Jennifer Higgie on the art of interviewing artists

Prison, pokies and colour: Three artists who turned art into therapy: Damien Linnane was serving a prison sentence when he took up art as mental health therapy, going on to edit the magazines for prisoners Paper Chained and working on a PhD. Damien is the curator of a new art exhibition at Boom Gate Gallery at Sydney's Long Bay gaol, showing art from people incarcerated around the world. My Thing...is using art to talk about gambling harm. All his life, Nelson Nghe has seen up close the harm caused by gambling on poker machines, or 'tiger machine' in Chinese language. It's cost members of his family and his wider community a lot -- even homes. Nelson explores this in his powerful installation artwork I Bet You, on display at The Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC). Triple J's Stacy Gougoulis visits an exhibition of the late Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta and Barkindji artist Josh Muir, who died at age 33 in 2022. In his neon street art-style prints and projections by The Art Show

54 min listen

Palestinian-Saudi artist Dana Awartani + Anna Park flip the script: Saudi-Palestinian artist Dana Awartani studied at a famously conceptual art school, before learning traditional Islamic crafts and principles, like sacred geometry. Now Dana is exploring the destruction of build heritage in the Arab world, most recently the devastated city of Gaza. Her work is being shown at Adelaide's Samstag Museum of Art and at the Venice Biennale. Rosa visits the Melbourne studio of ceramic artist Georgia Harvey. Taking influences from Mesopotamian art and our cross-cultural obsession with lions, Georgia tells us about her 'cauldron' of inspiration. Artist Anna Park was first exposed to American culture through Disney. By the time her family migrated from Korea to Utah, USA, she was a keen observer and prodigiously talented drawer. Anna's satirical and masterful charcoal drawings capturing online life, are the focus of Look, Look. Anna Park, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. by The Art Show

54 min listen

Archie Moore wins at the Venice Biennale + Leonardo Da Vinci + Nikki Lam: Archie Moore has won the top honour at one of the world's most prestigious and oldest art festivals – the Venice Biennale-- for a monumental work showing thousands of years of family lineage, and invoking lives lost under the colonial state. Monsignor Alberto Rocca is an Italian priest and art curator who has a singular job: accompanying pages from Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus, to the other side of the world. This Codex is the largest collection of Leonardo's drawings and notes, made up of thousand pages. After spending so much time with Leonardo's works as curator of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan, Rocca has some theories about the Renaissance polymath. 'Unshakable destiny' was how democracy and self-rule was supposed to manifest for the people of Hong Kong, according to the last British Governor. Nikki Lam has been working on a trilogy of art films about that promise, as personal tragedy and the i by The Art Show

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Nicholas Mangan makes art from phosphate, coral and bitcoin: Nicholas Mangan is drawn to the stories behind some of our most contentious commodities: phosphate from Nauru, copper from Bougainville and cryptocurrency, which Nick compares to an ancient form of stone money from Yap, a Micronesian island. Nick takes the viewer into these histories through sculptural installations and intriguing films. His survey exhibition World Undone is now on at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. My Thing is… GPS Art. ABC science reporter Belinda Smith makes art on the run, creating increasingly detailed pictures of animals on GPS maps, that she then matches with perfect puns, via her Inst account @animalpunruns. First broadcast May 2023. A teapot made by the South Australian ceramic artist Bruce Nuske is a beautiful thing to behold: ornate, whimsical, exquisitely crafted – and importantly, it can also pour a hot cup of tea… if you’d dare put it to use! Bruce's teapots and vessels are also ste by The Art Show

54 min listen

A graphic designer in the spotlight + Adelaide's art biennial: Visnja Brdar's art motto is “The more nothing, the better”. She is one of this country’s most internationally successful graphic designers, the child of Croatian migrants who took her solo agency from Melbourne to New York, head-first into the competitive world of international branding -- and she's the subject of the first significant art survey of a female graphic designer in Australia, Visnja Brdar: Design Exalted at MUMA. Inner sanctum is the title of the 2024 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Rosa Ellen speaks with three of the artists taking part: Lawrence English, George Cooley, Ruha Fifita and curator Jose Da Silva. The chamber music is ‘All Flesh is Fire’, sung by the Adelaide Chamber Singers, composed by Anne Cawrse, conducted by Christie Anderson, recorded by Jakub Gaudasinski. by The Art Show

54 min listen

Katy Hessel never stops looking for the great women artists: Katy Hessel's podcast and bestselling book on the great women artists ride the wave of interest in a parallel cannon of art, where women have long been missing. So, what sparked her work correcting the record, and what has changed since she started? Katy is appearing at Sydney Writers Festival and other book events in Australia in May. Ellen Dahl ventured out to a frozen archipelago in the Arctic Ocean to take photos. The striking images won her Australia's National Photography Prize. She speaks to Daniel about her motivations to show climate change in action, and the influence of her Sami heritage. Read about her win here. My Thing is... the ocean. They describe grief as being a wave - it can hit you when your back’s turned. Julia Ciccarone knows that. The Melbourne figurative painter also finds peace in the water, particularly the open sea. by The Art Show

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Who reaps the profits from Aboriginal art re-sold overseas?: Australia's art resale royalty scheme was supposed to help artists (or their families) get a small percentage when paintings were re-sold at auction for big bucks, particularly Indigenous artists. But it hasn't gone according to plan. ABC national business reporter Emilia Terzon tells Daniel about her year-long investigation into what many says is an unjust state of affairs. For four decades Judy Watson has been making layered, ethereal art about the most profound and difficult subjects in Australian art: truth-telling, violence and ecological destruction. From her beginnings with the famed Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, to her monumental public artworks, Daniel speaks to Judy Watson at her largest survey show at the Queensland Art Gallery. by The Art Show

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An artist paints her lush Far North home, plus the secrets of Vermeer: Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators. by The Art Show

54 min listen

Reviving a Maori artform in a new political climate + doors to an artist's life: We meet the Maori artist who’s single-handedly reviving the lost cultural tradition of barkcloth making. As a right-wing conservative government winds back the prevalence of Maori culture and the teaching of Te Reo Maori, Nikau Hindin is collaborating with artists from across the Great Ocean for the Biennale of Sydney. She explains the complexities and risks in trying to breathe new life into a cultural practice after more than a century. My Art Crush …is Lavinia Fontana. National Gallery of Victoria curator Laurie Benson has long been fascinated by Europe's first professional female artist, 16th C. Baroque master Lavinia Fontana. First broadcast February 2022. Nik Pantazopoulos has been revisiting all the significant doors in his life. The artist started the exercise alongside therapy, digging through his memories to capture the flyscreen door of his childhood home, to the intriguing stall door of a tr by The Art Show

54 min listen

A Timor Leste artist heads to the Venice Biennale + a Yucky exhibition: Maria Madeira escaped the Indonesian invasion of Timor Leste in 1975, to end up in a refugee camp in Portugal. In 2005 she returned as the first artist to hold a solo exhibition there, ever. Now the artist, who came to Australia in 1983, is representing Timor Leste at the Venice Biennale. A fountain of drool, the realities of catheter bags and people 'seeing but pretending not to see': Yucky is an exhibition developed by artist Sam Petersen that confronts ideas of 'yuckiness' and other prejudices faced by people living with disabilities, those who are chronically ill or neurodivergent. Producer Anita Barraud speaks with Sam, Danni Zuvela, Makeda Duong, Josh Campton and Lorcan Hopper. A transcript of this story is on the Transcript tab above. by The Art Show

54 min listen

The artist who takes you to West Africa, through sound and taste: Emeka Ogboh used years of field recordings to create layered soundscapes of his hometown, Lagos in Nigeria. When he moved to Berlin, he added music and combined the sounds of both global cities in critically acclaimed albums. Now Emeka is in nipaluna / Hobart for Mona Foma, where he's making work with the locals – including 2023 Tasmanian of the Year John Kamara. My Thing is... the chickenosaurus. As a teenager, JESWRI took to tagging to 'disrupt' the omnipresent advertising in his inner-city neighbourhood. But unlike many of his mates, JESWRI turned his graffiti into a career that's led to gallery commissions, community murals of Indigenous heroes and –ironically– advertising. The 'chickenosaurus' is his latest art project for Not Natural at the Science Gallery Melbourne. Artist-inventor Jessie French has turned dried algae into a plastic product that perhaps could one day replace one of the more toxic plastic product by The Art Show

54 min listen

The power couple behind this year's Sydney Biennale: So, you're given the keys to Australia's largest visual art festival, what next? Romanian-born curator Cosmin Costinas and Colombian Inti Guerrero are the co-directors of the Sydney Biennale. The art power couple tell us how they got to know Australian art and how they selected 116 artists from dozens of countries to showcase a world of contemporary art in this year's Biennale Ten Thousand Suns. My Thing is... the 'olla'. Ceramic artist Richilde Flavell has been inspired by the ancient plant watering jug, the olla, to make artworks about motherhood and the body. Her exhibition Ok! Motherhood is on at Yarilla Arts and Museum in Coffs Harbour. This year marks 100 years of Surrealism! Much more than just Salvador Dalí's melting clocks, Surrealism was a revolutionary set of ideas and aesthetics that formed in the aftermath of the trauma of WWI. Robert Zeller is a contemporary Surrealist painter and author of New Surrealism: The Uncanny by The Art Show

54 min listen

Helen Molesworth on death of Carl Andre + Olana Janfa + Brent Harris: Helen Molesworth is a curator and writer who became widely known for her hit podcast Death of an Artist, about the artist Ana Mendieta, whose husband sculptor Carl Andre was charged then acquitted of her murder in the 1980s. Carl Andre died last week, and Helen has a book of collected art writing out: Open Questions: Thirty years of writing about art. Daniel visits the backyard studio of Olana Janfa. The Ethiopian-Norwegian artist started painting relatively recently but his distinct voice, drawn from his life as a refugee in Norway and migrant in Australia, is humour-filled, popular and incisive. Brent Harris' psychologically-driven artworks are often described as haunting and even ‘brooding’. So, if you haven’t ever seen his paintings– would it surprise you to know they’re also colourful and cartoonish? More Betty Boop than Edvard Munch’s The Scream. He takes producer Rosa Ellen through his studio, in preparatio by The Art Show

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David Shrigley's sublimely silly, dark universe: When you see a David Shrigley picture – at worst, you’ll chuckle, at best you’ll laugh out loud every time you think of it (which is sometimes years later.) The Shrigley universe is filled with badly drawn hands, everyday disappointment, and simple pleasures. In short, it’s sublimely silly and pretty dark. Daniel speaks with the British artist during his Australian visit for the National Gallery of Victoria's Triennial. We meet up with Australian artist Daniel Boyd, fresh from his first major solo exhibition in Europe and who’s just shown his work at the New York gallery that represents some high-flying international artists. And hear from Diana Al-Hadid, the Syrian-born US sculptor who's made stunning artworks in response to two 15th C. paintings owned by the National Gallery of Victoria – audience favourite The Garden of Love and a religious painting by Hans Memling. by The Art Show

54 min listen

Tacita Dean + Hydraulic Press Girl + conflict avocados: Tacita Dean is one of the UK's most acclaimed artists, best known for working with 16mm analogue film. Daniel speaks with her about recent work on important living artists, and her huge, mesmerising chalk drawings, from her exhibition at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. My Thing is... getting squished. Actor and choreographer Smac McCreanor went viral for her Hydraulic Press Girl videos, imitating household objects getting crushed by a hydraulic press. Now she's in the art gallery -- featuring in the National Gallery of Victoria's Triennial. In parts of Mexico, a high price is being paid for the world's insatiable appetite for avocados. Artist Fernando Leposse investigates the ecological and social costs of the industry in his art project Conflict Avocadoes. by The Art Show

54 min listen

An artist paints her lush Far North home + the secrets of Vermeer: Naomi Hobson grew up on some of the most beautiful country on the continent, Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland, and is named after the hoop pine that grows there. Her southern Kaantju and Umpila culture has always been a driving force in her art, from bold expressive paintings to ceramics and photography. Her series Adolescent Wonderland features teenagers in her small community of Coen, displaying their humour, creativity and brilliance. First aired March 2023. My Thing is ...the Persian poet Hafez. Artist Ali Tahayori always returns to the lyrical poetry of the master Hafez for inspiration in both life and art. Ali works with sparkling hand-cut mirrors that reference the traditional Iranian craft of Āine-Kāri. Through light and mirror, he explores transcendent moments and what it means to be queer and diasporic. First aired February 2023. The 2023 Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was the by The Art Show

54 min listen

In the studio with painter Prudence Flint + photos of 'Humpty Doom': Painter Prudence Flint has a career spanning 35 years, best known for enigmatic pictures of female protagonists in surreal domestic scenes. Despite a serious local following, her paintings have proved much more popular overseas, and she only produces around eight a year. All situate the viewer in an intriguing psychological space -- but does the painter ever feel too exposed? A Beginner’s guide to art openings. The art exhibition opening is a rite of passage for artists and art lovers alike, but it can be an intimidating and exclusive social affair. Artists Ming Liew and Thitibodee Rungteerawattananon made a pact to break into the Melbourne art scene by attending as many art openings as they could together, culminating in an art film about the project, by Ming. Rosa tags along to one gallery to see how it’s done. Charles Lai runs a public calendar of the city's visual arts events. First aired July 2023. Humpty Doo i by The Art Show

54 min listen

Catherine Opie's photos chart life changing decades for LGBTQI subjects + Rosie Westbrook: Daniel speaks with the pioneering US photographer, activist and UCLA Professor Catherine Opie, whose early portraits of her genderqueer community challenged homophobia and moral panic during the heightened atmosphere of the AIDS epidemic. Catherine has gone to become one of America's foremost contemporary fine art photographers. Binding Ties is the first survey of her work in Australia. My Thing is… improvising music to art. Musician Rosie Westbrook is hired by galleries and sometimes artists themselves, to walk around and improvise instrumental music in response to the artworks. Her latest album is Always the Sea. Episode first aired April 2023. by The Art Show

54 min listen

The rise and rise of the artist-in-residence + Rosa Bonheur: When did artists begin doing ‘residencies’? From the patronage system of Renaissance Italy, to artists’ colonies of the 19th Century and the decades-long stint of an artist-in-residence at the NYC Sanitation Department, researcher Amaara Raheem tells us the history and ideas behind the Artist-in-Residence. Producer Lisa Divissi catches up with the artist-in-residence of Melbourne’s Footscray Railway Station, David Wells. And artists Nicole Barakat, Nikki Lam and Gegee Ayurzana share messages from their studios-away-from-home. In the 19th Century Rosa Bonheur was one of the most popular artists in Europe, inspiring public statues, royal visits and even dolls sold in her likeness. Rosa painted animal portraits, but was equally known for her unconventional life, from wearing pants and keeping a lion, to living with her female companion. Author Catherine Hewitt explains why she was so celebrated, and how she slid from view. He by The Art Show

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Jerry Saltz says 'show up' (you big scaredy cats) + the women artists who spoke to spirits: Jerry Saltz is the Pulitzer prize-winning art critic for New York Magazine. Before he turned his hand to writing at the age of 40, he drove long-haul trucks and was a failed visual artist. Jerry reckons the gatekeepers of the art world have effectively 'effed off' and now anyone can —and must— take part. Jerry Saltz's latest book of essays is Art is Life. First broadcast January 2023. Many great artists have claimed to communicate with the spirit world, especially in the heyday of Theosophy and Spiritualism — so why is it shied away from in art history? And why did it attract so many women, like the early Abstract artist Hilma Af Klint and the Victorian medium Georgiana Houghton? Now Jennifer Higgie has written The Other Side: A journey into women, art and the spirit world. Featuring the art practices and radical lives of artists like Pamela Colman Smith, who illustrated the tarot deck, t by The Art Show

54 min listen

Emily Kam Kngwarray took the art world by storm — but did it understand her?: On our final show of the year, we look at the work and career of the great Emily Kam Kngwarray. A senior Anmatyerr woman from Utopia who took up painting in her 70s, Kngwarray is arguably the most significant contemporary artist from Australia to emerge in the twentieth century. Daniel speaks with Hetti Perkins, the co-curator of a summer blockbuster showcasing Kngwarray's work on at the National Gallery of Australia, as well as art historian Stephen Gilchrist. That's a wrap, 2023! Daniel is joined by guests Sasha Grishin, Gabriella Coslovich and Anna Emina El Samad to discuss favourite art exhibitions of 2023, the recent performance that led artist Mike Parr to be dropped by his gallerist Anna Schwartz, and the rise of AI in art. by The Art Show

54 min listen

Thomas J Price makes monuments to the real world + fairy tales in Art: In the middle of a rarefied gallery or in a busy city square, a bronze statue of a woman looms in front of you. But this figure isn’t on a plinth or striking a heroic pose: she’s an ordinary modern woman, looking at her phone with a calm detachment. It’s said the monument Reaching Out is only the third public statue in Britain of a Black woman. The artist behind it is Thomas J Price - one of the country’s leading contemporary artists, who takes on the problem of colonial monuments and representation in British museums and art galleries by creating contemporary icons of modern Britain. Two of his statues are at the National Gallery of Victoria's Triennial. My Thing is... art as activism. It's looking to be the hottest year in human history. As world leaders negotiate a way forward at COP28, 18-year-old climate activist and artist Niranjana Ghosh has been thinking about the gendered impacts of the climate crisis. An by The Art Show

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Lee Miller's glamorous Surrealism and dark wartime photography: Lee Miller cut a glamorous figure among the Bohemian art circles of Paris. As a fashion model she captured the eye and heart of Man Ray; as a gifted photographer she rivalled his artistic vision, photographing their world with Surrealist wit and a feminist conviction. Lee's career lasted 16 years up until her time as a photojournalist in Nazi occupied Europe, when the horrors of the Holocaust led her to quit photography. Antony Penrose is Lee Miller’s only child and in charge of her archive which, incredibly, he only discovered after her death. Surrealist Lee Miller is on at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Victoria. Daniel takes a tour of an exhibition designed to evoke the sounds and feel of a Fijian family home -- only fragmented, the same way that memory works. Artist Salote Tawale has partially recreated a real-life fishing raft and house in an installation that mixes paintings, sculpture, and video karaoke at Carri by The Art Show

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Meet world-building printmaker Brian Robinson + the art critic who wrote an encyclopedia: Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators. by The Art Show

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How psychoanalysis influenced the art of Louise Bourgeois: Motherhood, childhood wounds and Freudian nightmares preoccupied the great sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who was especially iconic to younger followers in the latter part of her life. One of them was Philip Larratt-Smith, who became her literary archivist. He talks to Daniel about the importance of psychoanalysis on the artist. A new exhibition of Louise Bourgeois is on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. My thing is... the 'souvenirs' of consumerism. Artist Joyce Lubotzky takes plastic things from the rubbish and puts them in the art gallery. It's part of a tradition of artists asking viewers to reconsider consumer waste as something permanent, not transitory. (Like a bit of trash talk? Listen to our special episode on art made from rubbish.) The National Gallery of Victoria recently purchased 27 boomerangs from the 24-year-old artist Keemon Williams, an emerging talent whose bold, empowered, queer portraits exemplify black by The Art Show

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Why are hundreds of ancient Thai relics locked in legal limbo?: A culture that flourished 3,500 years ago in Thailand. They made jewellery and ceramics, not war. You may never have heard of Ban Chiang —That’s possibly because the objects that tell the story of this fascinating archaeological site are in limbo, caught between voracious collectors, tomb-raiding locals and undercover federal agents. Art historian Dr Melody Rod-ari tells Daniel the story. My Thing is... Black Histories. Prince made 'Purple Rain' famous, but five years later in 1989, a group of Cape Town anti-apartheid protesters claimed it for themselves when police fired water cannons at them, dyed purple. The Purple Rain Protest is one event in southern African resistance that's inspired artist Roberta Joy Rich in her latest work, The Purple Shall Govern. Meet the designers behind DNJ Paper, a textile research project and clothing label making garments out of paper! Rosa meets Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran and Jake Nakash by The Art Show

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Kandinsky: the visionary artist 'brought back down to earth': Vasily Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract painting, writing influential theories on spirituality and colour. But for all his correspondence, his inner life can be hidden to art historians, the Guggenheim's Megan Fontanella tells Daniel. And with the discovery of earlier abstract painters like Hilma Af Klint and Georgiana Houghton, does labelling Kandinsky 'the first' still apply? Daniel speaks to Megan on the new eve of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. Inside the Victorian Spiritualist Union in north Melbourne, sits the largest collection of artworks by Georgiana Houghton. Her ecstatic, abstract paintings of spirit messages and visions from the 1860s are truly remarkable. Daniel speaks with Rev Lorraine Lee Tet and Jeff Stewart about the collection and their own beliefs about her art. by The Art Show

54 min listen

An outback monastery hides the biggest art heist you've never heard of: The town of New Norcia in WA is a monastery in the bush, home to a community of Benedictine monks and a treasure chest of 17th and 16th c. European religious art -- all of which was stolen in a brazen heist in 1986. It's an art crime that RN's Marc Fennell set out to unpack with art historian and fraud expert Dr Pamela James in a new SBS TV series. My Thing is… The Resilience Coat. Rowena and Angela Foong, from the label High Tea with Mrs Woo, have designed a coat for all bodies, all trends and all of life's upheavals, complete with an in-built repair kit. It's been shortlisted for a national craft award. The mining town of Broken Hill might still be best known for Pro Hart and his 'Brush men of the bush' but Barkindji artists David Doyle and Krystle Evans are part of a thriving contemporary art scene influenced by Barkindji stories and art practices. Producer Rosa Ellen visits their respective studios after the by The Art Show

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The artist who recreates 'petrichor' plus James Tylor and painting house flies: Catherine Sarah Young is an artist working with science to talk about the climate crisis. Most recently, she's making art about petrichor -- the smell of recent rain emanating from the earth, and what it might be like when fire and flood obliterate it... or what petrichor smells like on Mars! Catherine is the Art Show's ABC RN Top 5 resident. When James Tylor discovered the laborious but beautiful 19th C. photography method of daguerreotype, he found a medium that expressed the darkness of historical memory. Drawing on his Kaurna heritage, James explores the ravages of colonial intrusion on landscape and language, through beauty and craftmanship. Daniel meets the painter Nadine Christensen in her backyard studio and learns why the ordinary - from house flies to front gates, cranes, and acrylic paint -- are worthy of examination on canvas. by The Art Show

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Lonnie Holley's creative universe plus Mary Beard on how the Caesars used Art to wield power: US artist Lonnie Holley is a prolific maker of things - whether it’s his assemblages of found objects or the fluid, jazz-style improvisations of his music. He’s one of those polymath creative spirits who don’t separate one artform from the other. But his life of improvisational creativity wasn’t a certainty for Lonnie, who was born 73 years ago in the Jim Crow era in a hotbed of racial politics in America’s Deep South. Classicist Mary Beard examines art inspired by the lives and excesses of the Caesars, who wielded power in cruel and immoral ways. They established a visual propaganda machine - minting themselves in coins, sculpture, paintings, mosaics, and even baked goods! Their art historical legacy is however contemporary and omnipresent. First broadcast November 2022. by The Art Show

54 min listen

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Jennifer Higgie on the art of interviewing artists

Jennifer Higgie on the art of interviewing artists

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