An episode dedicated to Yayoi Kusama: arguably the most famous artist in the world and yet among the most indefinable, elusive, and transformative. Helen Molesworth is joined by scholar Jennifer DeVere Brody, art critic Johanna Fateman, and curator Catherine Taft to unpack the many versions of Yayoi Kusama—and her singular importance in 20th and 21st century art.

A global travelling retrospective of Yayoi Kusama opens at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland in October 2025; it will travel to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in Spring 2026, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in Fall 2026.

Jennifer DeVere Brody is Professor of Theater & Performance studies, and, by courtesy, African & African American Studies at Stanford University. A Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts Research supported her forthcoming book, Moving Stones: About the Art of Edmonia Lewis (Duke UPress, 2026). 

Johanna Fateman is a writer, co-chief art critic at Cultured Mag, and a member of the band Le Tigre. 

Catherine Taft is a writer and curator and deputy director of The Brick, a non-profit exhibition space in Los Angeles.

Helen Molesworth speaks to art historian and culture critic Jonathan Crary, whose recent books Scorched Earth and 24/7 constitute both a polemic against what he calls the “internet complex”—and a diagnosis of where society is now.

Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University and is a founding coeditor of Zone Books.

With higher education facing existential threat under the current administration, Helen Molesworth speaks to art historian, critic, and educator Darby English about the difficulties of understanding this precise moment and the importance of discourse, independent thought, and history.

Darby English is the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at University of Chicago and the author of numerous books, including Among Others: Blackness at MoMA (2019), 1971: A Year in the Life of Color (2016) and How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (2007).

On the occasion of Joan Mitchell’s centennial year, Helen Molesworth speaks to artist Julie Mehretu and poet Eileen Myles about what Mitchell’s life and work means to them. 

Julie Mehretu, (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Mehretu is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2025, the MacArthur Fellowship in 2005, and the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award in 2015.

Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature (anthology) and a “Working Life” (poems) are their most recent books. They live in New York & in Marfa, Texas.

Visit the Joan Mitchell Foundation to learn more about their global centennial programming. 

Corrections: 

At 17:21 Helen Molesworth mentions the writer Jen Quilter; the correct name is Jenni Quitler.

At 22:53, it should note that Joan Mitchell used a device she called a "diminishing glass" to get a visual sense of works as if seen from a greater distance.

Explore Joan Mitchell (Yale University Press, 2021) for further research and reference.

Academy award-winning actor and writer Julianne Moore goes in depth on her craft, the art of filmmaking, and passion for design. 

Julianne Moore has starred in numerous award-winning films since the 1990s, most recently in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door.  

Celebrated architect Annabelle Selldorf on her life and work, which includes numerous cultural spaces, from commercial galleries to major museums. 

Selldorf Architects's most recent project, a critically acclaimed expansion of the Frick Collection in New York, opens to the public on April 17, 2025.

David Zwirner’s new Chelsea building at 533 West 19th Street, also designed by Selldorf Architects, will open May 8 with a solo exhibition by Michael Armitage.

Helen Molesworth invited artists EJ Hill and Sarah Sze to listen to archival audio interviews with Ruth Asawa and discuss her ideas and art.

Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, the first major posthumous retrospective of the artist, will be on view at SFMOMA from April 5–September 2, 2025 before travelling on to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, and to the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland.

Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) was a sculptor, educator, and arts activist who challenged conventional notions of material and form through her emphasis on lightness and transparency. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the world since the early 1950s.

Ruth Asawa: Retrospective is on view at SFMOMA from April 5, 2025-September 2, 2025.

EJ Hill is a visual artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. His show Brake Run Helix is on view at MASS MoCA through January 2024.

Sarah Sze is an artist based in New York. Her solo exhibition Timelapse just closed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and her show Metronome will open in November at OGR Torino, and at Aarhus, Denmark in 2024; she also has a forthcoming solo show opening at the Nasher Sculpture Center in 2024.

A revealing look into the real life behind the icon and Warhol Superstar Candy Darling. Cynthia Carr, author of the acclaimed Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz discusses her newest biography: Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. Carr is joined by MacArthur Fellow, singer-songwriter, and actor Vivian Bond, who narrated the audiobook.

Cynthia Carr is a New York-based writer and author of Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz and Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. 

Vivian Bond is the recipient of an Obie, a Bessie, The Lambda Literary award for best transgender non-fiction for their memoir “Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels,” a Tony nomination for “Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway,”and was recently awarded a 2024 MacArthur Fellowship. Bond has a series of upcoming shows May 6-11 at Joe’s Pub.

The history of a radical cooperative farm at Black Mountain College that defined both daily life and pedagogy at the birthplace of American art education. David Silver, an expert on the farm at Black Mountain college, tells the story of how Black Mountain students collaborated in order to survive. 

David Silver is a professor of environmental studies and urban agriculture at the University of San Francisco and the author of the newly released book, The Farm at Black Mountain College.

Helen Molesworth explores the life and work of Anni Albers in the artist’s own words, with rare archival interviews with Albers and insights from artists Kristine Woods and Diedrick Bracken and art historian Julia Bryan-Wilson.

Affinities: Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, a group show curated by Nicholas Fox Weber, director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, will be on view at David Zwirner 20th street gallery in New York from March 13–April 19. Weber is also the author of a biography on Anni Albers, forthcoming from Yale University Press in early 2026.

Kirstine Woods is an artist based in Brooklyn and professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Diedrick Brackens is an artist based in Los Angeles, known for his woven tapestries that explore allegory and narrative through the artist’s autobiography, broader themes of African American and queer identity, and American history.

Julia Bryan-Wilson is Professor of Art History and LGBTQ Studies at Columbia University.  She is organizing an exhibition called GUTSY: On Feminist Infrastructure that will open in November 2025 at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland.