Royal Academy of Arts
245 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★ - 7 ratingsSubscribe for art and ideas. We host conversations with artists, architects and other leading creatives – and we've just posted podcasts from recent Festival of Ideas. Enjoy.
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Episodes
Daniel Buren's new installation at Tottenham Court Road station
August 21, 2017 16:32 - 1 hour - 60.5 MBHave you seen the monochrome stripes and brightly coloured shapes of Daniel Buren's 'Diamonds and Circles, works in situ', at Tottenham Court Road station? Here, the artist discusses his practice and the significance of intervening in public space with the RA's Artistic Director, Tim Marlow.
How do art and architecture shape the politics of memory around conflict?
July 24, 2017 16:20 - 1 hour - 78.1 MBArtist Miroslaw Balka and architectural historian Joseph Rykwert discuss the concepts of memory and conflict, and how these are explored in contemporary art and architecture from UK to Poland – the birthplace of both speakers. Conflict leaves a mark upon cities, societies and culture that endures not only in the sensibilities of the generations living it, but also in the identities of those that follow. In the aftermath, memories of conflict continue to have great impact, frequently creating...
Pin Drop Short Story Award with Penelope Wilton
July 24, 2017 15:14 - 49 minutes - 45.7 MBHear Cherise Saywell's winning story read aloud to a live audience by actress Dame Penelope Wilton, followed by a discussion of the work with the author. The RA and Pin Drop’s short story award offers a unique platform for emerging and established writers to showcase their short stories. The judging panel includes Pin Drop co-founders Elizabeth Day and Simon Oldfield, and the RA’s Artistic Director, Tim Marlow.
Exploring London's identity as a global city today
July 17, 2017 14:50 - 1 hour - 164 MBLike many of its counterparts, London is in a continuous cycle of change. The economic interests of financial corporations, the growth of the tourist industry, migration and the consequences of Brexit all have an impact on London’s urban environment and thus its identity. In this context, architecture becomes an important currency for maintaining London’s profile as a global capital. How then is the architectural language of London evolving? What makes its architecture distinctive from Shangh...
How can art define a sense of national identity?
July 17, 2017 12:56 - 1 hour - 123 MBIn the midst of Brexit and in an age of political upheaval in the UK and abroad, how are ideas about national identity portrayed through art? How can art and spaces for art can define national identity? What is the role of the wider art community in defining national identity? Our discussion begins post-Wall Street Crash with the government's Works Progress Administration (WPA) programme, which aimed to generate art that re-examined American culture and values and define a new national ident...
Owen Hopkins discusses his book 'Lost Futures: The Disappearing Architecture of Post-War Britain'
July 17, 2017 12:19 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBAuthor Owen Hopkins discusses his latest book with ‘Icon’ editor John Jervis. 'Lost Futures: The Disappearing Architecture of Post-War Britain explores the rise and fall of buildings constructed in Britain between 1945 and 1979 that reflected the deep-rooted belief in architecture’s capacity to build a better world. The book highlights the ideas and values that shaped these buildings’ creation – and how changing external contexts, whether social, economic or political, as well as the buildin...
Cornelia Parker talks prints, process and inspirations
July 17, 2017 11:54 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MBTo fully enjoy this podcast, we recommend listening while viewing the images Cornelia Parker presented alongside her talk: roy.ac/2uuXhFB Cornelia Parker, one of today’s most renowned artists, speaks candidly about what inspires her and her printmaking practice, in conversation with Jan Dalley, Arts Editor of The Financial Times. Cornelia Parker is well known for her large-scale, often site-specific, installations. Often there is an apocalyptic tone to her work, but Parker also demonstrates...
Designing urban identities: West London
June 09, 2017 17:18 - 1 hour - 168 MBWhile much attention has been placed on the drastic changes in East London, there are equally major projects in West London that are reconfiguring the nature of the built environment. Old Oak Common, Earls Court and Acton are just some of the next housebuilding hotspots in London, and with the opening of the East-West Crossrail line and the expansion plans for Heathrow Airport, these projects will drastically transform the economy, cityscape and thus identity of West London. The character of...
Designing urban identities: East London
June 09, 2017 17:07 - 1 hour - 160 MBFrom Stratford to Royal Docks, the identity of East London is being drastically reshaped, turning this former industrial area into one of the new cultural and financial districts of the city. We look at key projects in development that will have a major impact on East London with architects, planners and social and political commentators. The architectural heritage of London varies between sub-regions, boroughs and local communities, creating a city with many different characters. Will this ...
International Architects Series: Aires Mateus
June 08, 2017 15:55 - 57 minutes - 52.3 MBPortuguese architects Aires Mateus talk about their calm approach to architecture, exploring light and form through their recent projects. Over the last thirty years, Aires Mateus have gained international recognition for their delicate and respectful contemporary reinterpretation of Portuguese architectural tradition. Their portfolio started with the small-scale residential projects for which they became best-known and has now expanded internationally, with commissions for a wide range of p...
The Soviet state and the avant-garde
May 24, 2017 13:37 - 1 hour - 58.6 MBProfessor Christina Lodder and writer and curator Konstantin Akinsha explore the complex relationship between the Soviet leadership and the avant-garde art movement in Russia between 1917-32, in a discussion chaired by art historian Theodora Clarke. Avant-garde artists were some of the first to embrace the Bolshevik cause, with a common interest in “a new art for a new society”. As Anatoly Lunacharsky, People’s Commissar of Enlightenment, declared in 1918 to composer Sergey Prokofiev, “You a...
Maggi Hambling in conversation with Tim Marlow
May 24, 2017 13:03 - 56 minutes - 52 MBPainter and sculptor Maggi Hambling discusses her work with the RA’s Artistic Director, Tim Marlow. One of Britain’s foremost contemporary artists, Hambling is perhaps best known for her compelling portraits, paintings of the sea and her celebrated and controversial public sculpture, including 'A Conversation with Oscar Wilde' (1998) and 'Scallop' (2003). Her work is represented in major British Collections including the British Museum, the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, V&A an...
Peter Wormersley: forgotten master of architecture
May 24, 2017 12:42 - 1 hour - 74.4 MBScottish architect Neil Gillespie and historian Simon Green discuss the intriguing yet often overlooked contribution of Peter Womersley to Scottish modern architecture. Trained at the Architectural Association in London, most of Womersley's first commissions were private homes for clients including textile designer Bernat Klein. These experimental and poetic houses show their debt to Frank Lloyd Wright, while his larger public commissions followed a more brutalist tradition with in-situ conc...
Black art and activism
May 18, 2017 11:01 - 1 hour - 74.6 MBArtists Sonia Boyce RA, Dr Kimathi Donkor and Jacob V Joyce join arts practitioner and academic Dr Michael McMillan to discuss whether black artists today are expected to challenge global and national issues of race and representation. Can art and spaces for art contribute to an ongoing dialogue between visual culture and activism in the context of racial prejudice? How do artists see their role? Is art an effective vehicle for protest, grief or hope?
The art of the 1930s American dream
April 19, 2017 11:40 - 59 minutes - 54.7 MBProfessor Sarah Churchwell examines the political, cultural and aesthetic contexts to work by Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh and Georgia O’Keeffe, alongside popular films of the Great Depression era. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States confronted for the first time the possibility that the American experiment might have failed. It was during this period that the phrase “the American dream” was first coined and became a catchphrase for debating the promises ...
Art under state control from the Russian Revolution to today
April 19, 2017 11:33 - 1 hour - 68.7 MBThroughout history the arts have been subject to varying degrees of state control in different countries across the world. It is evident that art can survive even under a severe curtailment of artistic freedom, but can creativity flourish? State support is significant to the development of the arts, but even in countries where freedom of expression is encouraged, it can also unduly influence its direction through funding, policies and control over education. Should art be connected to the sta...
The potential and pitfalls of communal living today
April 19, 2017 11:24 - 1 hour - 78.4 MBInspired by idealist proposals for a new way of life after the Russian Revolution, the panel interrogate the feasibility of co-living that is accessible to all, and suggest what other aspects of our everyday life could benefit from being more communal. Is there room for shared spaces in an individualistic society? Can a more communal attitude help tackle the issues of contemporary society, or does it make them more acute? Does shared responsibility lead to no responsibility? Speakers: Hel...
American Gothic: Grant Wood's personal and stylistic influences
April 19, 2017 11:09 - 1 hour - 64.3 MBArt historian R. Tripp Evans delves deep into the significance and origins of Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic – a painting at once one of the most recognisable and enigmatic images in American art. When American Gothic debuted at the Art Institute of Chicago in the autumn of 1930, critics from New York to Berlin hailed the work as a “national portrait”. Some championed the image as a tribute to a lost agrarian age, while others perceived in it a wicked satire of American provincialism. D...
Back to the future: the remnants of Modernism's postwar ideals
April 19, 2017 11:02 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBLooking to the future was an essential part of Modernism; its postwar advocates believed that they were building a new and better world. In a second age of austerity, when we face housing shortages once more, do the utopian ideals of postwar Modernism offer any solution? Speakers: Peter Barber – architect, principal, Peter Barber Architects, and lecturer, University of Westminster Farshid Moussavi RA – architect, founder, Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA), and Professor in Practice of Ar...
Introduction to ‘Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932’
April 05, 2017 13:24 - 55 minutes - 50.8 MBExhibition co-curator Professor John Milner introduces ‘Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932’ and investigates how artists from Kazimir Malevich to Alexander Deineka made Russian art revolutionary in the first 15 years after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The revolution triggered radical innovations in Russian art. Encouraged to work collectively to promote the revolution, artists began to make a face for the Bolshevik regime, replacing signs of the Imperial command with an art for the peopl...
Art in the service of the Russian Revolution
March 28, 2017 11:48 - 55 minutes - 50.5 MBDr Natalia Murray, co-curator of the RA's ‘Revolution: Russian Art 1917-32’, explores how visual art was used to propagate revolutionary and communist ideas in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 aimed to destroy the old bourgeois society and build a new, homogenous socialist state. Overnight becoming the ruling party in Russia, the Bolsheviks aimed to use the power of mass propaganda to establish their founding mythology and disseminate their ideas to a...
Concrete fetishes: the ghost of Brutalism's radical social agenda
March 28, 2017 09:50 - 1 hour - 116 MBToday, although its monuments are vanishing, Brutalism enjoys a ghostly afterlife. Following decades of official and public contempt, its rehabilitation began when concrete tower blocks featured prominently in 1990s music videos by Britpop groups such as Blur and Suede. This revival continued in mid-2000s blogs by writers such as Owen Hatherley, and today it flourishes in Instagram accounts, soft furnishings, art galleries and coffee-table books. Meanwhile the buildings themselves have becom...
Film and the Soviet avant garde
March 27, 2017 17:50 - 1 hour - 56.7 MBIan Christie discusses the place of film as an art form after the revolution in Russia and the relationship between Soviet filmmakers and other artists of the time. The status of film as an art form rose considerably after the revolution, with Lenin claiming that “of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important”. However, cinema’s success created bitter divisions among artists seeking support from the generally conservative regime, and encouraged disdain among some of the leading av...
Exploring the relationship between gender and materials in art
March 27, 2017 17:41 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBA panel discussion exploring the relationship between art, gender and materials and how an artist’s process, biography and scale of work can shape our reading of gendered art practice. The panel is comprised of artists Ann Christopher RA, Coco Crampton and Mark Dunhill (of Dunhill and O’Brien, and chaired by Helena Reckitt, Senior Lecturer in Curating at Goldsmiths University
International Architects Series: Izaskun Chinchilla
March 27, 2017 17:22 - 1 hour - 62.4 MBIzaskun Chinchilla leads a discussion that asks how architectural design practices can be used to empower women. Would an architecture that is more in tune with the needs of women be more beneficial for everyone? How can planning policy adapt to the fact that men and women use public space in different ways? Would embracing the aesthetics associated with women allow architecture engage a wider public? Chinchilla is characteristic of a new generation of architects focusing on the connections ...
Architecture and urbanism in Moscow today
March 27, 2017 17:08 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MBArchitect, curator and teacher Daria Paramonova discusses the aesthetics, economics and ethics of Moscow's cityscape today. As Moscow faces a remarkable stage of urban redevelopment, it is forced to engage with spaces that have been forgotten since the fall of the Soviet Union 25 years ago. With an unprecedented emphasis on pedestrians, safety, ecology and technology, the city is rebuilding its buildings, streets and public spaces, transforming into an urban environment with new parameters ...
Anthony Green RA in conversation with Timothy Hyman RA
March 23, 2017 17:16 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MBThis conversation with painter Timothy Hyman RA explores Green’s career from the 1960s to the present day, focusing on his new exhibition at the RA; the centrepiece of which is a never-before-shown painting telling the story of Green’s mother’s second marriage, seen through his eyes as a 13-year-old boy. The paintings of Anthony Green RA are immediately recognisable from their characteristically irregular shapes and the artist’s acutely personal choice of subject matter; his work has been a ...
Pin Drop: short stories with Siân Phillips and Eileen Atkins
March 23, 2017 16:41 - 59 minutes - 54.9 MBIn this exclusive joint appearance, leading stars of stage and screen Siân Phillips and Eileen Atkins read selected works of exceptional Russian literature. The readings conclude with a Q&A chaired by Pin Drop founder Simon Oldfield.
International Architects Series: Hollwich Kushner
March 17, 2017 14:26 - 41 minutes - 38.1 MBNew York-based practice Hollwich Kushner / HWKN put people at the centre of their projects to create innovative social experiences, through the exploration of new functional programmes and building typologies. Their projects are rich in personality and responsive to local context – in 2012 the practice gained widespread international attention with an air-cleaning blue spiky installation called Wendy, with which they won the MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Programme. They are also the founders...
Architecture: Carme Pigem of RCR Arquitectes
March 17, 2017 13:57 - 47 minutes - 87.6 MBWith the news that little-known Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes has won this year's Pritzker Prize, we revisit a 2010 talk given at the RA by one third of the trio, Carme Pigem. All three studied at the School of Architecture in Vallès, and then set up their practice in their home town of Olot, Catalonia, in 1988. The studio has tackled everything from athletics track to library and winery to kindergarten. In this talk, Pigem discusses her career and the studio's thoughtful work so far.
Architecture: Modernism in everyday life
February 23, 2017 12:58 - 52 minutes - 97 MBThink of postwar Modernism and images of monumental buildings inevitably come to mind. However, there were also figures working to introduce architectural modernity on a more approachable scale: the artists who illustrated Ladybird books, for instance, and the designers who created the first chain pubs. By expanding our focus to incorporate these minor modernisms we can develop a more holistic understanding of the period and move beyond the canonisation of certain buildings as icons to pict...
International Architects Series: Vo Trong Nghia
February 10, 2017 11:03 - 59 minutes - 109 MBThe Vietnamese practice Vo Trong Nghia aims to create a green architecture for today's world. They boast a series of award-winning projects with an innovative capacity to integrate inexpensive, local materials with contemporary aesthetics and a high level of social and ecological awareness. Vo Trong Nghia has become a leading proponent of using bamboo as a building material, proclaiming it will “…become the ‘green steel’ of the 21st century.”
David Bailey in conversation with Tim Marlow
January 31, 2017 09:51 - 1 hour - 57.9 MBListen to legendary photographer and filmmaker David Bailey in conversation with the RA’s Artistic Director Tim Marlow, discussing his influential work and innovative portrait photographs from the last 60 years. With a career spanning over half a century, David Bailey is one of the world’s most celebrated photographers. Discarding the rigid rules of a previous generation of portrait and fashion photographers, his work defined a new era and shaped the future of photography. In 1971, Bailey’s ...
Architecture: Britain's forgotten estates
January 18, 2017 11:43 - 1 hour - 61 MBHow have Britain’s post-war housing estates become a battleground of differing political and architectural ideologies? As increasing numbers of estates are threatened with redevelopment, this discussion considers the ideals that created them and the legacies they have today, as both places to live and as repositories of meaning and memory. Speakers: Jessie Brennan – Artist; author of Regeneration! Conversations, Drawings, Archives & Photographs from Robin Hood Gardens (2015) Mark Crinson – ...
Architecture: Britain's future estates
January 18, 2017 11:36 - 59 minutes - 54.4 MBFollowing a previous debate exploring the changing status of Britain’s post-war housing estates, this discussion looks at estate regeneration and the range of alternatives that exist to the growing threat of demolition. Speakers: Geraldine Dening – Architect and founder, Architects for Social Housing Adam Khan – Founder, Adam Khan Architects John Lewis – Executive Director Thamesmead, Peabody Sarah Wigglesworth – Architect, director of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects Oliver Wainwright – Arc...
Figurative painting in the twentieth century
December 13, 2016 14:44 - 47 minutes - 43.8 MBPainter and writer Timothy Hyman RA and curator Roger Malbert discuss the artists who have chosen to pursue figurative painting over the last century. With the arrival of abstraction and movements such as Abstract Expressionism in the 20th century, people began to see figurative painting as outdated and at odds with the very concept of modern art. Discussing Hyman's new book 'The World New Made: Figurative Painting in the Twentieth Century', Hyman and Malbert highlight a range of Modernists ...
Architecture and 'Origins': a discussion with Ordinary Architecture, Joseph Rykwert and Kieran Reed
December 13, 2016 14:23 - 51 minutes - 47 MBCharles Holland and Elly Ward of Ordinary Architecture discuss the ideas that informed the 'Origins' project at the RA, and reflect on its implications for the ways architecture is typically created and understood. The distinguished architectural writer Joseph Rykwert and artist Kieren Reed both respond, before a panel discussion and questions from the audience. 'Origins' is a series of interventions which form an intriguing contemporary counterpoint to various ‘origin myths’ of architecture...
The Eclectic Art of James Ensor
December 13, 2016 12:10 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MBHerwig Todts, Conservator of Modern Art at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, examines the eclectic nature of James Ensor's work and his creative process. The work of Ensor is so extremely varied that his oeuvre has been viewed by some as verging on incoherent. Ensor wrote many satirical texts, and through close analysis of these texts an explanation begins to emerge for this inconsistency: Ensor did it on purpose. He developed each of his artistic projects from a different starting po...
Yinka Shonibare MBE RA and David Shrigley in conversation with Dr Gilda Williams
December 13, 2016 11:56 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBYinka Shonibare MBE RA and David Shrigley discuss new work, as well as their experiences of being commissioned to create pieces for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square with art critic and lecturer Gilda Williams. Both influential artists share a particular perspective on British humour and reflect on the impact on their respective practices of being commissioned to create art for the Fourth Plinth.
Abstract Expressionism: revisiting the movement
December 13, 2016 11:33 - 59 minutes - 54.6 MBAcademicians Basil Beattie, Mali Morris, Paul Huxley and Christopher Le Brun PRA discuss their personal responses to Abstract Expressionism and how the new approaches to composition, colour and scale influenced and impacted on the visual arts both then and now. Examining how artists and the arts world internationally responded to Abstract Expressionism, they consider the significance of this influential movement of the 20th century and why its impact still resounds today.
International Architects Series: Christ & Gantenbein
December 12, 2016 16:11 - 1 hour - 65.5 MBChrist & Gantenbein, designers of the recently opened Kunstmuseum in Basel and the extension to the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, come to the RA to discuss their acclaimed work.
Women of Abstract Expressionism
December 12, 2016 12:56 - 48 minutes - 44.5 MBArtists Vanessa Jackson RA and Clare Price, along with curator Gwen Chanzit from the Denver Art Museum, discuss the important female figures of Abstract Expressionism, and explore the relationship between artists and the gendered practice of abstract painting. Although their work has often been overlooked in favour of their male contemporaries, artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler were major players in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Gallerists Peggy Guggen...
London Beyond Brexit
December 12, 2016 12:53 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MBWhat will be the implications of Brexit on London’s development and status as a global city over the next few decades? Can London remain a global city outside of the EU? Should it, if London’s success comes at the expense of the rest of the UK? Will London become less attractive to investment and if so, what will the effects be on development, especially with regard to housing? What opportunities does Brexit offer for remaking the relationship between London and the rest of the UK for the bet...
Luc Tuymans in conversation with Adrian Locke
December 12, 2016 11:57 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MBLuc Tuymans discusses his distinguished career as a contemporary painter, as well as his curation of the James Ensor exhibition, with Senior Curator Adrian Locke. Since the late 1970s, Tuymans’s easily-recognisable, sparsely-coloured figurative canvases have redefined the traditional genres of the everyday and history painting. Drawing in part on influences which range from Flemish Old Master painting to the contemporary mass media, his works are almost always painted from pre-existing image...
Abstract Expressionism and jazz improvisation with Evan Parker
December 05, 2016 11:31 - 40 minutes - 56.1 MBA discussion between legendary jazz saxophonist Evan Parker and artist and musician David Ryan, exploring the connections between free improvisation in jazz and the Abstract Expressionism movement. The British jazz saxophone revolutionary Evan Parker transformed the language and techniques of the instrument in the late 1960s and has since become one of the world’s most admired and influential saxophone improvisers. Described by Stewart Lee as “the greatest living exponent of free improvisati...
International Architects Series: Johnston Marklee
December 02, 2016 17:49 - 1 hour - 56 MBSharon Johnston and Mark Lee are among the leading figures in a new generation of Los Angeles architects. Ranging from the private houses for which they are best known, to cultural projects such as the ongoing Drawing Institute at the Menil Collection in Houston (a commission won against a star-studded field), Johnston Marklee‘s buildings stand apart for their calmness, distilling the complexity of brief or site into a coherent formal purity.
Abstract Expressionism: a legacy for a new generation
December 02, 2016 16:37 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MBAbstract Expressionism is considered one of the seminal movements in 20th century art. But to what extent do this generation of artists identify with the movement and its ideas? Artists Gabriel Hartley, Lisa Denyer and Selma Parlour explore their connection to Abstract Expressionism and examine the extent to which the spirit of the movement may be identified in the work of today’s young artists.
An introduction to James Ensor
November 29, 2016 11:18 - 53 minutes - 49 MBSenior Curator Adrian Locke introduces the RA's exhibition ‘Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans’ and examines the life and work of this truly original artist. Though largely unknown in the UK, James Ensor is celebrated as one of Belgium’s most innovative artists, an enigmatic figure who rejected the academic training of his youth to cultivate his own individual style in the face of considerable opposition and hostile criticism.
Pin Drop: Short stories with A.C. Grayling
November 29, 2016 11:13 - 1 hour - 61.8 MBListen in on an exceptional evening of short stories with philosopher, author and academic A.C. Grayling. Presented in partnership with Pin Drop, a unique initiative that communicates the unforgettable power of storytelling.
Abstract Expressionism: an American art movement
November 29, 2016 09:57 - 51 minutes - 47 MBIn this talk, Professor Sarah Churchwell examines the social and cultural context that created this first truly American modernist movement and the beginning of New York City’s influence as the centre of the western art world. An unparalleled period in American art, the rise of Abstract Expressionism in America in the 1930s and 1940s reflected the broader cultural context of mid-20th-century America. Global economic, social and political developments impacted on the American, and in particul...