Intersections: The Art Basel Podcast

In this special episode, journalist Anny Shaw investigates some of the most important findings from the Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report 2022. She speaks with Chief Economist of UBS Global Wealth Management Paul Donovan and collector Amitha Raman about the impacts of the current economic crises and Brexit on the art market and collecting habits, as well as the effects of globalization versus localization. “Online art fairs gave a lot of transparency,” Raman notes. “We were able to view a lot of work and understand pricing for a lot of artists in a very efficient way.” The three also address the ways in which buzzwords like ‘sustainability’ and ‘diversity’ have—or have not—been practically applied in the market sector. Plus, Shaw asks, what’s in store for 2023?

Fresh from the mud-spattered, Santiago Sierra designed catwalk of the Balenciaga Spring 2023 collection, Artistic Director Demna talks to Marc Spiegler about cutting his teeth at Martin Margiela and Louis Vuitton to the lasting effects of having been a refugee of the Former Soviet Union. He also warns of a brand becoming more powerful than a product - ’popularity is always very dangerous’ - and reflects on his relationship to artists and his need for silence. Ultimately, he says, ‘I no longer think about making the fashion industry understand what I do,’ he says, ‘I just do it.’

Hot on the heels of the publication of her book The Story of Art Without Men, author, podcaster, and curator Katy Hessel joins Marc Spiegler to discuss all things women and art. Her focus on the gender gap in art began in 2015, when she visited a fair with no women artists represented. From there, she launched an Instagram account (@thegreatwomenartists), a podcast, and now a book. Here, she broaches everything from forgotten Renaissance masters like Sofonisba Anguissola to the controversy surrounding the creation of the readymade: Did Marcel Duchamp make the Urinal or was it, in fact, made by his contemporary Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven? “What I’m trying to do,” she says, “is turn upside-down what we’ve known as art history.”

Jonathan Anderson has one of the most visionary minds in fashion today. Founder of an eponymous label and Creative Director of LOEWE, the Northern Ireland-raised designer came to the industry via theater: ‘I’ve always been fascinated by character building,’ he says in this episode. ‘If I hadn’t gone to drama school, I don’t think I would be able to produce the collections I do today.’ Beyond his beginnings, Anderson speaks to Marc Spiegler about his love of ceramics, the timelessness of a Renaissance masterpiece, and the importance of artistic production today. ‘To me,’ he says, ‘the artist is the most exciting person in the social ecosystem, because they should be allowed the freedom to tackle the things we can’t.’LOEWE currently has applications open for the 2023 edition of the LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize. The winner will be announced in spring 2023, followed by an exhibition of the work in summer. The LOEWE Women’s SS23 show will take place in Paris on September 30, 2022.

Video- and performance-art pioneer Joan Jonas and jazz pianist Jason Moran have collaborated for almost 20 years, and it all began with a call. “I phoned him, which was very unusual for me to do. I was very shy,” Jonas remembers. From there, the pair had six weeks to develop The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things (2005), a now-iconic performance based on the writings of Aby Warburg. In this episode, Jonas and Moran reminisce on that very first collaboration, what they’ve learned from each other since, and the importance of performance—not just for an art audience in a white cube but for civilization at large.

“As a young architect, I hated photographs where you saw people. And now I hate photographs where you don’t see people,” Jacques Herzog says. Throughout the last three decades, Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have designed some of today’s best-known buildings and museums, including London’s Tate Modern and Hong Kong’s M+ museum. In this episode, Herzog speaks about the development of architecture over the last 30 years, what it was like to collaborate with Ai Weiwei and Miuccia Prada, his early fascination with artists like Joseph Beuys and Donald Judd, and if the era of the starchitect has come to a close.

The podcast “Talk Art [is] about is encouraging people to switch lanes, to take up space, and to embrace your interests,” says cofounder Russell Tovey. Since 2018, Tovey and Robert Diament have cohosted Talk Art, producing over 175 episodes with guests across all fields of art, from Jeff Koons to Radiohead to Lena Dunham. Here, the trained musician and actor talk about how they met (nerding out on Tracy Emin’s work), collections as self-portraits (“you can pop-psychoanalyze an individual by the things they have in their house,” Tovey says), the fight to break down elitist structures, and their fundamental beliefs that no one should ever apologize for enthusiasm or be afraid to ask questions, and that is never too late to learn. “Our motto,” Tovey says, “is ‘art is for everyone.’”

He opened for acts like Sufjan Stevens, James Blake, and Solange even before releasing his own album, but Moses Sumney is much more than a musician. He is a film director, a visual artist, a creative multi-hyphenate. He’s a storyteller who has mastered a variety of media to express his narratives. In this episode, the California native speaks about branching out from the music world to use different sets of tools to express himself, his appreciation of isolation, and his belief that “artists are channels for something bigger and a lot more esoteric than words can describe.”

Can tech change social structures, or does it just amplify them? What role can NFTs play in activism? And will the volatility in the crypto markets stabilise? These are just some of the questions answered in this podcast featuring three pioneers in the NFT and Web 3 worlds: the artist Olive Allen, the NFT studio founder Melissa Gilmour and the head of Pace Verso Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle. By no coincidence an all-women line-up, the panellists conclude they remain bullish in a bear market and hopeful for change as a new, arguably more open-minded, generation of collectors rise through the ranks.Please note: The views and opinions expressed in this material are those of the respective speaker(s) and are not those of UBS, its subsidiaries or affiliate companies. Accordingly, UBS does not accept any liability over the content of this material or any claims, losses or damages arising from the use or reliance of all or any part thereof. This material has not been prepared with regards to any specific investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any specific person. It is published solely for informational purposes and is not to be construed as a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy. The contents of this material should not be construed as legal, tax, accounting, regulatory, or other specialist or technical advice or services or investment advice or a personal recommendation. No representation or warranty, either express or implied, is provided in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information contained herein except with respect to information concerning UBS, nor is it intended to be a complete statement or summary of the matters referred to in this material. Any opinions expressed in this material are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by other business areas or business divisions of UBS as a result of using different assumptions and criteria. UBS is under no obligation to update or keep current the information contained herein.

Rapper, songwriter, and record producer Kim Nam-joon, better known as RM, has made his name as leader of K-pop sensation BTS. But beyond that, he’s also become an established name within the artworld as a collector and influencer. Recently, BTS surprisingly announced that the group’s members will be focusing on solo projects.  But according to their management, they plan to remain active in “various different formats". Without a doubt, this development casts Namjoon’s highly reflective comments in this podcast episode - especially those concerning personal legacy and solo projects - in a different light.RM speaks to Art Basel’s Marc Spiegler about everything from meeting Eminem as a teenager, the formation of BTS, and their rise to global fame to the first artwork he ever bought and his plans to open a public space where his collection can be viewed. Collecting, he says, “really gives me the standard to live as a better man, as a better adult, and [as] an artist. I just want to make music like the timeless pieces that I admire.” 

“In my most core self, I’m a writer and a performer,” says Miranda July. But since coming of age in Portland’s riot-grrrl scene, July has made a name for herself as a true multi-hyphenate: as an artist, singer, screenwriter, author, Hollywood film director and actress, and more. In this episode, she speaks with Marc Spiegler about writing her first play – based on correspondence with a convicted murderer – to releasing her film Kajillionaire in the midst of the pandemic and the flood of DMs that followed. “My entire experience of the release was those messages,” she recalls. Separately, curator Larry Ossei-Mensah talks to Jon Gray, a cofounder of the activist cooking collective Ghetto Gastro, about food as a device for social change and branching out into the world of art.

In her book My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), Ottessa Moshfegh portrays a pre-9/11 artworld obsessed with style over substance­. The award-winning novelist’s own introduction to the artworld was also in the early 2000s, and her experience at the time was colored by “a sense of impending doom,” she recalls. In this episode, Marc Spiegler speaks to Moshfegh about her literary foray into the artworld (and the fact that she’s currently hiding from it), transforming her books into feature films, and other current projects.

“We see the world as this huge kaleidoscopic field of information … and I think the way we see culture and the arts should also embrace that,” Doug Aitken says. In this conversation with Marc Spiegler, the interdisciplinary artist discusses his wide-ranging practice, from its roots in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 80s to his project Station to Station, which transformed a train along a 4,000-mile journey into a nomadic studio, to his recent collaboration with musician Jamie xx and creating sculptures that live underwater. Art Basel Executive Editor Jeni Fulton also speaks with musician Fatima al Qadiri about her latest album, Medieval Femme, her lifelong fascination with the sensual recitation of classical Arabic poetry, and her recent forays into scoring films.

Recorded live on the show floor during Art Basel in Basel, this special episode brings together seven distinguished art world voices. Artists AA Bronson and Mario García Torres, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, gallerists Jeffrey Deitch and Jasmin Tsou, and museum directors Elena Filipovic and Ann Demeester reflect on the art world’s coming together again, how the pandemic changed them and how they see the future.

Online sales seem like they’re to stay and millennials continue to be the biggest spenders when it comes to collecting art, says Dr. Clare McAndrew, renowned cultural economist and founder of Arts Economics. Findings such as this were recently released in ‘Resilience in the Dealer Sector: A Mid-Year Review 2021’, an art market report authored by McAndrew and published by Art Basel and UBS. In this conversation with our correspondent Anny Shaw, McAndrew sheds light on the report’s key takeaways, which also include the market’s generational and gender dynamics and the role of dealers in an increasingly digitized industry. To address the report’s findings from another perspective, Art Basel Executive Editor Jeni Fulton also talks to Chief Economist of Global Wealth Management at UBS and author Paul Donovan about the parallels between the global economy and the art market.

Today’s experiments in art and technology are wide-ranging, and few know better about the latest developments than Daniel Birnbaum, director and curator of Acute Art, and New York City–based artist Jacolby Satterwhite. In this episode, Birnbaum and Satterwhite talk to Marc Spiegler about the use of virtual reality as an artistic medium, the future of mixed reality and the ‘metaverse’, the digitalization and democratization of the artworld, and the idea of cosmic NFTs. Plus, our correspondent Anny Shaw explores a new art gallery located in a UK football stadium and talks to its founder, Eddy Frankel, who also happens to be an art critic and Time Out London’s Art & Culture Editor.

Businesswoman and art collector Pamela Joyner tells Marc Spiegler that she is surprised at the analogies she sees between art collecting and her career in finance. ‘Both environments are very relationship oriented, they're reliant on individuals having confidence in each other's integrity,’ she explains. Described as an ‘activist collector’ by ArtReview magazine for promoting and collecting the work of contemporary African-American artists, as well as artists of African descent in Brazil and the UK, Joyner reflects on the collector as patron and the work she believes in. Our correspondent Stephanie Bailey interviews artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang on her new commission, Anthem (2021). The piece conceived in collaboration with the legendary singer, composer, and transgender activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland and is currently filling the Guggenheim museum’s rotunda. 

Lisa Spellman first arrived in New York to study art at SVA, moving into a loft that seemed pre-destined to be a gallery. Kim Gordon was reading about the art happening in New York while she was in LA, but when she got to the East Coast, ended up playing music. A few years later, Spellman founded 303 Gallery and Gordon was writing and playing with iconic band Sonic Youth. The two talk to Marc Spiegler about New York City in the 1980s and 1980s, the art scene and the music scene, the places they all went, and how it all intersected. It’s an image of an old New York that still reverberates in the city today. For further reading:-Andy Warhol's Factory:https://www.artlife.com/inside-the-factory-the-studio-where-andy-warhol-worked/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/style/andy-warhol-factory-history.html -Cady Noland:https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/cady-noland-Christian Marclay:https://whitecube.com/artists/artist/christian_marclay -Dan Graham:https://www.crash.fr/a-meeting-with-dan-graham/ -Jim Jarmusch:https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/jarmusch/-Johnny Thunders (New York Dolls, Heartbreakers)https://www.loudersound.com/features/so-alone-the-johnny-thunders-story (long in-depth profile on Johnny Thunders’ life featured in Louder Sound, a UK rock magazine published by Future)-Judson Dance Church:http://judsonclassic.org/Dance -Kim Gordon's Design Office:https://www.303gallery.com/public-exhibitions/design-office-with-kim-gordon-since-1980/press-release-Richard Prince:https://gagosian.com/artists/richard-prince/ -Rodney Graham:https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/rodney-graham -White Columns:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/arts/design/anniversary-white-columns-gallery-.html

Rapper, musician, and record producer Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Daoud Dean) discusses the meeting points between activism and collecting with Marc Spiegler. “How can we be a part of the culture when we don't own the culture?” he asks, describing how he went to Harvard Business School and got involved with the business of art and culture as a way of promoting the creatives he believes in.

“Growing up in London, as a teenager, I became obsessed with how Black culture expressed itself in public life,” says Sir David Adjaye OBE. The renowned Ghanaian-British architect meets Marc Spiegler to discuss the power of architecture, Black artists’ work, race in the artworld and his collaboration with curator Okwui Enwezor, as well as his current project, designing the Edo Museum of West African Art in Benin, which will house the Benin Bronzes, returned to Nigeria from the British Museum.