Art from the Outside

Welcome to this episode of our special Art from the Outside series around this year’s Whitney Biennial. 

In this special series, we’re going behind the scenes and getting an inside look at this important and exciting exhibition. 

We’ll be talking to the exhibition’s curators to learn more about the history of the biennial, how it’s made, and what to look out for when you visit over the next few weeks. 

We’ll also be chatting with artists included in the exhibition. They’ll share some of their personal stories and help us understand what it was like participating in the biennial, as well as new ideas and realizations they’ve had along the way. 

Today we are thrilled to be joined by the artist Leo Castañeda. Born in Columbia in 1988, Leo is a multimedia artist and video game designer exploring Latin American Surrealism in the Digital Age. His artwork primarily takes form in episodic games and immersive installations that meld atmospheric paintings, video, mixed reality, wearables, and sculpture.

Leo Castañeda has received multiple fellowships, including the Knight Foundation Arts + Technology Fellowship and the YoungArts Artist Technology Fellow.

Some artists (and video games) discussed in this episode:

• Roberto Matta
• Dark Souls
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Elden Ring

You can experience Leo's work in the biennial here

https://whitney.org/exhibitions/camoflux-recall-grotto

Welcome to the very first episode of our special Art from the Outside series around this year’s Whitney Biennial!

In this special series, we’re going behind the scenes and getting an inside look at this important and exciting exhibition. 

We’ll be talking to the exhibition’s curators to learn more about the history of the biennial, how it’s made, and what to look out for when you visit over the next few weeks. 

We’ll also be chatting with artists included in the exhibition. They’ll share some of their personal stories and help us understand what it was like participating in the biennial, as well as new ideas and realizations they’ve had along the way. 

For our first episode in the series, we’re very excited to be chatting with the exhibition’s talented curatorial duo, Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer.

Learn more about the Biennial here: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/2026-biennial

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Jimmy De Sana
• Drew Broderick
• Zach Blas
• Jason Rhoades
• Raven Halfmoon
• Martine Gutierrez

In this episode, we are joined by the artist Hew Locke.

Hew was born in Edinburgh in 1959 but spent his formative years in Guyana, arriving just as the country was establishing its independence from British rule. He returned to Britain in 1980, where subsequently received his BA and MA in art.

In his work, Hew explores languages of colonial and post-colonial power, and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity.

Fusing historical source material with a keen interest in current affairs, he focuses attention especially on the UK, the monarchy and his childhood home of the then newly independent Guyana.

Hew’s work has been exhibited across the world but I’m going to mention some personal highlights. One is The Procession from 2022, a large scale installation for the Duveen Hall Commission at Tate Britain.

Another favorite is Gilt, an installation of four gilded sculptures in the shape of trophies that he made for the Façade at The Metropolitan Museum in New York, also in 2022.

On June 21, Hew will open Passages at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He will also open a show at PPOW in New York on September 11.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Frank Bowling
• Sonia Boyce
• Lubaina Himid
• Donald Locke

For more content and updates, follow us on Instagram @ArtfromtheOutsidePodcast

https://www.instagram.com/artfromtheoutsidepodcast

This episode we are thrilled to be joined by the artist Martine Gutierrez. Martine is a transdisciplinary artist whose work uses photography, video, and performance to examine how identity is constructed and portrayed. Her projects range from billboards and music videos to her celebrated magazine Indigenous Woman, where she takes on every role — artist, subject, and producer — to challenge pop-culture tropes around gender, beauty, and representation.

Her work has been shown internationally, including at the 58th Venice Biennale and in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, LACMA, Crystal Bridges, the Pérez Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her work is also held in major collections including MoMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, SFMOMA, LACMA, Crystal Bridges, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Martine will be in the 2026 Whitney Biennial.

Martine received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and lives and works in New York.

Martine is represented by Fraenkel Gallery and Ryan Lee Gallery

https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/martine-gutierrez https://ryanleegallery.com/artists/martine-gutierrez/

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Yoko Ono
• Marina Abramović

Follow along on Instagram at @artfromtheoutsidepodcast

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This episode, we are thrilled to be joined by the artist Camille Henrot.

Camille examines the intersections of anthropology, mythology, technology, and emotion, creating works that question how humans make sense of an increasingly complex world.

At the center of her practice is an interest in what it means to be both a private individual and a global subject.

She draws on a range of references including literature, psychoanalysis, and social media in order to probe these questions. 

In one of her most famous works, Grosse Fatigue from 2013, Camille explored the collection and structuring of information and knowledge. 

Created as part of the Smithsonian Artists Research Fellowship Program in Washington, DC, the 13-minute-long video is set on a computer desktop, where countless windows containing images, data, Web pages, and videos continually open, accumulate, and close. The work received the Silver Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Camille has also maintained a creative approach to how she works with museums. For instance, in 2017 she took over the Palais de Tokyo in Paris with an exhibition called Days are Dogs.

And, most recently here in New York, Camille debuted a new body of bronze sculptures at Hauser and Wirth. 

Some artists and writers discussed in this episode:

• Pierre Huyghe

• Sigmar Polke
• Marcel Proust
• James Joyce
• Marcel Duchamp

Camille is represented by Mennour and Hauser and Wirth.

https://mennour.com/artist/camille-henrot

https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/35528-camille-henrot/

This episode, we are thrilled to be joined by the artist William Kentridge.

Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa - a city where he also now lives and works - William grew up under the pall of Apartheid. This experience deeply informs his practice, which frequently questions the historical record and examines the inequities and absurdities of our world.

Working across multiple media, he combines drawing, writing, film, performance, and other collaborative practices to create works of art that are grounded in history, yet maintain a space for contradiction and uncertainty.

In one of his now-signature techniques, William photographs his charcoal drawings and paper collages over time, recording scenes as they evolve. Working without a script or storyboard, he plots out each animated film, preserving every addition and erasure. 

This is visible, for instance, in the series Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot, which William launched on the online streaming service MUBI last year. In this nine-part series, he opens the doors to his Johannesburg studio to lay bare his creative process, reflecting on culture, history, and political memory as he does so.

William’s genre defying talents have also led him to create operas and theatrical productions since the 1990s. Of his many productions, we’ve been lucky to see a few, including his 2010 production for the Metropolitan Opera of Shostakovich’s The Nose, as well as his 2023 production in Paris of "Waiting for the Sibyl."

William’s work has been exhibited in museums around the world, including the MoMA in New York, the Albertina in Vienna, the Louvre in Paris, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, among many others. He is also, of course, in the collections of major museums across the globe. 

Most recently, here in New York, William presented a solo exhibition at Hauser and Wirth titled, “A Natural History of the Studio.”

William is represented by Hauser and Wirth and Goodman Gallery

https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/william-kentridge/

https://goodman-gallery.com/artists/william-kentridge

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Some artists discussed in this episode

• Henri Matisse
• Alberto Giacometti
• Jackson Pollock
• Jacques Lecoq

This episode, we are thrilled to be joined by the artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Based in Mexico City, Frieda is known for her captivating works exploring technology, capitalism, and gender. Her art frequently delves into themes of digital interfaces, luxury cars, and the commodification of desire, challenging traditional notions of painting.

Frieda’s distinctive style incorporates elements of abstraction and figuration, using vibrant colors and fragmented compositions to create dynamic tension. Her practice is known for its engagement with a rich array of territories, including embroidery traditions, mural painting, and Western religious altars. Much of this helps to envision a future that embraces queer freedom, ecological communion with nature, and the creation of joyful and convivial spaces.

In 2022, her work was the subject of a solo survey exhibition at MoMA PS1, Queens. And in 2024, Frieda was the subject of a solo exhibition at Modern Art Oxford in the UK. That same year, she was included in the 60th International Art Exhibition, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. And, most recently, she had a solo presentation at Bortolami here in New York.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger
• ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)
• Jutta Koether
• Lari Pittman
• Caravaggio
• Caspar David Friedrich

Frieda is represented by the following galleries Bortolami Gallery and Trautwein Herleth.

https://www.bortolamigallery.com/artists/frieda-toranzo-jaeger

https://trautweinherleth.de/artists/friede-torenzo-jaeger/

Born in Los Angeles in 1986, Sable Elyse Smith works across a variety of media, including photography, painting, and sculpture, to investigate the US prison-industrial complex and its role in and effects on society.

Her work has been featured at numerous prestigious institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and ICA Boston - among many others. In 2022, she participated in the Whitney Biennial and the 59th Venice Biennale. 

Smith is a recipient of several distinguished awards from Creative Capital, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and most recently - the 2026 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize - just to name a few.

She is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at Columbia University.

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This episode we are thrilled to be joined by the artist Jessica Rankin.

Born in Sydney in 1971, Jessica is known for her vibrant and expansive exploration of the processes of memory, intuition, and interpretation. 

For the first part of her career, Jessica produced textile works that adopted methods historically identified with feminine pursuits—embroidery and needlework. She created works featuring 'mental maps' that combined word and image to highlight her ongoing project: a hybrid weaving of personal, fictional and historical voices.

In 2016, Jessica turned exclusively to painting, combining gestural abstraction with the sewn mark on raw canvas. These works often take their inspiration from the literature of marginalised voices: of women writers, gay writers or writers of colour. They have included lines of poetry by writers who have inspired Jessica’s work, such as Etel Adnan, Paul Celan, and Carl Phillips.

Throughout, Jessica has continued to adopt John Cage’s adage to ‘be unfamiliar to yourself,” creating a rich and compelling practice that spans multiple media.

Jessica has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK, and MoMA PS1 here in New York. Last year, she had a solo show at White Cube in Hong Kong.

Jessica is represented by White Cube.

https://www.whitecube.com/artists/jessica-rankin

Some artists and writers discussed in this episode:

• David Hammons
• Coco Fusco
• Martha Rosler
• Glenn Ligon
• Virginia Woolf
• Olivia Laing
• Julie Mehretu
• Lawrence Chua
• Paul Pfeiffer

This episode we are thrilled to welcome the inspiring artist Maia Ruth Lee.

Maia Ruth Lee’s multidisciplinary practice is deeply informed by questions surrounding the self in times of dispersion, mobility, and rootlessness. Using translation as an apparatus, Lee transmutes her works between mediums—photography, video, painting, and sculpture—connecting themes of borders, community, and language with embodiments of carriers, loss, and self-preservation through process and materials.

Born in Busan, South Korea, in 1983, Lee grew up in Kathmandu and Seoul, before arriving in New York City in 2011 where she spent over a decade. In 2020 she relocated to Salida, Colorado where she now lives and works.

Lee has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (CO), Tina Kim Gallery (NY), Francois Ghebaly Gallery (LA), and Jack Hanley Gallery (NY).

She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Most recently, she unveiled her newly commissioned work, The Conveyor (2024), at Prospect 6 in New Orleans.

Some artists discussed in this episode:

• Jeffrey Gibson
• Carmen Winant