery in a midnight garden and Nathan Beard's tropical fruit
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Victor Ehikhamenor is one of Nigeriaâs most prominent artists and calls for the Benin bronzes, the looted cultural treasures of Edo State, to be re...
David Noonan's mystery collage and Hoda Afshar on the people possessed by the wind
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David Noonan makes intriguing black-and-white collage of people in often liminal states. But despite their evocative drama, his pictures don't tell a...