Frieze Masters Podcast Frieze

‘Sex, death, race and religion’ – these are the topics that the London-based artists Gilbert and George announced they wanted to cover in this talk with Dr Nicholas Cullinan of the National Portrait Gallery. On Context offers insights into the artist’s relationship to concepts: from sculpture to the city, ‘picture making’ to posterity. Gilbert and George resist many of the contexts and interpretations projected onto their practice: trying to keep their work as accessible and open as possible, reflecting their self-proclaimed belief in ‘art for all’. 
'We like to let the pictures make themselves as much as possible. We like to think that there are other forces apart from us, being in the studio knowing what to do. […] When we go to the studio in the morning and see what we were doing the day before, it’s always impossible for us to reconstruct exactly how we arrived at it.' – Gilbert & George 
Gilbert and George live and work in London and since they met in 1967, they have made over 100 museum exhibitions. In 2023, the Gilbert & George Centre opened in East London. Dr Nicholas Cullinan is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 
Find images of the artwork discussed here.
About Frieze Masters Podcast
Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.
This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.
About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 
www.frieze.com
@friezeofficial

The London home of Galerie Thaddeus Ropac is a traditional eighteenth-century Mayfair townhouse, once home to the Bishop of Ely. But for artist Mandy El-Sayegh’s 2023 exhibition ‘Interiors’, its spaces were transformed into a riot of colour and pattern across paintings, textiles and furniture. In On Interiors, El-Sayegh talks to Dr Flavia Frigeri of the National Portrait Gallery, and Valerie Cassel Oliver of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, who is also the curator of the 2023 Spotlight section at Frieze Masters, about the relationship between inner and outer space: the space of the studio and the space of exhibition and how art displayed connects to an artist’s inner life. 
'I metabolise my material. […] Everything has to be processed in the studio. If I’m going through something, I’ll have to deal with it and work with it physically in the studio.' – Mandy El-Sayegh
Mandy El-Sayegh is a London-based artist whose practice is rooted in assemblage. Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Dr Flavia Frigeri is an art historian, lecturer and ‘Chanel Curator for the Collection’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Find images of the artwork discussed here.
About Frieze Masters Podcast
Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.
This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.
About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 
www.frieze.com
@friezeofficial

The year 1993 marked a watershed for the famous Turner Prize, when it was awarded for the first time to a woman. That artist was Rachel Whiteread and the work was House in East London. In On Space, Whiteread is in conversation with the art historian Briony Fer. Together, they discuss the urges and concerns that underpin Whiteread’s work, from seminal works of the 1990s to her more recent projects, such as the site-specific commission unveiled in the summer of 2023 at Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo, Italy, which responds to the experience and legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.  
[Drawing] is something I’ve always done in the studio and it’s a way of slowing things down, it’s a way of being on my own, it’s a way of meditating, a way of bringing some colour into my life. – Rachel Whiteread 
Rachel Whiteread is a contemporary British artist working across sculpture and drawing, using casting to free her subject matter. Briony Fer is Professor of History of Art at University College and has published extensively on 20th century and contemporary art.
Find images of the artwork discussed here.
About Frieze Masters Podcast
Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.
This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.
About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 
www.frieze.com
@friezeofficial

In On Power, London-based multidisciplinary artist Thomas J Price is in conversation with Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, the inaugural Director of V&A East. Together, they reflect on how monuments created for the public realm are not just aesthetic objects but artefacts often bound up in values, ideologies and power systems. Price, in his words, wants to convey ‘the sense of another person’ and has spent the past two decades creating large-scale figurative sculptures of everyday, unidentified Black individuals, often located in public spaces: such as the commission honouring the Windrush Generation in London’s Hackney.
'Visibility is one thing, but understanding is another. I think that desire to be understood is so primal and so urgent and so necessary within all of us and I think for a long time, people of colour had to do without that reality.' – Thomas J Price 
Thomas J Price is a British artist celebrated for his large-scale figurative sculptures. ‘Thomas J Price at the V&A’ presents the artist’s work in dialogue with the V&A’s historic collections, until May 2024. Dr Gus Casely-Hayford is the inaugural Director of V&A East, appointed in March 2020, as well as a curator and cultural historian who writes, lectures and broadcasts widely on culture.
Find images of the artwork discussed here.
About Frieze Masters Podcast
Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.
This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.
About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 
www.frieze.com
@friezeofficial

In 2023, Frieze Masters fair sought to break the artist’s studio open to a new audience with a new section, Studio, curated by Sheena Wagstaff – the former Chairman of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Met and now Met’s Chair Emerita. In On Studios, Wagstaff talks with one of the Studio artists, Arlene Shechet, exploring how central the place and space of making is to her work, as well as its significance in the realm of creativity.
'It’s not a genius move, it’s just hard work. It just means that you know that you want something more, you know that you want something different. You follow the work always in terms of form, you follow the work in terms of idea, and you definitely follow the work in terms of solving any technical problems.' – Arlene Shechet
Arlene Shechet is a sculptor working in New York City and the Hudson Valley. In 2023, Shechet was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2024, the Storm King Art Center will stage a major exhibition of Shechet’s work. Sheena Wagstaff was Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from 2012-22, and is now vested as Met’s Chair Emerita. Wagstaff was appointed Creative Advisor for Frieze Masters in November 2023.
Find images of the artwork discussed here.
About Frieze Masters Podcast
Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.
This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.
About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 
www.frieze.com
@friezeofficial

On Photography asks what it means today for an artist to work with a living, breathing icon, like the actress Tilda Swinton. Tim Walker, the noted artist and photographer, is joined by his long-time collaborator, stylist Jerry Stafford, to talk about their work together with Tilda Swinton. Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, moderates the conversation.
'When I’m scared of something or someone, that scare turns into being photogenic. […] The situation becomes very heightened and I become very alert and I then I think I make better work.' – Tim Walker
Tim Walker is a photographer for Vogue’s British, Italian and American editions, as well as W Magazine and LOVE Magazine. Jerry Stafford is a writer and curator. He is creative director at Paris-based film production company Premiere Heure and personal stylist to performers Tilda Swinton and Gwendoline Christie. Dr Nicholas Cullinan is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 
Find images of the artwork discussed here.
This episode is presented in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery.
About Frieze Masters Podcast
Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.
The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.
This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.
About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London. 
www.frieze.com
@friezeofficial