Renée Green talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.

Green was born in 1959, in Cleveland, Ohio, and lives today between Somerville, Massachusetts, and New York. She brings together a wealth of cultural forms in complex and layered works that manifest as installations, video pieces and texts, among other media. Through what has been described as a “methodology of citation”, in which she overtly names and synthesises the language and forms of the disparate individuals she references, Renée reflects on the nature of ideas, on subjectivity and perception, on fiction and reality, and on memory—personal and collective. Just as she is generous in her allusions, so her art is an invitation to the viewer, to witness the connections she assembles, and help shape the works’ meaning. She discusses how her work is concerned with “perception and sensation” and how drawing is a daily activity alongside reading and research. She reflects on her ongoing fascination with On Kawara and how her interest in particular artists “has to do with their physical location, the material aspects of what their existences might have been like, and then what kinds of questions emerge from those conditions”. She discusses the references in her work to the writing of Muriel Rukeyser and Laura Riding, and the friendship and dialogue she had with the film-maker Harun Farocki. Plus, she gives insight into life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate, “What is art for?”

Renée Green: The Equator Has Moved, Dia Beacon, from 7 March and will be on long term view.

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Somaya Critchlow talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Critchlow, born in London in 1993, makes paintings and drawings of Black women, often nude, that are rooted in the present and yet draw on a wealth of imagery from the recent and distant past. The women are fictional but can be informed by anything from self-portraits and other life studies to images from pop culture and depictions of women in the history of art. They engage frankly with what it means to represent the female body and with power relations: between the artist and her subject, between the subject and the viewer, and ultimately between Critchlow and us. Depending on your perspective, her art offers different degrees of delight and discomfort. But her balance of fine drawing, a time-honoured approach to paint and colour, and arresting imagery means that her work is endlessly intriguing. She discusses the breakthrough moment where she realised that she was her own first model, being “comfortable with feeling uncomfortable”, the influence on her of Angela Carter’s response to the Marquis de Sade, her engagement with a wealth of visual artists, from Käthe Kollwitz to Francesca Woodman, Leonor Fini, Titian and Francesco de Goya, the power of David Lynch’s films and the consistent importance to her of Japanese manga. She gives insight into her life in the studio and responds to our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Somaya Critchlow: The Chamber, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, until 20 July. Group shows: A Room Hung with Thoughts British Painting Now, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, US, until 11 May; Woman in a Rowboat, Olivia Foundation, Mexico City, until 28 September.

This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture app. The free app offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single download, with new guides being added regularly. They include the Dulwich Picture Gallery, where Somaya Critchlow is showing her work between February and July of 2025. If you download Bloomberg Connects you’ll find that the guide to the gallery has a section on the exhibition, with pictures of Somaya’s work in situ in the historic gallery spaces. There is also extensive content on the gallery’s other exhibition, Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious, the first major exhibition of the British artist. You can explore the works while listening to the actor Tamsin Greig reading excerpts from Garwood’s autobiography. Elsewhere, the guide features an animated film telling the story of the gallery and a guided tour of the many masterpieces in its collection. 

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Thomas Ruff talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.

Ruff was born in 1958 in Zell am Harmersbach, in what was then West Germany, and has, over five decades, extensively probed the forms and possibilities of photography. Though he is a key figure in the international generation of artists that emerged in the 1980s and experimented with the very nature of the photographic medium and discipline, Ruff has carved out a singular practice. He works in distinct series whose formal characteristics vary enormously, but are underpinned by experimental unorthodoxy, technical curiosity and conceptual rigour. Each new group contributes to a profound philosophical exploration of the photographic image and what it means to make a picture. But while the intellectual underpinning of his work is unwavering, Thomas makes prints that are remarkably beautiful objects. Operating in a medium that remains associated with the factual record and documentary, he has relentlessly made the case for a photographic practice in which imagination is a primary agent. He discusses his interest in “the puzzle of photography”, the distinctive geneses of his various series of work, and his conviction that while seeking an “intellectually high-end product… of course I want to have fun”. He reflects on the early influence of the photographer Ernst Haas, how Piero della Francesca influenced his early Portraits series, how he chose to study art over astronomy, yet outer space has remained a core concern in his work, and how the satirical television show Spitting Image proved an unlikely influence. Of course, he reflects on the work of numerous photographers, from Eugène Atget and Walker Evans to Lou Landauer and his teachers in Düsseldorf, Bernd and Hilla Becher. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate, “What is art for?”

Thomas Ruff: expériences lumineuses, David Zwirner, London, until 22 March; his work features in Typologien, a survey of 20th-century German photography at Fondazione Prada, Milan, 3 April-14 July.

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The first episode of 2025 of A brush with… features a conversation with Linder, who discusses her influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Born Linda Mulvey in Liverpool in 1954, she is best known for her photomontages, made from images found in books and magazines across six decades. They bring together sex and sexual politics, glamour and grit, satire and seduction. Since emerging in the punk era of the late 1970s—a culture whose DIY approach and unflinching attitude to society her work embodies—Linder has reinvigorated a radical tradition of avant-garde art-making while developing a singular voice. She reflects on the particularities of her native Britain while also addressing global struggles and themes, including feminism and class politics. She discusses her use of the scalpel as a “magic wand” in cutting up print material, her journey to Delphi and recent use of ancient Greek and Roman imagery, her fascination with Ithell Colquhoun and other Surrealists, the impact of reading Germaine Greer and the Brontës, how she has used Playboy magazines from 1968 in a new body of work, and how she connects the Indian musical instruments, the dilruba and taus, with Barbara Hepworth. Plus, she answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “What is art for”?

This episode contains descriptions of abuse and sexual violence.

Linder: Danger Came Smiling, Hayward Gallery, London, 11 February-5 May; a version of the show, curated by Hayward Gallery Touring, will travel across the UK in 2025 and 2026: Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, 23 May-19 October; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, 7 November 2025-8 March 2026; Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, 27 June-20 September 2026.

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Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset talk to Ben Luke about their influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped their lives and work. This is the first episode of A brush with featuring an artist duo. Over the past 30 years Elmgreen and Dragset have consistently created unexpected scenarios within and outside of the museum and gallery structure. Playful, even mischievous at times, and yet shot-through with searing critique and sincere expression, their sculptures and environments are fundamentally concerned with space, both private and public, and the people and communities that occupy it. Elmgreen was born in 1961 in Copenhagen and Dragset in 1969 in Trondheim, Norway. They now live and work in Berlin. They discuss the influence of Hannah Ryggen and Vilhelm Hammershøi, Michael’s meeting with Felix Gonzalez-Torres and his effect on their work, and how they feel their work relates to Samuel Beckett’s writing, and the final, moving scene of Wim Wenders’ film Paris Texas. Plus, they give insight into their lives in the studio and answer our usual questions, including: what is art for?

Elmgreen & Dragset: L’Addition, Musee d’Orsay, Paris, until 2 February 2025; Elmgreen & Dragset: Spaces, Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul, 23 February 2025; K-BAR is open now at Khao Yai Art Forest, Thailand; Nurture Gaia, Bangkok Art Biennale, Bangkok, Thailand, until 25 February 2025.

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Hank Willis Thomas talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Thomas, born in 1976 in Plainfield, New Jersey, is a conceptual artist whose works in various media address identity, collectivity and subjectivity, particularly in relation to race, and how these subjects shape—and are shaped by—broad phenomena, from sports, advertising and brands to art history. Thomas trained as a photographer and a search for a singular powerful image underpins much of his work. But however impactful it might be at first sight, that instant appeal is always a gateway to greater cultural and historical complexity. He discusses his latest exhibition, Kinship of the Soul and its fusion of the paintings of Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas and Henri Matisse, the early influence of Roy DeCarava’s photographs, the importance of the Gee's Bend quilters, the writing of Audre Lorde and James Baldwin, and his surprising response to the Dukes of Hazzard television show. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Hank Willis Thomas: Kinship of the Soul, Pace, London, unil 21 December; Irving Penn: Kinship, Curated by Hank Willis Thomas, Pace, New York, until 21 December.

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Jeff Wall talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.

Wall—who was born in 1946 in Vancouver, Canada, where he still lives, though he also works in Los Angeles—makes photographs but aspires to approach his medium with the freedom, range and openness taken for granted by other artforms. Presented on a large scale, his images are enormously varied, from those that are close to reportage; to what he calls “near-documentary” images—tableaux, where he recreates a scene he has witnessed in reality with actors; to elaborately staged environments responding to art or literature; and even what he calls “hallucinations”. Crucially, he has used the term “cinematographic” to describe his approach, in that his pictures use different degrees of preparation and processing before he presses the shutter and afterwards, thereby applying what Jeff has called “aspects of the arts of dramatisation” to the pictorial practice of still photography. Because of this, his work has long had a fascinating philosophical relationship with truth and reality—two key cornerstones of orthodox claims for his medium’s potency—and what Wall has called “blatant artifice”. Initially famous for the technique he pioneered in the art world of presenting vast transparencies on lightboxes, he now mostly works with prints, on a similar scale, in both colour and black and white. As he has engaged closely with the history of art, books and film, Jeff has used the term “prose poems” to describe his photographs: that form’s complex structures and language and ability to conjure broad constellations of meanings, perfectly describe his art and how we experience it. He discusses how comics and Bruegel were his earliest visual inspirations, talks about his responses to historic works by Katsushika Hokusai and Albrecht Dürer, reflects on the “accidents while reading” that have led him to make images responding to literary works by Franz Kafka and Yukio Mishima, among others. Plus he answers some of our usual questions, including the ultimate, “what is art for?”

Jeff Wall: Life in Pictures, White Cube Bermondsey, London until 12 January 2025; Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, Portugal, April-August 2025.

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Goshka Macuga talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.

Macuga was born in 1967 in Warsaw, Poland. Her deep research into multifarious subjects manifests in the form of installations, sculpture, tapestry, photography, video and more. As well as making objects, she occupies a role that relates closely to that of a curator and historian, often weaving together her creations with existing materials, including artworks and archival documents. Place has enormous significance in her practice, whether it is the museum or gallery, the city or the country in which she is presenting her ideas. After exploring her site and engaging in lengthy research, she fuses her own subjective interest with objective material, to produce absorbing and often complex environments that provoke broad meanings and reactions. She discusses the transformative impact of seeing the work of Christo in an art magazine; her interest in Paul Nash and Eileen Agar—and the personal importance to her of a work by Agar that is in her studio; how the subversive strategies used by Stanisław Lem when he was writing science fiction in Communist Poland have influenced her practice; and how, during Covid, she created a club for dancing in her studio. Plus, she gives insight into her rituals and disciplines and answers our usual questions, including, “what is art for?”

Goshka Macuga: Born from Stone, London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, until 18 January 2025.

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Sonia Boyce talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Boyce, a recent Golden Lion-winner at the Venice Biennale, was born in London in 1962 and first made an impact through her figurative drawings before shifting to what she calls a “multi-sensory” practice. Over the past three decades, her art has been a social experience, as she has worked with individual and collective collaborators to create performances, video pieces and installations. They reflect on a wealth of subjects, from personal and collective memory, to sound as a conveyor of subjective feeling and cultural experience, to the dynamics and meanings of space and environment, and to questions of value and power and who bestows and holds them. Sonia’s art is about people but also formed by them—people are her raw materials. She talks about her interest in power and authorship and the shift in her career, away from drawing to relational and social practice. She discusses the transformative experiences of seeing work by the Fenix feminist art collective, Frida Kahlo and visiting the 1981 exhibition in Wolverhampton, Black Art an’ Done. She reflects on William Morris’s wallpaper designs and the different ways in which they have manifested in her work. She discusses the connections between Dada and jazz music, and the influence of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and much more. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate, “What is art for?”

Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation and Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 12 January; Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way, Toronto Biennial, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, until 6 April 2025; AMONG THE INVISIBLE JOINS: Works from the Enea Righi Collection, MUSEION—Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, until 2 March 2025.

Listen to Sonia Boyce talking about Feeling Her Way, in the episode of The Week in Art podcast from 22 April 2022, Venice Biennale Special.

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Episode 100: A brush with… Marlene DumasIn this, the 100th episode of A brush with…, Marlene Dumas talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953 and lives and works in Amsterdam. She is a painter whose intensity is unrivalled. Using found images and responding to memory, she has the ability to seduce and repel, to lull and to shock, often all in a single image or group of works. She is endlessly daring in her questioning of her medium and what it can do, in the unorthodox formats and scale she chooses for her imagery, in the way she reflects on historic art and ideas, movies and literature, and in her unflinching confrontation of her own life. Her paintings and drawings are a means of responding to external events and internal feelings in ways that can be absurd, confounding, funny and profoundly affecting. And while her themes and language are consistent, she is always pushing herself to new territory and breaking boundaries. She discusses the early influence of comic illustration, the enduring effect on her of Francisco Goya’s work, how she grew to love the work of Edgar Degas, Edvard Munch and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres after first dismissing them, and her admiration for Nicole Eisenman and Diane Arbus, among others. She also gives insight in her life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including, “What is art for?”

Marlene Dumas: Mourning Marsyas, Frith Street Gallery, London, until 16 November.

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