Time Sensitive

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, the 97-year-old Pittsburgh-based artist and sculptor Thaddeus Mosley has a deep and enduring obsession with wood. In his late 20s, he began to use the material for art, carving sculptures in his basement studio, and with his sculpture-making now spanning 70 years, his enduring dedication to his craft is practically unparalleled. Represented by Karma gallery since 2019, Mosley has only now, in the past decade or so, begun to receive the international recognition and attention he has long deserved. In his hands, wood sings; he shapes and carves trees into striking abstract forms that often appear as if they’re levitating while honoring and preserving their organic, natural character. As with the work of his two main influences, Constantin Brâncuși and Isamu Noguchi, Mosley, too, strives to make sculptures that, in his words, beyond today, “will be interesting in a hundred tomorrows.” On the episode, he talks about the language that poetry, music, and sculpture all share; his early years as a sports writer for a local newspaper; and his life-transforming relationship with the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts. Show notes: Thaddeus Mosley [4:13] Sam Gilliam [17:24] Carnegie Museum [21:08] Carnegie International [21:08] Leon Arkus [21:08] “Thaddeus Mosley: Forest” [21:08] “Inheritance” [24:20] Isamu Noguchi [27:53] Constantin Brâncuși [28:28] University of Pittsburgh [28:28] Martha Graham [46:15] Floyd Bennett Field [46:23] Ebony magazine [46:23] Sepia magazine [46:23] Jet magazine [46:23] Pittsburgh Courier [54:34] John Coltrane [51:37] Li Bo [51:37] Dylan Thomas [56:21] Bernard Leach [57:45] Langston Hughes [57:45] Countee Cullen [57:45] Harriet Tubman [57:45] Fannie Lou Hamer [57:45] “The Long-Legged Bait” [57:45] “Air Step - for Fayard and Harold Nicholas” [57:45] The Nicholas Brothers

Most widely recognized for his paintings that rigorously combine spray paint, stenciled geometric forms, and brushstrokes, the Brooklyn-based artist Adam Pendleton is also known for his “Black Dada” framework, an ever-evolving philosophy that investigates various relationships between Blackness, abstraction, and the avant-garde. Many will recognize Pendleton’s work from “Who Is Queen?,” his 2021 solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which he has said was his way of “trying to overwhelm the museum.” This is a natural position for him: His works in and of themselves are often overwhelming. At once political and spiritual, they provoke deep introspection and consideration, practically demanding viewers to look, and then look again. On this episode, he discusses the elusive, multifarious nature of “Black Dada”; “An Abstraction,” his upcoming exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York (on view from May 3–August 16); painting as a kind of technology; and why, for him, jazz is indefinable. Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts. Show notes: Adam Pendleton [05:00] Joan Retallack [05:00] Pasts, Futures, and Aftermaths [05:22] “Becoming Imperceptible” [07:41] Ishmael Houston-Jones [07:41] Joan Jonas [07:41] Lorraine O’Grady [07:41] Yvonne Rainer [07:41] Jack Halberstam [14:26] Fred Moten [05:22] “Who Is Queen?” [23:50] Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto [23:50] Amiri Baraka’s “Black Dada Nihilismus” [31:14] Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum [31:14] “System of Display” [31:14] “Reading Dante” [34:40] “Adam Pendleton” at Pace Gallery [34:40] “An Abstraction” at Pace Gallery [34:40] Arlene Shechet [34:40] “Adam Pendleton x Arlene Shechet” [40:30] “Blackness, White, and Light” at MUMOK [45:07] “Twenty-One Love Poems” by Audrienne Rich [50:40] “Occupy Time” by Jason Adams [56:04] “What It Is I Think I’m Doing Anyhow” by Toni Cade Bambara [57:13] “Some Thoughts on a Constellation of Things Seen and Felt” by Adrienne Edwards

The cheeky, happy-go-lucky spirit of the British fashion designer Paul Smith can be felt across everything he does, from his own clothing designs to his multifarious collaborations—Maharam textiles, Mini cars, Burton snowboards, and a suite at the Brown’s Hotel in London among them. Though Smith may run a business with expert tailoring and a mastery of color at its core, everything he creates seems to suggest, with a wink, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” Beyond designing clothes, Smith also serves as a mentor to the next generation of designers. In 2020, he launched Paul Smith’s Foundation, through which he helps guide young creatives as they develop their careers. Fifty-four years into his business, which opened its first store in Nottingham, England, in 1970, Smith now operates shops in more than 70 countries around the world, from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and Hong Kong. On this episode, he discusses his deep, 40-plus-year engagement with the country of Japan; his long-view approach to building a business that transcends time; his ever-growing collection of rabbit ephemera; and the metamorphic impact of music and humor on his life and work. Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts. Show notes: [3:31] Paul Smith [6:33] Rei Kawakubo [12:55] Elle Decor Japan [21:41] Deyan Sudjic [21:41] John Hegarty [23:48] Paul Smith’s Foundation [24:00] Studio Smithfield Fashion Residency [24:00] John Galliano [24:00] Alexander McQueen [24:22] Jony Ive [31:30] Bauhaus [34:50] Beeston Road Club [40:30] The Mini Strip [48:24] Paul Smith Nottingham Store [53:30] Maharam collaboration [53:30] Burton collaboration [53:30] The Rolling Stones [54:19] Brown’s Hotel Sir Paul Smith Suite [54:39] David Bowie [54:39] Patti Smith [54:39] Eric Clapton [54:39] Jimmy Page [1:01:57] Jean-Luc Godard

Three years ago, at age 66, the Belgium-born writer and critic Lucy Sante—known for her award-winning essays, criticism, and books, including Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991)—announced to a few dozen close friends that she was transitioning to womanhood. This news came following nearly four decades of publishing her work under the byline Luc Sante. In her new memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name (Penguin Press), which she discusses at length on this episode of Time Sensitive, Sante writes about the first six months of her recent transition, the decades-long silence that preceded it, and various piercing moments from her life that led up to it. She is also the author of books such as Nineteen Reservoirs (2022), The Other Paris (2015), and Folk Photography (2009), and her writing has appeared in publications including The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Artforum, and Vanity Fair. Across all of her work, Sante brings a searing, no-nonsense clarity and a photographic eye for detail. Also on this episode, Sante talks about why she thinks of the 1960s as “a kind of magic time,” her life-transforming literary journey, and her decision to open the floodgates of her womanhood. Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts. Show notes: [3:49] Lucy Sante [3:49] I Heard Her Call My Name [3:49] The Factory of Facts [6:27] Nineteen Reservoirs [6:27] Low Life [9:28] Histories of the Transgender Child [9:28] Jules Gill-Peterson [22:11] Tintin [24:07] Terry Southern [24:07] Writers in Revolt [24:07] Alexander Trocchi’s Caine’s Book [24:07] Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” [24:07] Peter Orlovsky [24:07] William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch [24:07] Curzio Malapart’s Kaputt [29:05] The New York Review of Books [34:23] Folk Photography [36:55] The Other Paris [38:04] Walker Evans [38:04] Robert Frank [46:10] Maybe People Would Be the Times [49:52] “The Invention of the Blues” [51:41] The Velvet Underground [51:41] Lou Reed [51:41] Andrew Wylie

To the cult British interior and furniture designer Ilse Crawford, interiors too often take a backseat to architecture. Through her humanistic, systems-thinking, “Frame for Life” approach, however, Crawford has shown how interiors and architecture should instead be viewed on the same plane and, as she puts it on this episode of Time Sensitive, “walk hand in hand.” Widely known for creating indoor spaces that are notable in their tactility, warmth, and comfort—environments that incorporate, to use her phrase, “visceral materiality”—Crawford oversees her namesake London-based design studio, Studioilse, which she launched in 2003, and whose projects include the first Soho House members’ club in New York, the Ett Hem hotel in Stockholm, and the Cathay Pacific lounges in Hong Kong. Crawford is also the founder of the department of Man and Wellbeing at the Design Academy Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, which she headed for two decades. Prior to her career as a designer, she was the celebrated founding editor of Elle Decoration U.K. On this episode, Crawford discusses her approach to crafting beautiful, highly original spaces that push against today’s speedy, copy-paste, Instagram-moment world; her early career in media; and her personal definition of the word “slow.” Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts. Show notes: [5:09] StudioIlse [7:25] A Frame for Life [58:32] Design Academy Eindhoven [7:25] Svenkst Tenn [7:25] Ett Hem [16:36] Jeanette Mix [1:02:51] Cathay Pacific [47:42] Elle Decoration [29:11] The Eyes of the Skin [33:52] Alvar Aalto [33:52] Paimio Sanatorium [33:52] Christopher Alexander [31:35] Sensual Home [35:24] Leonard Koren [35:46] Frida Escobedo [47:42] Architect’s Journal [47:42] The World of Interiors [47:42] Min Hogg [52:48] Donna Karan [54:04] Soho House [54:04] Babington House [1:00:08] Home Is Where the Heart Is?

The Italian chef Massimo Bottura may be a big dreamer, but he’s also a firmly grounded-in-the-earth operator. Based in Modena, Italy, Bottura is famous for his three-Michelin-starred restaurant, Osteria Francescana, which has twice held the top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. He also runs Food for Soul, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting social awareness about food waste and world hunger. With its first Refettorio opened in 2015, Food for Soul now runs a network of 13 Refettorios around the world—from Paris to San Francisco to Naples—designed to serve people in need via food-recovery programs. In 2019, with his wife, Lara Gilmore, he also opened Casa Maria Luigia, a hospitality concept in the Emilian countryside that became the jumping-off point for their new recipes-slash-interiors book, Slow Food, Fast Cars (Phaidon). In everything he does, Bottura keeps the tradition of the Emilia-Romagna region alive while constantly imagining and executing new possibilities. On this episode, Bottura discusses the art of aging balsamic vinegar; his vast collection of thousands upon thousands of vinyl records; his deep love of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis; and how he thinks about the role of time, both literally and philosophically, in and out of the kitchen. Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts. Show notes: Massimo Bottura [03:27] Food for Soul [03:27] Refettorio Harlem [03:27] Refettorio Ambrosiano [03:46] Universal Exposition in Milan [15:36] Carlo Petrini [10:40] Gastromotiva [12:30] “Chef Massimo Bottura on Why the Future of Food is in Our Trash” [15:22] Slow Food, Fast Cars [15:36] Trattoria del Campazzo [56:07] Casa Maria Luigia [58:50] Osteria Francescana [41:32] Cavallino [41:32] Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia [43:30] Joseph Beuys [43:30] Lara Gilmore [1:01:42] Tortellante

To Helen Molesworth, curating is much more than carefully selecting and positioning noteworthy artworks and objects alongside one another within a space; it’s also about telling stories through them and about them, and in turn, communicating particular, often potent messages. Her probing writing takes a similar approach to her curatorial work, as can be seen in her new book, Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art (Phaidon), which culls together 24 of her essays written across three decades. For nearly 20 of those years, Molesworth served in various curatorial roles at museums and arts institutions including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and most recently, as the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA). In the five years since her departure from MOCA, Molesworth has built a thriving practice as an independent curator, writer, and podcaster, notably as the host of the six-part podcast Death of an Artist, which was named a best podcast of 2022 by both The Economist and The Atlantic. On this episode of Time Sensitive, Molesworth discusses her lifelong engagement with the work of Marcel Duchamp; the transformative power of a great conversation; and the personal and professional freedom she has found in recent years as a roving, independent voice in the art world. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:25] Helen Molesworth [03:50] Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art [04:02] Marcel Duchamp [04:09] “At Home with Marcel Duchamp: The Readymade and Domesticity” [11:33] “The Creative Act” [12:09] Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” [17:22] Frank Stella [17:28] John Baldessari [21:56] Paul Lafargue [22:32] Doris Salcedo [29:50] Josiah McElheny [35:23] Al Hirschfeld [36:41] State University of New York at Albany [36:43] Whitney Museum Independent Study Program [36:48] Cornell University [42:33] “One Day at a Time” [46:57] Kerry James Marshall [47:00] “This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s” [47:02] “Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957” [47:41] Death of an Artist [47:46] Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast [47:48] Recording Artists [54:53] Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles [54:51] Carl Andre [59:45] WBLS: The Quiet Storm

In another life, the German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf might have been a painter or a profile writer. In this one, she expresses her proclivity for portraiture as the principal of the New York–based firm Selldorf Architects, which she founded in 1988. Renowned for its work in the art world—from galleries such as David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth to cultural institutions including The Frick Collection in New York, the National Gallery in London, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.—Selldorf’s firm has also designed a wide variety of residential projects and civic buildings. Many of these designs serve as architectural depictions of their respective clients, revealing each one’s inner nature and underlying ethos. On this episode, Selldorf discusses the links she sees between Slow Food and her architecture, the intuitive aspects of form-making, and why she considers architecture “the mother of all arts.” Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:31] Selldorf Architects [08:19] The Frick Collection [10:42] Lucian Freud [17:45] Dia Beacon [18:43] Art Gallery of Ontario expansion [18:54] Two Row [18:57] Diamond Schmitt [26:08] Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility [30:03] CSO Red Hook [30:05] CSO Owls Head [34:31] National Gallery, London [35:17] One Domino Park [37:15] John Russell Pope [37:28] Thomas Hastings [43:13] I.M. Pei [55:38] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe [58:54] Neue Galerie

To the landscape architect Walter Hood, “place” is a nebulous concept made meaningful only through the illumination of its history and the people who have inhabited it. Hood has dedicated his career to this very perspective through his roles as creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California, and as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1990. His projects include a series of conceptual gardens at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina; the grounds of the campus of the tech company Nvidia in Santa Clara, California; and the landscape of San Francisco’s de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Currently, he’s at work on the wayfinding for the Barack Obama Presidential Library in Chicago; a new park in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina; and twin memorials for Emory University’s campuses in Oxford and Atlanta, Georgia. On this episode, Hood discusses the intersection of social justice and landscape architecture, his arguments against what we traditionally deem “memorials” or “monuments,” and the power of language to literally shape the world around us. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [03:34] Black Landscapes Matter [03:39] The World They Made Together [08:18] American Academy in Rome [08:27] Carthage [08:55] Loma Prieta Earthquake [13:48] Monticello [13:50] National Memorial for Peace and Justice [13:53] Gadsden’s Wharf [14:28] Lorraine Motel [16:07] Montgomery County Justice Center [18:40] Double Sights [24:37] Macon Yards [25:32] The Power of Place [28:59] Confederate Obelisk [29:55] Splash Pad Park [30:16] Lafayette Square Park [38:21] International African American Museum [38:25] “Native(s)” [39:54] Water Table [40:51] McColl Park [42:28] Twin Memorials [47:11] Octagon House [48:43] de Young Museum [51:13] The Broad [54:14] The Future of Nostalgia [54:53] Blues & Jazz Landscape Improvisations [58:01] Solar Strand [01:06:02] Art Institute of Chicago

Min Jin Lee could be considered an exemplar of the old adage “slow and steady wins the race.” The author’s bestselling 2017 novel Pachinko—a National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller that was adapted into a television series for Apple TV+ in 2022—took 30 years to write from its inception as a short story. Her debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires (2007), took five years. These extensive periods of time become understandable, or even seem scant, within the sprawling, multigenerational contexts of her novels—Pachinko spans almost a century—into which she pours deep anthropological, sociological, and journalistic research. Lee is also the editor of the just-published The Best American Short Stories 2023 (Mariner Books) anthology, and she’s currently at work on American Hagwon, the third novel in her diasporic trilogy. On this episode, she talks about the complex role of time in Pachinko, her miraculous recovery from chronic liver disease, and why she likens short-story writing to polishing diamonds. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:25] Min Jin Lee [03:39] Viet Thanh Nguyen [06:08] Free Food for Millionaires [06:10] Pachinko [06:19] The Best American Short Stories 2023 [08:08] Amy Tan [08:09] Salman Rushdie [09:36] “Bread and Butter” [09:37] “Motherland” [09:38] “The Best Girls” [10:04] William Trevor [10:06] Alice Munro [12:45] Yale University [17:23] Harvard Business School [17:34] Fashion Institute of Technology [47:37] Queens Public Library in Elmhurst [49:21] The Bronx High School of Science [49:32] The Hotchkiss School [49:33] Phillips Exeter Academy [58:46] American Hagwon [01:03:33] Stoner by John Williams

In art and design circles, the name George Nakashima is synonymous with expert woodworking, exquisite furniture, and high-quality craftsmanship. Over the past 30-plus years, his daughter, the architect and furniture maker Mira Nakashima, has not only artfully built upon his techniques and time-honored traditions, further cementing his legacy, but also stepped outside of his shadow and carved a name for herself. Having worked full-time at George Nakashima Woodworkers since 1970, Mira took over as its president and creative director upon her father’s death in 1990. Since then, she has carried on his unfinished projects, continued producing dozens of his designs, and also developed many of her own creations, including her Keisho and Shoki furniture lines. Through it all, Mira has remained as humble as ever and maintained a deep reverence for her father, his boundless creativity, and his exacting vision. On this episode, Nakashima talks about her family’s time spent in a Japanese internment camp during World War II; the enduring “karma yoga” influence of the Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo, whom her father once studied under and worked for as an architect; and why her father considered his work “an antidote to the modern world.” Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [01:15] George Nakashima Woodworkers [03:39] Nakashima Foundation for Peace [03:43] George Nakashima [03:52] Altar for Peace at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine [04:08] Altar for Peace at the Russian Academy of Arts [04:14] Altar for Peace in Auroville, India [08:42] Hague Appeal for Peace [13:52] Sri Aurobindo [15:36] Bnai Keshet [15:45] St. Martin of Tours [15:50] Monastery of Christ in the Desert [15:58] Queen of Peace Chapel [17:14] Ivan Wyschnegradsky [17:22] Antonin Raymond [17:36] Golconde [21:00] George Nakashima Woodworker [23:07] Katsura Imperial Villa [23:26] Junzō Yoshimura [30:11] Udar Pinto [31:27] The Soul of a Tree [42:07] Nature Form & Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima [45:22] The Krosnicks’ furniture collection [49:54] Keisho collection [54:14] Shoki collection

Behind every unforgettable space and every extraordinary experience is a certain je ne sais quoi. If anyone has an idea of what exactly that is, it’s the hospitality impresario and Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager. For more than four decades, Schrager has been a defining cultural catalyst and beacon across industries, from hotels and nightlife, to art and architecture, to fashion and food, and beyond. Since the early 1980s, Schrager has devised and developed more than 20 ahead-of-the-curve hospitality properties, including the Public hotel (2017) in New York City and the Edition line of hotels, as well as, going further back, the Morgans (1982), the Paramount (1990), the Hudson (2000), and the Gramercy Park Hotel (2006) in New York; the Mondrian (1996) in Los Angeles; the Delano (1995) in Miami; St. Martins Lane and the Sanderson (both 1998) in London; and the Clift (2000) in San Francisco. Beyond designing for mere aesthetic appreciation, Schrager cultivates places with a soul and spirit all their own. On this episode—our 100th—Schrager discusses his tried-and-true design philosophies and definition of luxury today; his admiration for the visionary thinking of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Walt Disney; and the enduring aura of Studio 54. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:33] Ian Schrager [02:54] Morgans Hotel [02:59] Studio 54 [03:02] Steve Rubell [06:26] Edition Hotels [06:33] Arne Sorenson [12:44] Public Hotels [13:03] Paramount Hotel [13:29] The Royalton [14:45] Hudson Hotel [24:37] John Pawson [26:04] The Palladium [26:05] Arata Isozaki [33:24] “Studio 54” Documentary [42:41] Enchanted Garden [50:48] Bianca Jagger [50:51] Truman Capote [50:51] Andy Warhol [50:56] Issey Miyake [53:33] Paul Goldberger [01:03:01] Paperless Post

To Sanford Biggers, the past, present, and future are intertwined and all part of one big, long now. Over the past three decades, the Harlem-based artist has woven various threads of place and time—in ways not dissimilar to a hip-hop D.J. or a quilter—to create clever, deeply metaphorical, darkly humorous, and often beautiful work across a vast array of mediums, including painting, sculpture, video, photography, music, and performance. Among his standout works are “Oracle” (2021), a 25-foot-tall cast bronze sculpture that combines a Greco-Roman form with an African mask; his “BAM” series (2015) of gunshot statuettes; and his ongoing “Codex” series of quilts, which have, over his past decade of making them, become an especially potent and ritualistic part of his art-making. On this episode, Biggers talks about the influence that musicians such as Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder have had on his art; why he thinks of himself as a “material polyglot”; and why religious and spiritual works like reliquaries, shrines, and “power objects” are the bedrock of his practice. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:26] Sanford Biggers [03:55] “Sanford Biggers with Yasi Alipour” [07:14] “The Playful, Political Art of Sanford Biggers” [12:34] Moon Medicin [13:36] Mahalia Jackson [13:39] Ray Charles [13:40] Charles Mingus [13:41] Thelonious Monk [15:32] Stevie Wonder [16:06] Prince [18:00] Dick Gregory [18:01] Richard Pryor [18:02] Redd Foxx [18:47] “BAM” series [27:17] “re:mancipation” [29:05] Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture [30:08] John Biggers [31:41] “Codeswitch” at the California African American Museum [33:28] Dr. Leslie King-Hammond [33:30] Maryland Institute College of Art [37:47] University High School [38:23] Morehouse College [38:33] Art Institute of Chicago [47:34] Isamu Noguchi [47:36] Martin Puryear [49:06] “Lotus” [50:31] “Orin” [55:52] “Meet Me on the Equinox” [55:52] “Back to the Stars”

The London-based artist, master potter, and author Edmund de Waal has an astoundingly astute sense for the inner lives of objects. Each of his works, whether in clay or stone, is imbued with a certain alchemy, embodying traces of far-away or long-ago ancestors, ideas, and histories. This fall, two exhibitions featuring his artworks are on view at Gagosian in New York (through October 28): “to light, and then return,” which pairs his pieces with tintypes and platinum prints by Sally Mann, and “this must be the place,” a solo presentation displaying his porcelain vessels poetically arranged in vitrines, as well as stone benches carved from marble. As respected for his writing as he is for his pots, de Waal is the author of 20th Century Ceramics (2003), The Pot Book (2011), The White Road (2015), Letters to Camondo (2021), and, perhaps most notably, the New York Times bestseller The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010). All that de Waal does is part of one long continuum: He views his pots and texts as a single, rigorously sculpted body of work and ongoing conversation across time. On this episode, de Waal talks about his infatuation with Japan, his affinity for the life and work of the Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), and the roles of rhythm and breath in his work. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:28] Edmund de Waal [03:43] Paul Celan [08:12] 2023 Isamu Noguchi Award [08:17] Gagosian [08:20] “this must be the place” [08:22] “to light, and then return” [09:09] Twentieth-Century Ceramics [09:20] The Pot Book [18:23] “Letters to Camondo” Exhibition [20:32] Sally Mann [20:48] The Hare with Amber Eyes [28:00] “The Hare with Amber Eyes” Exhibition [30:56] “Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto” Exhibition [40:24] Dr. Sen no Sōshitsu [52:48] The White Road [52:49] Letters to Camondo [01:06:33] In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials

The artist and photographer Trent Davis Bailey (our host, Spencer Bailey’s, identical twin brother) continually seeks to unearth the tangled roots of his identity through his intensely personal and place-based work. This summer, his first-ever solo museum exhibition, “Personal Geographies” (on view through February 11, 2024)—a photographic exploration of memory, family, and place—opened at the Denver Art Museum, and this fall, he will release the corresponding project, “The North Fork,” in book form. Bailey is also currently at work on “Son Pictures,” an ongoing series of photographs piecing together fragments of his family’s past and present, some of which were recently published alongside a New York Times op-ed titled “What a Motherless Son Knows About Fatherhood.” Leading him to take deep-dives into newspaper and family photo archives, and from Colorado to Iowa to the Adirondacks, “Son Pictures” unpacks the loss of his mother, who died in a plane crash in 1989 when he was 3; his family’s attendant trauma and grief; and his present life, at 38, as a husband and parent of two toddlers. On this episode—his and Spencer’s first formal “twinterview,” recorded last month on their 38th birthday—Bailey talks about what it was like to grow up as an identical twin, his unusual and decidedly dysfunctional upbringing, and photography as a device for commemoration. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:28] Trent Davis Bailey [09:58] “The North Fork” [10:02] “Personal Geographies” at the Denver Art Museum [10:12] “What a Motherless Son Knows About Fatherhood” [10:18] “Son Pictures” [11:54] Paonia, Colorado [20:10] California College of the Arts [20:22] Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Snider Prize [20:28] Robert Koch Gallery [22:34] The Sublime [23:52] The Hotchkiss Crawford Historical Museum/Society [26:42] Robert Frank [26:53] Stephen Shore [26:55] Joel Sternfeld [28:27] “A Kingdom From Dust” [28:32] The California Sunday Magazine [36:40] Rebecca Solnit [45:43] United Airlines Flight 232 [45:46] Spencer Bailey Reflects on the Crash-Landing of United Airlines Flight 232 [45:56] Sioux City, Iowa [46:02] Frances Lockwood Bailey [56:42] International Center of Photography [56:57] Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb [59:55] Robert Frank “The Americans” Exhibition at the Met [01:08:10] Lake Placid, New York [01:14:24] Brooklyn Darkroom

For each and every performance the theater director, playwright, choreographer, and sound and lighting designer Robert Wilson creates, time isn’t just of the essence—it is the essence. Perhaps best known as the director of the four-act opera Einstein on the Beach, which he composed with Philip Glass and debuted in 1976, Wilson now has nearly 200 stage productions to his name. These include Dorian, which premiered last year in Düsseldorf, and The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, which opened at the Manchester International Festival in 2011. What stands out about Wilson’s work, among many things, is its rare ability to disorient viewers while also enchanting them. Duration is often another part of the equation: Some of the performances on Wilson’s résumé have ranged from seven hours to an astonishing seven days. Many critics, writers, and scholars have agreed that Wilson has completely reshaped the landscape of theater, vastly expanding its vocabularies and horizons. On this episode, Wilson talks about his personal philosophies around silence and sound, the intersections of architecture and theater, and his enduring vision for the Watermill Center. Special thanks to our Season 8 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [04:31] The King of Spain [04:32] The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud [04:34] Deafman Glance [04:59] John Cage [09:02] Madama Butterfly [13:51] “Time to Think” [14:34] Marina Abramović [16:37] The Ring [16:39] King Lear [16:41] Einstein on the Beach [16:43] Philip Glass [18:14] Parsifal [18:50] The Watermill Center [28:55] Dorian [32:09] Time Rocker [32:15] Lou Reed [34:27] Ka Mountain and Guardenia Terrace [39:28] Festival of Autumn in Paris [40:38] The Golden Windows [41:04] Pratt Institute [43:45] Medea [44:48] Edison [44:58] Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights [45:00] Relative Calm [46:32] H-100 Seconds to Midnight [52:27] The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin [52:40] A Letter for Queen Victoria

Through his abstract paintings, the Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá explores themes ranging from memory, gesture, and layering, to movement, dance, and hip-hop culture, to codes, mapping, and mark-making. Coming up in Miami in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Parlá spent his adolescence and young adult years steeped in hip-hop culture and an underground scene that involved break dancing, writing rhymes, and making aerosol art. The art form still manifests, in wholly original ways, in his abstract works, which, while decidedly of the 21st century, extend in meaning and method back to ancient wall writings and cave drawings. On the episode, Parlá talks about his recent near-death experience with Covid-19; his activism with the collective Wide Awakes; and how his large-scale murals at locations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barclays Center, and One World Trade Center trace back to his early days of painting elaborate wall works with aerosol. Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [07:37] Rey Parlá [11:45] Ciclos: Blooms of Mold [12:19] Augustin Parlá [13:13] Curtiss School of Aviation [14:05] José Martí [16:20] “Phosphene” series [18:27] “Polarities” series [18:32] “Breathing” series [23:25] Wide Awakes [23:26] For Freedoms [23:29] Hank Willis Thomas [23:31] J.R. [23:35] Wildcat Ebony Brown [24:28] “The Awakening” [32:04] “It’s Yours” [34:17] Snøhetta [34:45] Ghetto Gastro [36:50] Craig Dykers [36:55] José Parlá’s Studio [38:20] James B. Hunt Jr. Library [38:22] “Nature of Language” [38:47] Far Rockaway Writer’s Library [56:56] “Brothers Back to Back” [59:51] “Parlá Frères” [01:00:03] Hurricane Andrew [01:00:12] Savannah College of Art and Design [01:01:32] New World School of the Arts [01:01:51] Mel Alexenberg [01:02:29] “Combine” by Robert Rauschenberg [01:06:29] “Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture” at BAM [01:06:30] Barclays Center mural [01:06:32] “One: Union of the Senses” at One World Trade Center [01:06:33] “Amistad América” at the University of Texas at Austin [01:12:08] Gordon Parks fellowship

The renegade British designer Tom Dixon has long had a roving obsession with raw materials—everything from cast iron, steel, and copper; to clay, glass, and stone; to felt, plastic, and marble; to, more recently, cork and aluminum. Entirely self-trained and without any formal design education, Dixon emerged in the design sphere in the 1980s by creating unusual welded salvage furniture that was at once antique, experimental, beautiful, and punk in spirit. Never short of bold, forward-looking ideas, Dixon works from a materials-first perspective. Over the years, he has created an industrial chair with upholstery inspired by the rubber inner tubing of car tires, furniture made of flame-cut steel, and even conceptual pieces grown underwater and built of Biorock. Central to all that he does is a quest for longevity and, in turn, sustainability; he has even, in the past, toyed with the idea of a thousand-year guarantee. On the episode, Dixon talks about how two motorbike accidents transformed his life, his days in the early 1980s as a bass player in the disco-funk band Funkapolitan, why he considers cork a “wonder material,” and the parallels he sees between his design creations and those of a baker. Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:56] Tom Dixon [07:02] Flame-Cut Furniture [11:27] Design Miami [12:06] Craig Robins [13:50] Wolf Hilbertz [31:14] S-Chair [34:41] Giulio Cappellini [35:12] Marc Newson [35:15] Jasper Morrison [38:56] Isamu Noguchi [38:56] Akari Light Sculptures [39:57] Constantin Brâncuși [40:33] Dixonary [46:34] Funkapolitan [49:16] Funkapolitan’s “If Only” [49:17] Funkapolitan’s “In the Crime of Life” [50:17] August Darnell [53:56] Guy Pratt [53:58] Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt [54:50] Creative Salvage [01:01:06] IKEA [01:03:37] Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec [01:03:50] Enzo Mari [01:03:51] Achille Castiglioni [01:03:52] Verner Panton

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is renowned as the grande dame of African American cookbooks. One of the world’s foremost historians, scholars, writers, and thinkers when it comes to food—and African American cooking in particular—she has, over the past 40 years, published 12 books documenting the foods and foodways of the African diaspora, including Hot Stuff (1985), Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons (1989), Sky Juice and Flying Fish (1991), The Welcome Table (1995), The Africa Cookbook (1998), and High on the Hog (2011)—the latter of which became a Netflix docuseries and, in turn, a New York Times bestseller. Through her cookbooks, her work, and her very being, Harris is a living testament to the polyvocal, far-reaching traditions and histories of African American food and culture. On the episode, Harris talks about her love of West African markets, her disregard for recipes despite being the author of numerous cookbooks, and the widely unrecognized yet critical differences between yams and sweet potatoes. Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [00:49] Dr. Jessica B. Harris [05:28] Harris’s “French-Speaking Theater in Senegal” N.Y.U. Doctoral Dissertation [05:49] Carrie Sembène [07:45] Souvenirs du Sénégal by J. Gérard Bosio and Michel Renaudeau [10:17] R.A.W. [21:06] Hot Stuff (1985) [21:43] The Welcome Table (1995) [22:01] Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons (1989) [22:05] Sky Juice and Flying Fish (1991) [22:06] Tasting Brazil (1992) [23:12] The Africa Cookbook (1998) [23:15] Beyond Gumbo (2003) [23:28] Rum Drinks (2010) [23:56] Vintage Postcards From the African World (2020) [24:46] High on the Hog (2011) [25:46] High on the Hog Netflix Series [33:53] “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table” Exhibition [33:57] Ebony Test Kitchen [34:00] Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture [34:29] New York Botanical Garden [35:41] Stephen Satterfield [01:05:00] My Soul Looks Back (2018) [01:05:14] Maya Angelou [01:05:15] James Baldwin [01:05:16] Toni Morrison [01:05:17] Nina Simone [01:07:46] Yahdon Israel [01:09:29] Nancy Harmon Jenkins

The term “polymath” is unquestionably overused, and often just plain wrong, but it suits the multi-hyphenate British designer, creative director, and artist Samuel Ross, whose hard-to-pin-down practice spans high fashion, streetwear, painting, sculpture, installation, stage design, sound design, product and furniture design, experimental film, and street art. Best known for founding the Brutalism-tinged fashion label A-Cold-Wall, which sits at the nexus of streetwear and high fashion, and for his work, earlier in his career, with the late Virgil Abloh, Ross also runs the industrial design studio SR_A and has collaborated with brands including Nike, Converse, and Timberland. On this week’s episode of Time Sensitive, he talks about notions of ritual, essence, and alchemy; how his work straddles the line between the organic and the synthetic; and why he always thinks in threes. Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: [03:59] “Samuel Ross: Coarse” at Friedman Brenda [06:41] Glenn Adamson [22:48] Hettie Judah’s Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones [27:45] Vitsoe 606 Shelving System [30:46] Virgil Abloh [37:02] “Samuel Ross: Land” at White Cube [42:05] Rhea Dillon [46:24] Sondra Perry’s Typhoon Coming On [46:43] Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake [46:46] Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments [50:30] Steve McQueen’s Small Axe [52:41] John Berger [58:19] 2wnt4 [58:53] Pyrex Vision [58:55] Kanye West [58:56] Donda [01:04:09] A-Cold-Wall [01:05:46] Jerry Lorenzo [01:09:25] Black British Artist Grants [01:12:22] SR_A [01:12:50] “Fashion Design: Samuel Ross/A-Cold-Wall” at the V&A Museum [01:13:22] Grace Wales Bonner [01:13:54] Mac Collins [01:13:59] Nifemi Marcus-Bello [01:20:44] David Drake