About Art

This week on my podcast “Conversations About Art” I spoke with Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, a curator who established the Foundation in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts, not only in Sharjah, UAE, but also in the region and across the world. With a passion for supporting experimentation and innovation in the arts, Al Qasimi has continuously expanded the scope of the Foundation to include major international touring exhibitions; artist and curator residencies in visual art, film and music; commissions and production grants for emerging artists; publications and publication grants; performance and film festivals; architectural research and restoration; and a wide range of educational programming in Sharjah for both children and adults.

In 2003, Al Qasimi co-curated Sharjah Biennial 6 and has remained Biennial Director ever since. She is currently curating the upcoming Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023). Under her leadership, Sharjah Biennial has become an internationally recognised platform for contemporary artists, curators and cultural producers. Her leadership in the field led to her election as President of the International Biennial Association (IBA) in 2017, an appointment that transferred IBA’s headquarters to Sharjah. In addition to her role at the Foundation, Al Qasimi also serves as the President of The Africa Institute and President and Director of the Sharjah Architectural Triennial, which inaugurated its first edition in November 2019.

She and I spoke about chance moments, the history of the place, the Africa Institute, “thinking historically in the present”, not rushing, decentralizing, doing less, telling you own history, not pursuing things that don’t work, and counting experiences!

Marianne Boesky established her eponymous gallery in New York in 1996. Since its inception, the gallery has represented and supported the work of emerging and established contemporary artists of all media and genres. In its first decade, the gallery was instrumental in launching the careers of major artists including Barnaby Furnas, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Sarah Sze, and Lisa Yuskavage. The gallery currently represents many significant international artists, including Ghada Amer, Jennifer Bartlett, Sanford Biggers, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Donald Moffett, and Frank Stella. Boesky relocated her flagship gallery from SoHo to Chelsea in 2001, and in 2016, the gallery expanded its flagship location to include its adjacent space on West 24th Street. In 2017, Boesky opened a location in Aspen, Colorado; she has organized temporary exhibition spaces in Europe and in cities across the United States.
She and Zuckerman discuss family legacy, audacity, learning from artists, bank loans, consiglieres, vision, looking at everything, being a mom in the artworld, mentoring, and not rushing!

Jérôme Sans began his career in the early 1980s as one of the first independent curators in Europe. His mission has been to rethink contemporary art exhibition making through an engagement with emerging artists. He is the former director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, co-founder of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and creator, and former creative director and editor-in-chief of the French cultural magazine L’Officiel Art, former artistic director of Rives de Saône-River Movie, former co-artistic director to the Grand Paris Express project, France's largest urban redefinition through culture initiative since Haussmann, among many other accomplishments and appointments. He recently joined LAGO/ALGO, a cultural hub that blends Contemporary Art and modernist architecture in Mexico City, as artistic director.

He and Zuckerman discuss why art matters, institution building and how to make people feel welcome, what we’ve forgotten how to do in the last few years, and what he tells doubters!

Derrick Adams is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Adams probes how the experiences and narratives of Black communities are reflected in and refracted by American history, entertainment, consumerism, iconography, and the dynamic relationship between personal identity and cultural environment. Expanding the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture, through scenes of normalcy and perseverance, he developed and presents an iconography of joy, leisure, and the pursuit of happiness.
He and Zuckerman spoke about confidence, formed language, times of invisibility, fun, artist friendships, celebrating yourself without explaining, and taking chances! is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Adams probes how the experiences and narratives of Black communities are reflected in and refracted by American history, entertainment, consumerism, iconography, and the dynamic relationship between personal identity and cultural environment. Expanding the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture, through scenes of normalcy and perseverance, he developed and presents an iconography of joy, leisure, and the pursuit of happiness.
He and Zuckerman spoke about confidence, formed language, times of invisibility, fun, artist friendships, celebrating yourself without explaining, and taking chances!

This week on my podcast “Conversations About Art” I spoke with Kate MccGwire, a British sculptor who spent her childhood growing up on the Norfolk Broads. Taking feathers as her primary medium, MccGwire goes through labour-intensive processes of collecting, sorting and cleaning her materials to create muscular, writhing forms reminiscent of Classical sculpture and creatures from mythology. Through her practice, MccGwire celebrates feathers, which are commonly shed or discarded, as the medium through which she articulates enigmatic anatomies that explore physical and introspective space.

She and I discuss swimming in the river, unexpected and long term collaborations, the notion of place, tracing the practice of time, being lost, looking again at what you think you know, meditative processes, what she listens to in the studio, flow, flux, patterning and energy, the power of art, and having a weird life!

Royal Salute, the master of exceptionally aged Scotch whisky, has unveiled a new platform, The Art of Wonder in partnership with celebrated British sculptor, Kate MccGwire. The Art of Wonder will invite some of the most provocative artists of today to take inspiration from the craft of whisky blending to create a lasting tribute to the transformative power of creativity. For its inaugural release, Royal Salute has partnered with British sculptor, Kate MccGwire, who has created three beautifully sculpted and sensuous pieces; Paragon, Plethora, and Protean, under a body of work named Forces of Nature. Paragon is one of 21 bespoke sculptures, that sits with a remarkable 53 Year Old blended Scotch whisky, one of the highest ages ever released by Royal Salute. Plethora, which features sustainably sourced pheasant feathers flowing through the curves of copper repurposed from silent whisky stills, will be unveiled for the first time in Shanghai, China, in November 2022. Protean, the largest installation of the three, continues the theme of Plethora and will be revealed at Frieze, London on the 12th of October 2022.

For more information, visit royalsalute.com or follow @royalsalute on social media.

@kate_mccgwire