Frieze Masters Podcast

‘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 and ask how it can better reflect and build community. Barbara Walker is a British artist whose work interrogates power, identity and the visibility of Black experience; Ming Smith is an American photographer whose practice explores her immediate cultural community; and Lou Stoppard is a British writer and curator.  About Frieze Masters Podcast  The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year’s fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title ‘The Creative Mind’, and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.  The series includes topics ‘The State We’re In’, ‘The Faces of Community’ and ‘The Power of Painting’, with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.  About Frieze  Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.  www.frieze.com  @friezeofficial 

‘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 the country’s creative education? Chris Bryant is the recently appointed as Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Jeremy Deller is a Turner Prize-winning artist whose collaborative practice focuses on communities and Britain’s heritage; and Victoria Siddall is the new director of the National Portrait Gallery in London. About Frieze Masters Podcast The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year’s fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title ‘The Creative Mind’, and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present. The series includes topics ‘The State We’re In’, ‘The Faces of Community’ and ‘The Power of Painting’, with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians. About Frieze Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.  www.frieze.com @friezeofficial

‘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 interpretations projected onto their practice: trying to keep their work as accessible and open as possible, reflecting their self-proclaimed belief in ‘art for all’.  'We like to let the pictures make themselves as much as possible. We like to think that there are other forces apart from us, being in the studio knowing what to do. […] When we go to the studio in the morning and see what we were doing the day before, it’s always impossible for us to reconstruct exactly how we arrived at it.' – Gilbert & George  Gilbert and George live and work in London and since they met in 1967, they have made over 100 museum exhibitions. In 2023, the Gilbert & George Centre opened in East London. Dr Nicholas Cullinan is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London.  Find images of the artwork discussed here. About Frieze Masters Podcast Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze. The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house. This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell. About Frieze Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.  www.frieze.com @friezeofficial

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 Cassel Oliver of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, who is also the curator of the 2023 Spotlight section at Frieze Masters, about the relationship between inner and outer space: the space of the studio and the space of exhibition and how art displayed connects to an artist’s inner life.  'I metabolise my material. […] Everything has to be processed in the studio. If I’m going through something, I’ll have to deal with it and work with it physically in the studio.' – Mandy El-Sayegh Mandy El-Sayegh is a London-based artist whose practice is rooted in assemblage. Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Dr Flavia Frigeri is an art historian, lecturer and ‘Chanel Curator for the Collection’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Find images of the artwork discussed here. About Frieze Masters Podcast Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze. The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house. This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell. About Frieze Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.  www.frieze.com @friezeofficial