In another life, the German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf might have been a painter or a profile writer. In this one, she expresses her proclivity for portraiture as the principal of the New York–based firm Selldorf Architects, which she founded in 1988. Renowned for its work in the art world—from galleries such as David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth to cultural institutions including The Frick Collection in New York, the National Gallery in London, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.—Selldorf’s firm has also designed a wide variety of residential projects and civic buildings. Many of these designs serve as architectural depictions of their respective clients, revealing each one’s inner nature and underlying ethos.

On this episode, Selldorf discusses the links she sees between Slow Food and her architecture, the intuitive aspects of form-making, and why she considers architecture “the mother of all arts.”

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[00:31] Selldorf Architects

[08:19] The Frick Collection

[10:42] Lucian Freud

[17:45] Dia Beacon

[18:43] Art Gallery of Ontario expansion

[18:54] Two Row

[18:57] Diamond Schmitt

[26:08] Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility

[30:03] CSO Red Hook

[30:05] CSO Owls Head

[34:31] National Gallery, London

[35:17] One Domino Park

[37:15] John Russell Pope

[37:28] Thomas Hastings

[43:13] I.M. Pei

[55:38] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

[58:54] Neue Galerie

To the landscape architect Walter Hood, “place” is a nebulous concept made meaningful only through the illumination of its history and the people who have inhabited it. Hood has dedicated his career to this very perspective through his roles as creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California, and as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1990. His projects include a series of conceptual gardens at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina; the grounds of the campus of the tech company Nvidia in Santa Clara, California; and the landscape of San Francisco’s de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Currently, he’s at work on the wayfinding for the Barack Obama Presidential Library in Chicago; a new park in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina; and twin memorials for Emory University’s campuses in Oxford and Atlanta, Georgia.

On this episode, Hood discusses the intersection of social justice and landscape architecture, his arguments against what we traditionally deem “memorials” or “monuments,” and the power of language to literally shape the world around us.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[03:34] Black Landscapes Matter

[03:39] The World They Made Together

[08:18] American Academy in Rome

[08:27] Carthage

[08:55] Loma Prieta Earthquake

[13:48] Monticello

[13:50] National Memorial for Peace and Justice

[13:53] Gadsden’s Wharf

[14:28] Lorraine Motel

[16:07] Montgomery County Justice Center

[18:40] Double Sights

[24:37] Macon Yards

[25:32] The Power of Place

[28:59] Confederate Obelisk

[29:55] Splash Pad Park

[30:16] Lafayette Square Park

[38:21] International African American Museum

[38:25] “Native(s)”

[39:54] Water Table

[40:51] McColl Park

[42:28] Twin Memorials

[47:11] Octagon House

[48:43] de Young Museum

[51:13] The Broad

[54:14] The Future of Nostalgia

[54:53] Blues & Jazz Landscape Improvisations

[58:01] Solar Strand

[01:06:02] Art Institute of Chicago

Min Jin Lee could be considered an exemplar of the old adage “slow and steady wins the race.” The author’s bestselling 2017 novel Pachinko—a National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller that was adapted into a television series for Apple TV+ in 2022—took 30 years to write from its inception as a short story. Her debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires (2007), took five years. These extensive periods of time become understandable, or even seem scant, within the sprawling, multigenerational contexts of her novels—Pachinko spans almost a century—into which she pours deep anthropological, sociological, and journalistic research. Lee is also the editor of the just-published The Best American Short Stories 2023 (Mariner Books) anthology, and she’s currently at work on American Hagwon, the third novel in her diasporic trilogy.

On this episode, she talks about the complex role of time in Pachinko, her miraculous recovery from chronic liver disease, and why she likens short-story writing to polishing diamonds.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[00:25] Min Jin Lee

[03:39] Viet Thanh Nguyen

[06:08] Free Food for Millionaires

[06:10] Pachinko

[06:19] The Best American Short Stories 2023

[08:08] Amy Tan

[08:09] Salman Rushdie

[09:36] “Bread and Butter”

[09:37] “Motherland”

[09:38] “The Best Girls”

[10:04] William Trevor

[10:06] Alice Munro

[12:45] Yale University

[17:23] Harvard Business School

[17:34] Fashion Institute of Technology

[47:37] Queens Public Library in Elmhurst

[49:21] The Bronx High School of Science

[49:32] The Hotchkiss School

[49:33] Phillips Exeter Academy

[58:46] American Hagwon

[01:03:33] Stoner by John Williams

In art and design circles, the name George Nakashima is synonymous with expert woodworking, exquisite furniture, and high-quality craftsmanship. Over the past 30-plus years, his daughter, the architect and furniture maker Mira Nakashima, has not only artfully built upon his techniques and time-honored traditions, further cementing his legacy, but also stepped outside of his shadow and carved a name for herself. Having worked full-time at George Nakashima Woodworkers since 1970, Mira took over as its president and creative director upon her father’s death in 1990. Since then, she has carried on his unfinished projects, continued producing dozens of his designs, and also developed many of her own creations, including her Keisho and Shoki furniture lines. Through it all, Mira has remained as humble as ever and maintained a deep reverence for her father, his boundless creativity, and his exacting vision.

On this episode, Nakashima talks about her family’s time spent in a Japanese internment camp during World War II; the enduring “karma yoga” influence of the Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo, whom her father once studied under and worked for as an architect; and why her father considered his work “an antidote to the modern world.”

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[01:15] George Nakashima Woodworkers

[03:39] Nakashima Foundation for Peace

[03:43] George Nakashima

[03:52] Altar for Peace at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

[04:08] Altar for Peace at the Russian Academy of Arts

[04:14] Altar for Peace in Auroville, India

[08:42] Hague Appeal for Peace

[13:52] Sri Aurobindo

[15:36] Bnai Keshet

[15:45] St. Martin of Tours

[15:50] Monastery of Christ in the Desert

[15:58] Queen of Peace Chapel

[17:14] Ivan Wyschnegradsky

[17:22] Antonin Raymond

[17:36] Golconde

[21:00] George Nakashima Woodworker

[23:07] Katsura Imperial Villa

[23:26] Junzō Yoshimura

[30:11] Udar Pinto

[31:27] The Soul of a Tree

[42:07] Nature Form & Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima

[45:22] The Krosnicks’ furniture collection

[49:54] Keisho collection

[54:14] Shoki collection

Behind every unforgettable space and every extraordinary experience is a certain je ne sais quoi. If anyone has an idea of what exactly that is, it’s the hospitality impresario and Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager. For more than four decades, Schrager has been a defining cultural catalyst and beacon across industries, from hotels and nightlife, to art and architecture, to fashion and food, and beyond. Since the early 1980s, Schrager has devised and developed more than 20 ahead-of-the-curve hospitality properties, including the Public hotel (2017) in New York City and the Edition line of hotels, as well as, going further back, the Morgans (1982), the Paramount (1990), the Hudson (2000), and the Gramercy Park Hotel (2006) in New York; the Mondrian (1996) in Los Angeles; the Delano (1995) in Miami; St. Martins Lane and the Sanderson (both 1998) in London; and the Clift (2000) in San Francisco. Beyond designing for mere aesthetic appreciation, Schrager cultivates places with a soul and spirit all their own.

On this episode—our 100th—Schrager discusses his tried-and-true design philosophies and definition of luxury today; his admiration for the visionary thinking of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Walt Disney; and the enduring aura of Studio 54.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[00:33] Ian Schrager

[02:54] Morgans Hotel

[02:59] Studio 54

[03:02] Steve Rubell

[06:26] Edition Hotels

[06:33] Arne Sorenson

[12:44] Public Hotels

[13:03] Paramount Hotel

[13:29] The Royalton

[14:45] Hudson Hotel

[24:37] John Pawson

[26:04] The Palladium

[26:05] Arata Isozaki

[33:24] “Studio 54” Documentary

[42:41] Enchanted Garden

[50:48] Bianca Jagger

[50:51] Truman Capote

[50:51] Andy Warhol

[50:56] Issey Miyake

[53:33] Paul Goldberger

[01:03:01] Paperless Post

To Sanford Biggers, the past, present, and future are intertwined and all part of one big, long now. Over the past three decades, the Harlem-based artist has woven various threads of place and time—in ways not dissimilar to a hip-hop D.J. or a quilter—to create clever, deeply metaphorical, darkly humorous, and often beautiful work across a vast array of mediums, including painting, sculpture, video, photography, music, and performance. Among his standout works are “Oracle” (2021), a 25-foot-tall cast bronze sculpture that combines a Greco-Roman form with an African mask; his “BAM” series (2015) of gunshot statuettes; and his ongoing “Codex” series of quilts, which have, over his past decade of making them, become an especially potent and ritualistic part of his art-making.

On this episode, Biggers talks about the influence that musicians such as Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder have had on his art; why he thinks of himself as a “material polyglot”; and why religious and spiritual works like reliquaries, shrines, and “power objects” are the bedrock of his practice.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

[00:26] Sanford Biggers

[03:55] “Sanford Biggers with Yasi Alipour”

[07:14] “The Playful, Political Art of Sanford Biggers”

[12:34] Moon Medicin

[13:36] Mahalia Jackson

[13:39] Ray Charles

[13:40] Charles Mingus

[13:41] Thelonious Monk

[15:32] Stevie Wonder

[16:06] Prince

[18:00] Dick Gregory

[18:01] Richard Pryor

[18:02] Redd Foxx

[18:47] “BAM” series

[27:17] “re:mancipation”

[29:05] Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture

[30:08] John Biggers

[31:41] “Codeswitch” at the California African American Museum

[33:28] Dr. Leslie King-Hammond

[33:30] Maryland Institute College of Art

[37:47] University High School

[38:23] Morehouse College

[38:33] Art Institute of Chicago

[47:34] Isamu Noguchi

[47:36] Martin Puryear

[49:06] “Lotus”

[50:31] “Orin”

[55:52] “Meet Me on the Equinox”

[55:52] “Back to the Stars”

The London-based artist, master potter, and author Edmund de Waal has an astoundingly astute sense for the inner lives of objects. Each of his works, whether in clay or stone, is imbued with a certain alchemy, embodying traces of far-away or long-ago ancestors, ideas, and histories. This fall, two exhibitions featuring his artworks are on view at Gagosian in New York (through October 28): “to light, and then return,” which pairs his pieces with tintypes and platinum prints by Sally Mann, and “this must be the place,” a solo presentation displaying his porcelain vessels poetically arranged in vitrines, as well as stone benches carved from marble. As respected for his writing as he is for his pots, de Waal is the author of 20th Century Ceramics (2003), The Pot Book (2011), The White Road (2015), Letters to Camondo (2021), and, perhaps most notably, the New York Times bestseller The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010). All that de Waal does is part of one long continuum: He views his pots and texts as a single, rigorously sculpted body of work and ongoing conversation across time.

On this episode, de Waal talks about his infatuation with Japan, his affinity for the life and work of the Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), and the roles of rhythm and breath in his work.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[00:28] Edmund de Waal

[03:43] Paul Celan

[08:12] 2023 Isamu Noguchi Award

[08:17] Gagosian

[08:20] “this must be the place” 

[08:22] “to light, and then return”

[09:09] Twentieth-Century Ceramics

[09:20] The Pot Book

[18:23] “Letters to Camondo” Exhibition

[20:32] Sally Mann

[20:48] The Hare with Amber Eyes

[28:00] “The Hare with Amber Eyes” Exhibition

[30:56] “Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto” Exhibition

[40:24] Dr. Sen no Sōshitsu

[52:48] The White Road

[52:49] Letters to Camondo

[01:06:33] In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials

The artist and photographer Trent Davis Bailey (our host, Spencer Bailey’s, identical twin brother) continually seeks to unearth the tangled roots of his identity through his intensely personal and place-based work. This summer, his first-ever solo museum exhibition, “Personal Geographies” (on view through February 11, 2024)—a photographic exploration of memory, family, and place—opened at the Denver Art Museum, and this fall, he will release the corresponding project, “The North Fork,” in book form. Bailey is also currently at work on “Son Pictures,” an ongoing series of photographs piecing together fragments of his family’s past and present, some of which were recently published alongside a New York Times op-ed titled “What a Motherless Son Knows About Fatherhood.” Leading him to take deep-dives into newspaper and family photo archives, and from Colorado to Iowa to the Adirondacks, “Son Pictures” unpacks the loss of his mother, who died in a plane crash in 1989 when he was 3; his family’s attendant trauma and grief; and his present life, at 38, as a husband and parent of two toddlers.

On this episode—his and Spencer’s first formal “twinterview,” recorded last month on their 38th birthday—Bailey talks about what it was like to grow up as an identical twin, his unusual and decidedly dysfunctional upbringing, and photography as a device for commemoration.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[00:28] Trent Davis Bailey

[09:58] “The North Fork” 

[10:02] “Personal Geographies” at the Denver Art Museum

[10:12] “What a Motherless Son Knows About Fatherhood” 

[10:18] “Son Pictures”

[11:54] Paonia, Colorado

[20:10] California College of the Arts

[20:22] Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Snider Prize

[20:28] Robert Koch Gallery

[22:34] The Sublime

[23:52] The Hotchkiss Crawford Historical Museum/Society

[26:42] Robert Frank

[26:53] Stephen Shore

[26:55] Joel Sternfeld

[28:27] “A Kingdom From Dust”

[28:32] The California Sunday Magazine

[36:40] Rebecca Solnit

[45:43] United Airlines Flight 232

[45:46] Spencer Bailey Reflects on the Crash-Landing of United Airlines Flight 232

[45:56] Sioux City, Iowa

[46:02] Frances Lockwood Bailey

[56:42] International Center of Photography

[56:57] Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

[59:55] Robert Frank “The Americans” Exhibition at the Met

[01:08:10] Lake Placid, New York

[01:14:24] Brooklyn Darkroom

For each and every performance the theater director, playwright, choreographer, and sound and lighting designer Robert Wilson creates, time isn’t just of the essence—it is the essence. Perhaps best known as the director of the four-act opera Einstein on the Beach, which he composed with Philip Glass and debuted in 1976, Wilson now has nearly 200 stage productions to his name. These include Dorian, which premiered last year in Düsseldorf, and The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, which opened at the Manchester International Festival in 2011. What stands out about Wilson’s work, among many things, is its rare ability to disorient viewers while also enchanting them. Duration is often another part of the equation: Some of the performances on Wilson’s résumé have ranged from seven hours to an astonishing seven days. Many critics, writers, and scholars have agreed that Wilson has completely reshaped the landscape of theater, vastly expanding its vocabularies and horizons.

On this episode, Wilson talks about his personal philosophies around silence and sound, the intersections of architecture and theater, and his enduring vision for the Watermill Center.

Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

[04:31] The King of Spain

[04:32] The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud

[04:34] Deafman Glance

[04:59] John Cage

[09:02] Madama Butterfly

[13:51] “Time to Think”

[14:34] Marina Abramović

[16:37] The Ring

[16:39] King Lear

[16:41] Einstein on the Beach

[16:43] Philip Glass

[18:14] Parsifal

[18:50] The Watermill Center

[28:55] Dorian

[32:09] Time Rocker

[32:15] Lou Reed

[34:27] Ka Mountain and Guardenia Terrace

[39:28] Festival of Autumn in Paris

[40:38] The Golden Windows

[41:04] Pratt Institute

[43:45] Medea

[44:48] Edison

[44:58] Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights

[45:00] Relative Calm

[46:32] H-100 Seconds to Midnight

[52:27] The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin

[52:40] A Letter for Queen Victoria

Through his abstract paintings, the Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá explores themes ranging from memory, gesture, and layering, to movement, dance, and hip-hop culture, to codes, mapping, and mark-making. Coming up in Miami in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Parlá spent his adolescence and young adult years steeped in hip-hop culture and an underground scene that involved break dancing, writing rhymes, and making aerosol art. The art form still manifests, in wholly original ways, in his abstract works, which, while decidedly of the 21st century, extend in meaning and method back to ancient wall writings and cave drawings.

On the episode, Parlá talks about his recent near-death experience with Covid-19; his activism with the collective Wide Awakes; and how his large-scale murals at locations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barclays Center, and One World Trade Center trace back to his early days of painting elaborate wall works with aerosol.

Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[07:37] Rey Parlá

[11:45] Ciclos: Blooms of Mold

[12:19] Augustin Parlá

[13:13] Curtiss School of Aviation

[14:05] José Martí

[16:20] “Phosphene” series

[18:27] “Polarities” series

[18:32] “Breathing” series

[23:25] Wide Awakes

[23:26] For Freedoms

[23:29] Hank Willis Thomas

[23:31] J.R.

[23:35] Wildcat Ebony Brown

[24:28] “The Awakening”

[32:04] “It’s Yours”

[34:17] Snøhetta

[34:45] Ghetto Gastro

[36:50] Craig Dykers

[36:55] José Parlá’s Studio

[38:20] James B. Hunt Jr. Library

[38:22] “Nature of Language”

[38:47] Far Rockaway Writer’s Library

[56:56] “Brothers Back to Back”

[59:51] “Parlá Frères”

[01:00:03] Hurricane Andrew

[01:00:12] Savannah College of Art and Design

[01:01:32] New World School of the Arts

[01:01:51] Mel Alexenberg

[01:02:29] “Combine” by Robert Rauschenberg

[01:06:29] “Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture” at BAM

[01:06:30] Barclays Center mural

[01:06:32] “One: Union of the Senses” at One World Trade Center

[01:06:33] “Amistad América” at the University of Texas at Austin

[01:12:08] Gordon Parks fellowship