Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast

When the artist Jordan Wolfson and the playwright Jeremy O. Harris get together, sparks fly. Wolfson’s art confronts intimacy, violence, and desire with sometimes shocking honesty. Likewise, O. Harris, whose buzzed-about and radical Slave Play comes to Broadway this fall, uses music and bodies to complicate themes of violence and sex—and perhaps most powerfully of all, race and history. O. Harris is able to dip in and out of absurdity even at his most serious, something that Wolfson has also mastered in his mysterious narratives. Here, they debate and cover everything from suppression and transgression, sexuality, Lady Gaga, porn, and more. Get tickets to Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play at the Golden Theatre on Broadway here.

A revealing conversation about the life and teachings of James Baldwin that draws on Beauford Delaney, the pivotal role of invested teachers, and how the writer shaped the racial and cultural landscape in America. In this episode of Dialogues, Pulitzer Prize winning cultural critic Hilton Als is joined in conversation by friend, collaborator, and thought partner Thelma Golden of The Studio Museum in Harlem for a conversation on Baldwin that traces back to their very first meeting at The Odeon. Brought together on the occasion of the exhibition God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin curated by Als, the duo examine the legacy of Baldwin and his impact on both their own work and today’s culture. God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin is on view at David Zwirner, New York, through 2 PM Saturday, February 16, 2019. For more of what’s to come on Dialogues, listen to our trailer or visit davidzwirner.com/podcast.

A conversation about clothing, instinct, and finding high art in everyday life that touches on Jackie O, Kandinsky, and the Bauhaus. In this episode of Dialogues,Nicholas Fox Weber—cultural historian and executive director of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation—is paired with acclaimed British fashion designer Sir Paul Smith. The two are brought together on the occasion of a major retrospective of Anni Albers’s work, currently on view at Tate Modern, London, to discuss Smith’s new knitwear collection inspired by her textiles. Their shared admiration for the art of Anni and Josef Albers drives an eclectic conversation about abstraction, aesthetics, and the tactile nature of design. Anni Albers is on view at Tate Modern, London, through January 27, 2019. Listen to Paul Smith discuss his interest in the life and work of Anni Albers at Tate Modern on Saturday, November 17, at 3 PM. For more information, visit tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/anni-albers/paul-smith-on-anni-albers. For more of what’s to come on Dialogues, listen to our trailer or visit davidzwirner.com/podcast.

A conversation about the intersection of art and language that grapples with loneliness, religion, and our visceral reactions in the presence of powerful art.  In the sixth episode of Dialogues, Jarrett Earnest—author of the unprecedented overview of American art writing, What it Means to Write About Art: Interviews with art critics, just out from David Zwirner Books—converses with Peter Schjeldahl, award-winning art critic and esteemed writer for The New Yorker. Touching on Piero della Francesca, Gatsby, and autodidacticism, the two examine the depths of language, the anxiety that accompanies writing, and the value of maintaining a lighthearted approach. See Jarrett Earnest in conversation with Peter Schjeldahl and Paul Chaat Smith on What it Means to Write About Art at the Strand Book Store on Thursday, November 1, at 7:30 PM. For tickets and more information, visit strandbooks.com/event/jarrett-earnest-what-it-means. For more of what’s to come on Dialogues, listen to our trailer or visit davidzwirner.com/podcast.

A conversation about instinct in creative practice that nods to punk rock, fatherhood, and the ethics of artistic expression. In the fifth episode of Dialogues, artist Marcel Dzama—known for his whimsical style, distinctive color palette, and varying mediums that include drawing, sculpture, film, and costume design—is paired with musician and composer Will Butler, a key member of the indie-rock band Arcade Fire. Recounting influences from their upbringings that range from Duchamp to biker culture, Vikings to variety shows, the duo discuss the role of art as a form of revolution in the current political climate. See Dzama’s work in the exhibition Marcel Dzama: A Jester’s Dance on view at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor through September 23, 2018. Watch Will Butler perform live in Arcade Fire, currently on tour through North America. Visit everythingnow.com for tour dates and more information. For more of what’s to come on Dialogues, listen to our trailer or visit davidzwirner.com/podcast.

A conversation about giving a voice to untold stories that draws on Jane Campion, Philip Guston, and the raw authenticity of human emotion. The fourth episode of Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast features painter Lisa Yuskavage—known for her masterful portraits of nude figures and her skillful control of color—in conversation with widely celebrated screenwriter and film director Tamara Jenkins. Counterparts and close friends, Yuskavage and Jenkins discuss how personal experiences inform their creativity—touching on dark comedy, eroticism, and the importance of trusting your own vision. View new large-scale canvases and a survey of small-scale paintings by Lisa Yuskavage in her forthcoming exhibitions, opening this November, at David Zwirner’s Chelsea and Upper East Side locations. Watch Tamara Jenkins’s newest film, Private Life, in theaters this October. This podcast is a partnership between David Zwirner and Slate Studios.

A conversation about collaboration and the obsessive power of good music—touching on Netflix, Kendrick Lamar, and what it’s like to play with Miles Davis.  In the third episode of Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast, photographer and multimedia artist Stan Douglas speaks with MacArthur Award–winning pianist and composer Jason Moran—currently Artistic Director for Jazz at the Kennedy Center—about making and experiencing art. These longtime friends and collaborators discuss what it means to awaken ideas through the language of improvisation and exceed viewer expectations. See Douglas’s work in Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art at Tate Modern, London, and I Was Raised on the Internet at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, both on view through October 14, 2018. Watch Jason Moran perform with saxophonist Charles Lloyd on August 4 and 5 at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. For tickets and more information visit newportjazz.org.

A conversation about the importance of character, the value of mistakes, and painting from film. In the second pairing in David Zwirner’s Dialogues series, the critically-acclaimed painter—and recent recipient of the Queen’s OBE award—Rose Wylie talks with the actor Russell Tovey from BBC’s Being Human and HBO’s Looking. Wylie, an admirer of cinema, and Tovey, a fan and collector of Wylie’s work, engage in a conversation about improvisation, instincts, and creative influences that T Magazine describes as “charmingly off-the-cuff.” You can view Rose Wylie: Hullo, Hullo . . . at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga, Spain through September 9 and Rose Wylie: History Painting at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange through September 15, 2018.

A conversation about Duchamp, Michael Jackson, the allure of the Renaissance in the age of Instagram, and more. In the debut episode of David Zwirner’s new podcast, world-renowned artist Jeff Koons talks with Luke Syson, Chairman of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their far-ranging exchange touches on creative impulse and resisting elitism; polychromy and Pop culture; Plato’s cave and the iPhone; evolution and reality TV. View Koons’s work at the Met Breuer, New York in “Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now),” curated by Syson and Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, through July 22, 2018.

Preview the new podcast from David Zwirner. Hosted by Lucas Zwirner, each episode is dedicated to bringing together two extraordinary artists or cultural leaders from the worlds of art, architecture, film, and music for an open-ended conversation about art, culture, and the creative process. Debuting June 2018, Dialogues is the latest installment in a series of initiatives celebrating the gallery’s twenty-fifth anniversary, which launched in January 2018 with a multi-gallery retrospective in New York and the opening of David Zwirner Hong Kong.