The Art Show

One of the most salacious art scandals to hit the global art market is that of the Wildensteins. Author and journalist Rachel Corbett brings us her New York Times investigation of this secretive and flawed family dynasty that stretches back five generations.

Poet and sculptor Jason Phu with more of his artful silliness.

Plus the idea of artists, romantically partnered with other artists is a powerful narrative. Nabila Nordin and Nick Modrzewski join us from LA.

Curator and art writer Micheal Do is sitting in for Daniel Browning for the next five weeks.

Author Markus Zuzak takes us back to 2005, to a wintery day in Vienna where an artwork by a little known German/Austrian painter Werner Berg found and transported him. Micheal and Markus discuss art, writing and memoir - his latest book is Three Wild Dogs and The Truth.

Angelica Mesiti's arresting and monumental immersive piece The Rites of When startles and entrances Micheal Do at the Tank at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Poet, sculptor and painter Jason Phu presents one of his classic poetic Phu-isms 

And we visit a very tidy studio in Western Melbourne where artist Darren Wardle divulges his obsession: ruination.

Images left to right:

Detail from Werner Berg Vor Der Auferstehung (Before the Resurrection) (1965)

Detail from screenshot of Angelica Mesiti The Rites of When (2024)

Detail from Darren Wardle Slumlord (2016)

Cressida Campbell and Margaret Preston (1875-1963): two beloved printmakers inspired by Ukiyo-e, the Japanese woodcut genre whose influence swept through western art. Rosa speaks to Cressida and Geelong Gallery senior curator Lisa Sullivan about Ukiyo-e and Preston, for a new exhibition connecting all three printmaking styles.

Art History professor Roger Benjamin joins us to talk about the Gina Rinehart portrait drama. 

Khaled Sabsabi moves fluidly between the genres of music and visual art, but his art always has the same goal: to make meaningful work, to make society better. After many years of community development  work and thought-provoking installation artwork made from his studio in Western Sydney, Khaled was honoured with a 2023 Creative Australia award, and a residency at the prestigious American Academy in Rome.

This program first aired Wed 22 May 2024  

Helen Molesworth is a curator and writer who became widely known for her hit podcast Death of an Artist, about the artist Ana Mendieta, whose husband sculptor Carl Andre was charged then acquitted of her murder in the 1980s. Carl Andre died last week, and Helen has a book of collected art writing out: Open Questions: Thirty years of writing about art.

Daniel visits the backyard studio of Olana Janfa.  The Ethiopian-Norwegian artist started painting relatively recently but his distinct voice, drawn from his life as a refugee in Norway and migrant in Australia, is humour-filled, popular and incisive.

Brent Harris' psychologically-driven artworks are often described as haunting and even ‘brooding’. So, if you haven’t ever seen his paintings– would it surprise you to know they’re also colourful and cartoonish? More Betty Boop than Edvard Munch’s The Scream. He takes producer Rosa Ellen through his studio, in preparation for Brent Harris: Surrender & Catch, on at Tarra Warra Museum of Art.

This program first aired Wed 7 Feb 2024

This week it's The Art (Nouveau) Show! Flowers, peacocks and sensuous drapes. Bejewelled women entwined in billowing hair and that classic black outline, that turns the dreamy into the bold – the NEW. Despite what we may think about the arts and crafts that came out of Belgium, France and  Czechia at the turn of the nineteenth century, Art Nouveau was considered to be an ultra-modern aesthetic.

One artist who defined the style is Alphonse Mucha. We hear from Mucha's great-grandson Marcus Mucha and Mucha Foundation curator Tomoko Sato, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau.

In South Australia artists like Maude Vizard-Wholohan were part of a newly empowered generation of female art school graduates who produced Art Nouveau designs while living in the first Australian state where women could vote (and the third in the world). Rebecca Evans is curator of design and decorative arts at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and traces the legacy of these artists.

This first went to air Wed 19 Jun 2024  

Over the past decade, Ramesh Nithiyendran has become one of the most visible artists of his generation and one of the most hardworking with his signature emoji-like, wildly coloured and often multiple-limbed sculptures making their presence felt across the globe. Daniel drops in on Ramesh as he prepares to unveil his next big solo exhibition - including his magnum opus, a self-deity in bronze.

And the first in an occasional series If Not Critical, we meet art critic (and artist) Jack Wilkie-Jans. A trained political scientist, Jack’s critical writing explores the power of his country in the art of far north Queensland.

Sasha Huber is Swiss-Haitian… but she lives and works in Finland. She’s got a truly interdisciplinary practice - but she does have one particular medium, that’s quite unusual - in fact, it’s hard to imagine how she makes art from this non-art material. Her medium is the humble staple - not your desk type - she packs a semi-automatic staple gun like the ones tradies use.

Sasha's work can be seen at Crepusculum along with artist Petri Saarikko at Gallery Project8 in Melbourne until 14 September.

Freya Jobbins is an artist based in regional NSW. Her method of assemblage - the art of making three dimensional pieces from objects that have been discarded  - creates extraordinary and often disturbingly touchable sculptures are made from the flesh coloured parts of toy dolls.

Freya is set to have a solo exhibition at Penny Contemporary in Hobart in the new year.

It's Poetry Month and to celebrate Radio National is bringing you brand new poems commissioned by Red Room Poetry. Poet, playwright and dramaturge Dylan Van Den Berg's poem Red Face Man is his response to to Benjamin Duterrau's 1840 painting, “Mr Robinson's first interview with Timmy” 

The artist RONE was always attracted to street art's impermanence. He's since moved beyond street art and into large scale installations, involving space, sound, music, light and large scale art pieces, that breathe life into the rooms of decaying mansions and inside spaces. RONE's "Time" is on at AGWA Centenary Galleries in Western Australia

Dan visits artist Manda Lane in her Collingwood studio to see her beautiful and complex paper cut practice that came out of her background as a street artist. Manda has gone from making stencils to make two dimensional images to seeing the stencils as the art itself.

Ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa’s work is beautiful, playful and highly technical…and he’s having a moment, featuring in several exhibitions this year including the MAKE Award, Generation Clay and re/JOY. His work is a beacon of light and happiness in dark times.

We swing by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) in Darwin, where artist Noli Rictor, a Pitjantjatjara man from Tjuntjuntjara in Western Australia, won the overall award for his work on canvas, Kamanti.

Plus, the woodcuts, and etchings of the master artist Albrecht Durer connect us with the material Renaissance world in Europe. Daniel speaks with Professor Jenny Spinks from Melbourne University.

Hiroshi Sugimoto's sublime black and white photographs capture subjects as diverse as polar bears and landscapes, to portraits of Princess Diana – but they're not what they seem. Called 'master of time', Sugimoto is also an architect, designing galleries and art installations around the world. Daniel speaks with him at his big exhibition at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.

In lutruwita / Tasmania, three young artists share a city studio and depict the local landscape in very different styles.  All have entered a lucrative landscape painting prize, Hadley's Art Prize – and one has won it. Rosa meets Zoe Grey, Rosie Hastie and Harry Bowe.