 |
A brush with...In-depth artist interviews Author: The Art Newspaper
A brush with..., sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, is a podcast by The Art Newspaper that features in-depth conversations with leading international artists. Host Ben Luke asks the questions you've always wanted to: who are the artists, historical and contemporary, they most admire? Which are the museums they return to? What are the books, music and other media that most inspire them? What do they get up to in the studio every day? And what is art for, anyway?The podcast offers a fascinating insight into the inspirations, the preoccupations and the working lives of some of the most prominent artists today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Language: en Genres: Arts, Visual Arts Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
Listen Now...
A brush with... Catherine Opie
Episode 2
Tuesday, 17 February, 2026
Catherine Opie talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Over more than three decades, Opie, who was born in 1961 in Sandusky, Ohio, and lives today in Los Angeles, has created photographic portraits, cityscapes and landscapes that have borne witness to social and political conditions and tensions—particularly in her native United States—while also reflecting a deeply personal response to people and community. Fundamental to her work is an exploration, as a queer woman and as a documentarian photographer, of the nuanced, multifarious nature of identity, most prominently in LGBTQ+ communities, but also far beyond them. She has committed from her earliest mature images to the idea that, as she has phrased it, “Without representation, there is no visibility”—a belief that remains more vital than ever in the US and across the world in the 2020s. And that visibility is manifest not just in the portraiture for which she is best known, but also in the central place that architecture and interiors play in her work. She repeatedly calls our attention to the juxtaposition of the built environment and the construction of bodies and identities. So she documents her surroundings in the fullest sense: she depicts the people she loves, knows and meets; the spaces they occupy; and the broader physical and social environment around them. Ultimately, she hopes, through encountering her art, viewers will gain a better understanding of humanity in all its complexity. She reflects on her early discovery and desire to make pictures, aged nine, and the key figures that helped her choose to become an artist. She talks about the kinship between poetry and art and the fundamental importance, whatever her subject, of human connection. She reflects on artists as diverse as Holbein and Leonardo and Gerhard Richter and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, on the influence of writers including Joan Didion and Octavia Butler, and on her admiration for Chloe Zhao and Chris Marker. Plus, she gives insights into her life in the studio (and darkroom) and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, National Portrait Gallery, London, 5 March-31 May 2026; Catherine Opie: The Pause that Dreams Against Erasure, The Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 19 July 2026. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
