Art at Qatar’s World Cup; New York auctions; Mozambican artist Luis Meque

11/18/22 • 54 min

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Ben Luke talks to Hannah McGivern, a correspondent for The Art Newspaper who has just been to Qatar, about the vast number of public art projects that will accompany the FIFA Men’s World Cup that begins there on Sunday 20 November. She also discusses the museums that Qatar plans to open by 2030. How does this explosion of cultural initiatives sit with Qatar’s record on human rights and treatment of low-paid migrant workers in the building of its cultural venues and World Cup stadia? It has been a heady fortnight of auctions in New York. Ben speaks to Georgina Adam, an editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, about the highs and lows, and whether we can expect even more sales of blockbuster collections in the coming years. And this episode’s Work of the Week is an untitled painting by Luis Meque, an artist born in Mozambique who came to fame in the 1980s and early-1990s in Zimbabwe. Tandazani Dhlakama, the curator of the exhibition When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, tells us about Meque’s painting and his brief and brilliant life.

When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, 20 November-3 September 2023

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When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, 20 November-3 September 2023

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Artists and climate action; US National Gallery of Art’s women artists fund; Paula Modersohn-Becker

This week: as the UN’s climate emergency summit, Cop27, continues in Egypt, Ben Luke talks to Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent—and the author of our online column about art and climate change—about international art initiatives responding to the crisis. Kaywin Feldman, the director of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, tells us about the museum’s new $10m endowment fund for purchases of works by women artists. The historic gift, from the family of the gallery’s first female president, Victoria P. Sant, will help the NGA fill gaps in its collection. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mother with Child on her Arm, Nude II (1906) by the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker. The work is a highlight of Making Modernism, a show of German women artists that opens this weekend at the Royal Academy in London. The exhibition’s curator, Dorothy Price, discusses this late painting in Modersohn-Becker’s short but productive life.

Making Modernism: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 12 November-12 February 2023.

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Next Episode

Pussy Riot and Ragnar Kjartansson; Shirin Neshat on Iran; Puerto Rican art after Hurricane Maria

This week: as the exhibition Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia opens at the Kling & Bang gallery in Reykjavik, Ben Luke talks to Masha Alekhina, one of the founding members of Pussy Riot, and the artist Ragnar Kjartansson, one of the co-curators of the show. As protests continue across Iran, Aimee Dawson, The Art Newspaper’s acting digital editor, speaks to Shirin Neshat, the artist whose work expressing solidarity with women in Iran was recently installed outside the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. And this episode’s Work of the Week is by the Puerto Rican artist Gabriella Torres-Ferrer. Their 2018 sculpture—called Untitled (Value Your American Lie)—is part of a major new show at the Whitney Museum in New York, exploring art in Puerto Rico in the five years since the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia, Kling & Bang, Reykjavik, until 15 January 2023. Pussy Riot: Riot Days, National Theatre of Iceland, Reykjavik, 25 November. Proceeds from the concert and the exhibition go to supporting Ukraine. You can hear an in-depth interview with Ragnar Kjartansson from 2020 on our sister podcast A brush with... on the usual podcast platforms.

No existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, until 23 Apr 2023.

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