Edge of Reason

Lorna Simpson speaks with Randy Kennedy of Ursula Magazine about memory, found images, and why creating art is the way to respond to a militaristic society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Don McCullin speaks with Tim Marlow of London's Design Museum about war, memory, and finding a creative life beyond the battlefield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Curators Hamza Walker of The Brick in LA and Henriette Huldisch of the Walker in Minneapolis join Alexis Lowry to explore how art persists among censorship and political divide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frances Morris and Jamieson Webster reflect on Louise Bourgeois’s explorations of memory and the body, considering how her art renders private experience into collective meaning and deep emotional presence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Firelei Báez and novelist Danticat discuss resistance as care and creativity, reflecting on how art reshapes struggle into resilience, reframes scarcity as abundance, and reclaims erased histories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

María Berrío and journalist Siddhartha Mitter reflect on Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth, tracing how myth, memory, and resilience converge in Berrío's first New York exhibition in nearly a decade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anj Smith and curator Zoé Whitley frame the world within as a space of ambiguity and imagination, where art resists certainty, asks for patience, and nurtures deeper forms of reflection and connection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uman and novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn explore metamorphosis as a journey of becoming—confronting fear, loss, and resilience while revealing how painting and writing open space for reinvention and self-discovery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join us for a live talk with the iconic Annie Leibovitz and Amy Sherald. In this special episode, they discuss the power of process in bringing vulnerability and intuition together, revealing the humanity behind their art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, artist Camille Henrot and author Melissa Febos explore how relationships reveal the dynamics of control and connection. Henrot discusses how caregiving, education, and societal structures inform her creative process, while Febos reflects on her experiences as a dominatrix and the liberating process of writing about attachment. Together they consider how art can untangle the contradictions of intimacy and control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, artist Glenn Ligon and multi-hyphenate Solange Knowles discuss what it means to create—and live—with multiplicity. Ligon reflects on his career-long evolution into an artist who challenges perceptions of race, language, and history, while Knowles traces her path as a musician, performer, and curator. Together they explore the power of collective experience, artistic risk, and embracing all parts of oneself to expand creative thinking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, artist Mika Rottenberg and theoretical physicist Dr. Felix Flicker search for the intersection between art and science, inviting us to rediscover the beauty of the world around us.  Rottenberg shares how her work transforms familiar materials to highlight the connection between humans and their environment, while Dr. Flicker discusses the properties of common objects and the ways we can find magic in the mundane through scientific curiosity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, artist Charles Gaines and fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner explore how art can bridge the gap between what we perceive and what is real, prompting us to question our relationship with truth. Gaines’s conceptual systems challenge the notion of a singular truth, while Bonner’s fashion designs reveal the layers of identity and history embedded in her work. How do subjective interpretation and objective reality intersect, and where is the line between what we see and what is real? Music in this episode: Charles Gaines Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson. 2023 Performance presented as part of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner—Spirit Movers, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 16, 2023–April 7, 2024 Performed and filmed on March 21, 2024 Composer: Charles Gaines Conductor and music director: John Eagle Producer: Mads Falcone Violin: Yaz Lancaster Violin: Connie Li Viola: Jay Julio Cello: Wayne Smith Bass: Marguerite Cox Percussion and xylophone: Pauline Roberts Trumpet: Wayne du Maine Trombone: Sterling Davis Tuba: Jono Hill Video documentation and editing: Oresti Tsonopoulos, Alex Munro Audio mix: Shane O’Connell Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner—Spirit Movers is organized by Grace Wales Bonner with Michelle Kuo, The Marlene Hess Curator, Dana Liljegren, Curatorial Assistant, and Elizabeth Wickham, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA, with the collaboration of Nick Murphy, Curatorial Partner, Pantograph, Paris. Produced by Lizzie Gorfaine, Associate Director and Producer, Performance and Live Programs, with Aminah Ibrahim, Assistant Performance Coordinator, Performance and Live Programs, MoMA. Thanks to Liam Sangmuah and Jessica Hamenyimana, Research Associates, Wales Bonner. © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, artist Gary Simmons and “Surviving R. Kelly” filmmaker dream hampton examine personal and collective memory, what we choose to remember, and what we choose to forget.  Simmons reflects on how cultural memory—particularly through race and erasure—has influenced his work, from his iconic chalkboard drawings to his installations that blur the lines between representation and abstraction, while hampton considers the silencing of certain memories and the power of reclaiming erased narratives.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Liberty: A principle emphasizing freedom, autonomy, and the inherent rights of individuals. In this episode, artist Lorna Simpson and poet and scholar Dr. Elizabeth Alexander question the nature of individual rights, autonomy, and separate the idea of "liberty" from "freedom" via Simpson's evocative representations of race, gender, and identity and Alexander's celebrated poetic insights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inquiry: The spirit of questioning, exploring, and seeking to understand, rather than merely accept, established truths.   In this episode, artist Pipilotti Rist and MOCA curator Anna Katz unearth the dynamic relationship between nature, technology, and the human experience. Image Credit: Pipilotti Rist, Twin concept pictures, 2023 © Pipilotti Rist. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Progress: the belief in constant societal advancement through reason, knowledge, and education.   In this episode, artist Thomas J Price and renowned scholar Steven Pinker discuss the challenges of defining human advancement and the importance of measuring both tangible and intangible progress. Image Credit: Installation view, ‘Thomas J Price, Untitled (Icon) Series,’ 2017 © Thomas J Price. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Ken Adlard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Individualism: The idea that each person possesses a distinctive and autonomous self that is able to develop within society.    In this episode, artist Christina Quarles and Xicana writer Cherríe Moraga navigate the conundrum of individual identity, revealing the profound intersections and deviations that shape our understanding of who we are. Image Credit: Christina Quarles, (And Tell Me Today's Not Today) (detail), 2023 © Christina Quarles. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Pilar Corrias, London. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Humanism: the value and agency of human beings while recognizing the relationship between the human experience, evolution, and extinction.   In this episode, artist Nicolas Party and researcher Thomas Moynihan explore their mutual interest in human agency, the arbitrary circumstances of planetary civilization—and dinosaurs! Image Credit: Nicolas Party, Portrait with a Donkey (detail), 2023 © Nicolas Party. Courtesy the artist & Hauser & Wirth.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reason: The application of logic to understand the world and reach greater conclusions. In this episode, artist Allison Katz and Nuar Alsadir of "Couples Therapy" ponder the uses and limitations of rational thought as a way to understand ourselves, touching on the seen and unseen forces that shape our identity. Image Credit: Allison Katz, The Cockfather (detail), 2021 © Allison Katz. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices