Of course, its influence casts a very long shadow over Western art and culture down the ages, and its origins – most likely in oral, semi-improvised song/storytelling – have intrigued academics and historians for centuries.

As the focus of our discussion is the creative interpretation of the filmmaker, we look in a bit more detail at one film, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 Odyssey-themed Le Mépris (Contempt), starring Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang.

Our guests are Maren Thom and Alex Dale, writers and commentators on film, TV and theatre, and presenters of the podcast Performance Anxiety.

We’ve been thinking about how to approach this episode for a while. I had read author and Classics scholar Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2017 memoir, An Odyssey.

Mendelsohn explores some of the themes in the Odyssey through the prism of a term spent teaching it to a class of young undergraduates, along with his 81-year-old father. Mendelsohn Senior is a seemingly hard-nosed, Brooklyn-raised Maths professor who sees in Odysseus not a hero but a ‘sissy’ who cries too much and is rescued by the Gods whenever he gets into bother.

The experience reveals much, changes and deepens the relationship between father and son, who have never quite seen eye-to-eye. An Odyssey, then, is partly a study of relationships – father-son, teacher-student, intergenerational etc. And Mendelsohn uses this as a very subtle pretext to explore similar themes in the Odyssey itself. In short, there’s much more to the epic poem than nymphs and one-eyed monsters.

Over the Christmas holidays I got around to reading the Odyssey itself for the first time. Daniel Mendelsohn’s own translation was published in 2025. I read mainly that, but took the opportunity to dip in and out of different translations on the way, from Penguin Classics, to Emily Wilson’s alleged ‘feminist’ take, to Alexander Pope’s early C18th classic, which Mendelsohn describes as the best translation of anything, ever.

I barely scratched the surface of the book, but reading it threw up some possibilities for podcasts – the idea of the journey in art and literature, translation as a creative endeavour perhaps, ancient tradition of oral/improvised storytelling.

And then of course there’s film, which is why I thought immediately of the wonderful Performance Anxiety podcast, and sought the help of Alex Dale and Maren Thom.

So we agreed a show based on simply comparing films wouldn’t be the best approach, and I was scratching my head to find films that might give us something to work with. I carried on reading, carried on thinking, then I stumbled upon Le Mépris, Godard’s film that, per chance, seemed to address both my original question and theirs (which we talk about in the podcast).

Godard’s film is centred on an ambitious young playwright who is invited, or perhaps enticed to become involved in a production of the Odyssey (to be shot on the island of Capri) by the film’s brash American producer, who wants a blockbuster and thinks the current director, Fritz Lang (playing himself), is making some incomprehensible European arthouse cinema.

But that’s the starting point for the film, which then becomes about the playwright’s relationship with his beautiful and enigmatic wife, played by Brigitte Bardot.

We thought that Le Mépris might provide us with an ideal opportunity to talk about the creative process of the filmmaker, and ask if maybe Godard was trying to find ways to express truths – symbolic or moral etc. – from the Odyssey that maybe a more straightforward telling might not.

Finally, we discuss some of the themes in Maren’s recent article about pre-release criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s film of the Odyssey, and look forward to the release of the film (we recorded this episode before the film’s release).

Links

Performance Anxiety podcast

Can Nolan’s Odyssey survive the culture war?

An Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn

Le Mépris by Jean-Luc Godard

Tracey Emin’s exhibition, A Second Life, is currently running at Tate Modern in London (until August 31 2026). A retrospective of her 40 year career as an artist, it has received rave reviews from most critics.

One of the things that has struck me about the reception of this exhibition is how it shines a light on the way Tracey Emin has transitioned from being one of the most shocking artists of the 1990s, relentlessly exposing her private life, most notably with the Turner Prize nominated installation of My Bed (1998), to now being one of the most successful and highly regarded of contemporary British artists, to the extent she been honored with a CBE and Dame-hood, without compromising her art-making.

So when Professor Jean Wainwright, a specialist in contemporary art who has interviewed Emin a number of times, suggested doing a podcast for Arts First about her exhibition, I leapt at the opportunity.

Much of Emin’s work seems to be focused inwardly on her life and its trials. She ignores or disregards the separation between public and private in a way that can be deeply discomforting to the viewer. Indeed, much of her significance seems to lie in her exposure of her rather troubled private life to public view. Because of this some people think she is hopelessly narcissistic, successful because she reflects the narcissism of the current age. But others regard her as courageously breaking open a sphere that is all too often suppressed, where very personal anxieties, insecurities and experiences that many share are subject to intense levels of self-examination and self-expression.

To explore the significance and impact of her work, Professor Jean Wainwright, art historian and critic starts off an analysis of a small selection of works in the exhibition and what they reveal about Emin as an artist. A very special guest, Jean’s particular expertise is Andy Warhol, and she talked about an exhibition of his work in Milton Keynes for one of our early episodes. She has conducted interviews with Tracey Emin and we are really grateful she offered to come back to help us understand Emin’s importance as an artist.

Commenting and elaborating on Jean’s analysis are Dido Powell and Rachel Jordan, both practicing artists with an active critical interest in contemporary art and art history. Both have appeared on Arts First episodes before, and Dido is the leader of an informative and enjoyable series of tours in London art museums.

There is a tendency — especially among those of us who are not great fans of conceptual art — to define Emin in terms of the reverberating shock of her early installations and her obsession with her damaged self, but for many her work appeals deeply in all its rawness, authenticity and honesty. There is also a tendency, which I shared, to see Emin as a narcissistic artist reflecting and expressing the narcissism of our age. After discussing Emin’s work and achievements with Jean, Dido and Rachel, I now understand her to be an artist who uses her own experiences to create art that plumbs the depths of engaging in a messed up world, living a troubled existence without giving in to it. I don’t love all she has done but I can see that she makes art that mediates and reflects our age back to us in a way that is worth paying close attention to.

Wendy Earle June 2026

The four works we discussed in detail were:

Why I’ll Never Became a Dancer

The film can be viewed on YouTube (after a few ads):

I followed you to the end:

Exorcism of the last Painting I ever made (1996) photo of installation:

You kept it coming (2019)

We hope to do a more detailed consideration of him as an artist in the not too distant future.

David Hockney: A Year in Normandie

Lachlan Goudie is a writer, broadcaster and artist. His previous book, The Story of Scottish Art (2020) was linked to a TV series of same title which he presented. It’s clear he loves painting and has a huge interest in and knowledge of its history as an art form.

The Secrets of Painting is a big fat lavishly illustrated book: in 20 chapters it examines 20 magnificent works and reveals more about painting than you ever thought you wanted to know: but it’s stuff that’s really worth knowing!

It’s a masterpiece of research and synthesis. I found reading it revelatory, each painting is opened out, in the context of its time, to reveal what the painter did in raising his or her work to a new level of artistry. It reveals how artists over the centuries have used and adapted innovations in technologies and materials, to create masterpieces that have since inspired awe in millions of people. It’s a fascinating account and I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys art.

It is clear that a lot of thought and planning went into the book. It offers an impressively deep view of painting: the painter’s processes and how a painting takes shape — how individual painters pushed themselves to use, manipulate and invent materials to create transcendent works. It engenders a profound sense of the painter’s craft and knowledge.

In this episode, Lachlan Goudie kindly agreed to talk to us about what motivated him to write the book and how he went about making his selection. He also explains the particular innovations and qualities of some of the paintings he chose, and talks about the artists behind the masterpieces, and how their lives and times influenced their works. To begin the interview, I wondered if his own experience of art school, which was less than satisfactory, had anything to do with his decision to write it.

I then asked Lachlan how he chose the works from the thousands of possible examples — how personal were his choices for example — as there is an interesting range of both familiar and less familiar choices. He describes his process, drawing on research from numerous sources, of making the final selection.

I wanted to know why he started in prehistory, with the cave paintings in Chauvet, France, which are not part of a continuous artistic tradition, as such. However he points out that they are impressive evidence of the creativity and skill of pre-historic artists — something he is particularly keen to highlight.

The book presents a chronological picture of how advances in available materials, and the innovations and inventions of individual artists changed the course of art history. Each painting represents a moment of change or development in the technology available to an artist, and the way an artist pushes the boundaries of what was previously thought possible. It also illustrates other shifts in the history of painting.

Most of the paintings that Lachlan selected are from the European tradition, but he chose a small sample from elsewhere in the world over the period of time the book covers: one each from Egypt, China, India, Japan and Aboriginal Australia. He explains that he wanted to demonstrate that there are numerous traditions of artistic creation which have produced stunning masterpieces across the world and that Europe is not alone in the inventiveness, skill and talent of its artists. This helps contextualize Europe in a global context without claiming to fully represent other art traditions.

I selected several paintings from the book and ask Lachlan how each represented a moment of change and development in painting. You can examine the images below while listening to Lachlan’s explanation of them.

Giotto’s, The Dream of Joachim, part of the stunning sequence in Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, 1303-5, shows Giotto taking Renaissance fresco painting to new heights.

Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, (at The National Gallery, London) exemplifies how oil paint provided a way of reaching a high degree of precision, depth and perfection in portrait painting.

In Judith Beheading Holofernes c1612-13, Artemisia Gentileschi (in Palazzo Barbarini, Rome, Italy) drew on her personal experience as a woman in a ruthless and violent man’s world, and used contemporary innovations pioneered by Caravaggio create paintings of intense personal drama.

We then skipped a few centuries. Although art tradition builds on previous achievements in skill, technique and style, modern art, especially since the early 20th century, seems less a continuity and more a rupture point, transforming ideas about what it means to represent the world visually. Pablo Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning (1912) was inspired by the innovations of Picasso’s fellow artists, George Braque, and is a prime example of this shift.

After that, painters took new directions, continuing to experiment with new materials that 20th century innovations made available. Blast Off (US 1970) by Alma Thomas exemplifies the way acrylic paint gave artists access to a vibrant colour palette while expressing a sense of excitement and optimism in America in the 1960s and 70s.

Such innovations also made it possible to bring ancient traditions into the modern world, such as Warlugulong, by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri (1976).

Finally we look at the thorny issue of what artificial intelligence makes possible in painting; Rafik Anadol’s Unsupervised: Machine Hallucinations (2022) and Lachlan explains why this could be described as painting.

Many thanks to Lachlan for participating in this interview. I certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed it, and I hope you do too.

(With thanks to Kate Burville to Thames&Hudson for facilitating this interview and helping to provide images for this page).

As mentioned in this episode, while art education in some schools is well resourced, the statistics indicate that at GCSE and A Level Art is in severe decline, with schools prioritising STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). Last year, fewer than 5% of students took Art A level (the lowest level since 2010).

To kick off this discussion, which Arts First will return to in future episodes, we consider how art education, and more specifically art schools, work towards the development of young artists. This in itself raises broad questions which we tussle with in this slightly longer than usual episode.

Art schools train budding artists and foster their talent, creativity, discipline and inspiration. The curriculum ranges across fine art, crafts and design — in theory and in practice. Arguably there is a duality within the process of art education. To justify their existence (at least in terms of funding), art schools may feel the need to highlight their use value — the way their work contributes to the economy and/or social good. The Royal College of Art, for example, currently celebrates on its website, being winner in a global ‘design for betterment challenge’. And it’s a fact that art schools, via the artists and designers they train, probably contribute to the quality of our daily lives in ways that most of us take for granted — in the design of our environs, our clothes, our machines and many of the things we see and use. But art schools also teach fine art, which historically has tended to be at the centre of the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’. Schools of Art and Design now tend to resist the way, in the past, art forms were constituted in a high to low hierarchy with fine art at the top and craft and design below. So how do they help young people choose their art disciplines and develop as artists who can flourish whatever form(s) they choose?

Our contributors to this discussion have direct and varied experience of art education. They all make varied and nuanced observations, so the episode offers important insights into art education today. The following summary provides just brief touch points from the speakers. It really was a fascinating discussion!

Gregor Claude, art teacher at Coopers Company and Coburn School in Upminster, talks about how he wants to teach his students that  being human is an adventure, and that art education can help them learn how to see and to think about what they see. It can develop in them an  appreciation of what it is to have an aesthetic mode of engaging with the world.

Eliza Bonham Carter is a Royal Academy artist and Head of Royal Academy Schools*. Explaining the unique character of the Royal Academy Schools, she believes art school can offer artists a  period of time to develop their understanding of their own personal approach to art, rather than being limited by preconceptions of what an artist is or should be. Art school is an opportunity for artists to develop a way of living through art,  sustainable discipline that can carry them through the rest of their lives.

Two students, Tacita Twaddle (who is pursuing an interest in sculpture) and Eliza Friend (who is interested in a career in fashion) tell us about their experiences of their art foundation courses at University of the Arts London, opening up possibilities for working in the arts.

NQT (newly qualified teacher) Anna Keenan, who did part of her BA in Art History, explains why she thinks art history should play a more central role in education because of what it reveals about the human existence and achievements of the past.

Finally, Colin Searls and Niall Crowley provide insights from their experiences of art school in the 1970s and 80s:

Colin Searls went to art school in the 1970s and experienced some of the changes prompted by the art student revolution of the 1960s; he explains the pivotal role of the foundation art year (or two years), an innovation of the late 60s. Foundation courses provide the opportunity for students to discover for themselves what is involved in the different disciplines within art and design.

Our very own Niall Crowley attended art school in the 1980s. He felt challenged by the commitment required by the Foundation Course he took when he was 18. Although the experience transformed him he didn’t continue on to art school for another 10 years, when he took up a History of Design degree course at the University of Brighton. But like Anna, he felt doing History of Art would have better satisfied his desire for deeper knowledge about art.

The discussion continues around the various issues raised in their opening remarks. Sadly we had few technical problems with the sound at the end, so this conversation is a bit curtailed. However, really this was just a starting point and we are very keen to return to this topic in the not too distant future, so please offer feedback on the issues you think we might address.

*This article provides background on Royal Academy Schools.

N.B. This is a video episode but starts off for the few seconds as audio-only as we had a few technical problems. We hope it doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of the show.

Our guest is Marcio da Silva, Ensemble OrQuesta’s founder and Artistic Director. Marcio is a opera singer, performer, musician, conductor, chorus master, artistic and musical director, composer and educator. We first encountered Marcio and his company a couple of years ago at Grimeborn, the annual fringe Opera Festival in East London, where they were performing their ‘chamber-scale’ production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Alongside Ensemble OrQuesta, Marcio is involved in a number of related projects, including the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and Hastings Philharmonic Choir, the EO Opera Academy and the conducting courses Marcio also runs. His work then spans performance, training and mentoring, bringing together professionals, students and emerging performers.

We are also joined by Elisabetta Gasparoni, a linguist specialising in Italian language and literature, founder of the Aesthetic Study Group, and a long-time supporter of Arts First. Elisabetta has organised and spoken at discussions on opera and the arts.

Marcio talks about his own background and the development of Ensemble OrQuesta. We discuss the importance of mentoring and training new performers, and more broadly the challenges of trying to sustain both classical and operatic musical traditions.

We touch on how the smaller opera companies relate to one another. Are they competing for audiences and resources, or working within a network of like-minded artists? And what about audiences themselves - who comes to these productions, and how do companies reach them? We discuss the practicalities and difficulties of working on a small scale.

We talk about Baroque opera, Ensemble OrQuesta’s specialism. Does Baroque opera lend itself especially well to smaller venues and more ‘minimalist’ productions? Does Marcio see Baroque opera a niche, or an opportunity to introduce audiences to something different?

This is an audio episode. We had a few difficulties with video this time around, but we do have some video footate from the interview that we may release in the form of a shorter episode in the near future.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Links

Marcio da Silva:

Ensemble OrQuesta

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra

Hastings Philharmonic Choir

Grimeborn Opera Festival

You can hear more from Elisabetta Gasparoni on opera at the Battle of Idea website. If you would like to find out more about Elisabetta’s work, please get in touch at artsfirstpodcast@gmail.com

Events

Marcio is conducting Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Saturday 2 May

MOZART: Overture 'Il re pastore', Clarinet Concerto in A major
Serenata Notturna, Symphony No 41 'Jupiter'

More information and tickets here.

Ensemble OrQuesta will be performing at the Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone in June and Grimeborn in Dalston August.

We’re joined by two good friends of the show: artist Rachel Jordan and curator, writer, and campaigner Manik Govinda.

New Contemporaries is a long-running institution within the UK art scene. It began in 1949 as Young Contemporaries, an annual exhibition established to showcase new work by emerging artists. Today, it organises a nationally touring exhibition, with works selected by leading figures from across the art world. This year’s show opens in South London before travelling to Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art later in April.

Listeners may remember that last year’s exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts drew media attention, with protests outside the gallery relating to its sponsorship. We’ll return to some of that context later - but first, the art itself.

We first visited the exhibition at the South London Gallery, before settling in the garden over a beer, a coffee, and cake to share our initial impressions. A few days later, we reconvened online for a more considered and in-depth conversation.

For those unfamiliar with it, the South London Gallery sits on Peckham Road, close to Camberwell College of Arts. Founded in the 19th century by philanthropist William Rossiter, it was established to ‘bring art to the people of South London’, and today presents a wide-ranging programme of exhibitions by both established and emerging artists.

We’re grateful to the gallery for allowing us to photograph and film.

Art choices - Rachel

Painting: Ally Fallo - In My Beginning Is My End, 2025. Oil on Canvas. 130cm x 100cm

Photograph: Timon Benson - Compression, 2023.

Film: Viviana Almas - Solus

Art choices - Manick

Alia Gargum, This was a Mosque, 2024

Varvara Uhlik, Slide, 2025. Mild steel, 90 x 200 x 40cm

Video: Gregor Petrikovič, Sincerely, Victor Pike, 2024. Duration, 12 mins, 22 seconds

Zoe Strimpel first called out the exhibition and in this YouTube video she talks about what she saw and discusses, with GB News Free Speech Nation presenter Josh Howie, the implications of the exhibition.

We first heard of the exhibition from a friend of Arts First, Nico Macdonald, who lives in Margate and wrote about it on Facebook:

Those who would use images and words that create hostility towards our Jewish fellow citizens are getting bolder.

Over the last week, the Joseph Wales studios and gallery in Margate – our hometown – exhibited a show by artist, critic and broadcaster Matthew Collings entitled ‘Drawings Against Genocide’.

Whether one considers the work good or not, it features many images which were caricatures of Jews, and which exhibited long-standing and well-known antisemitic tropes, such as “the blood drinking Jew”, “the Jew delighting in murder”, the child-murder Blood Libel, “Jews as racists” and imagery equating Zionism with Nazism. And, of course, the unsubstantiated turning of accusation of genocide on the victims of a genocide – Jews – which is a ghastly libel.

Images in the exhibition also include “October 7th denial”, repeating false claims that there is no evidence of sexual violence committed by Hamas ‘fighters’ and others during the invasion of southern Israel.

While I find the content of the exhibition and Collings’ work to be objectionable and hateful, and to inversely echo the well-known antisemitic exhibition of Degenerate Art of the late 1930s, I don’t argue that the show should have been cancelled, let alone closed down.

But I do wonder how the artist, and the organisers and hosts of this exhibition think about their fellow citizens.

They appear not to have given a moment of thought to the effect of this exhibition and imagery on our Jewish friends and neighbours. It is fine to criticise or condemn the Israeli government for its actions, just as it is fine to criticise or condemn Hamas.

But the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist imagery and slogans in this exhibition were a ‘dog whistle’ for racist antisemitism. Were such an exhibition to feature imagery of Palestinians or other Arabs, or of Muslims, it would rightly be called out by organisations such as Stand Up to Racism, and by politicians and other civic leaders. But Jews don’t seem to count in the hierarchy of discrimination and prejudice.

Considerable ire from Jews and their non-Jewish supporters has greeted the exhibition but the art world has remained silent.

Collings may see himself up as a kind of ‘enfant terrible’ of the art world but if the art world had any integrity, he would find himself no longer a ‘darling’ but an outcast. In febrile times, when someone can get cancelled for rejecting the idea that a man who calls himself a woman should be taken seriously, the art world has remained curiously, and shockingly, silent on Collings’ antisemitic transgressions. To be clear, we don’t think he should be cancelled but we would like to see high profile members of the art world (whatever they think about Israel) condemn the blatant antisemitic hatred expressed by Collings.

We can only hope that many in the art world remain silent because they are embarrassed by Collings and/or think he is off the wall, not because they happen to, in the dark recesses of their hearts, agree with his degenerate beliefs. The Art Newspaper, for example, the main daily journal of the art world, has chosen not to mention it. There is a complete dearth of commentary from high profile artists and arts institutions on the internet. The Guardian, apparently the favoured newspaper of artists, also seems to be determinedly looking the other way. It’s possible that many in the art world accept Collings’ claim that he is an anti-Zionist not an anti-Semite, but it’s hard to miss the antisemitic tropes that scream aggressively from his drawings. As James Heartfield in Spiked points out, reviewing the exhibition and Matthew Collings’ background as an artist and art critic, his fanatical hostility towards Israel seems unhinged.

Thanet Council initially promoted the exhibition but has now deleted the relevant page from their website following complaints. And Joseph Wales Gallery which hosted the exhibition has also deleted its webpage announcing it. In both instances, the organisations may have been surprised at the outrage, but it shows how hostility to Jews has become institutionally normalised in Britain, not least (sadly) in the arts.

There seems to be institutional double standards operating in condemning the expression of such hatred. As Nico rightly points out, in relation to Arabs, Muslims, and indeed any other minority group in this country, the vitriol expressed in this exhibition would have been condemned as a hate crime, and the perpetrators arrested. But police have refused to take action. As free speech advocates, we wouldn’t support an arrest but as the police’s default tendency these days is to treat offensive language and imagery as criminal, it seems to be a reflection that hatred of Jews is just not taken seriously.

We are sure that there are many artists out there who are as repelled by antisemitism as we are. But silent disapproval is not enough: we need to publicly disavow the kind of work produced by Collings, even if we suspect it may be the product of an unhinged mind.

Critics argue that this approach reflects a loss of confidence in the Trust’s original purpose: stewarding the nation’s built heritage and presenting it on its own terms. Reports and public statements have spoken of “repurposing” historic houses, moving beyond the “outdated mansion experience,” and prioritising contemporary relevance over the buildings’ intrinsic qualities. At the same time, selective historical framing and changes to displays have raised concerns about the erosion of authentic engagement with the past.

A particularly stark example is the Trust’s handling of Clandon Park, a Grade I-listed Palladian house that was gutted by fire in 2015. Initially expected to be restored, the property is now the subject of approved plans to conserve it largely as a fire-damaged shell rather than reinstate its celebrated interiors. The scheme includes modern interventions such as viewing platforms and a new roof terrace, using insurance funds that many argue should have supported full restoration. The decision has been pushed through with minimal scrutiny — approved by Guildford Borough Council in March 2025 despite widespread objections — and has highlighted broader concerns about how the Trust interprets heritage significance and overrides member opinion.

This episode examines what is at stake for Britain’s country houses and the wider heritage sector. Has the National Trust abandoned its historic role as custodian of the nation’s cultural inheritance? What does genuine stewardship of heritage require today? And why does the confident transmission of history and beauty matter more than ever?

Joining Niall and Wendy are three guests with deep knowledge of the issues: Cornelia van der Poll, chair of the campaign group Restore Trust; architectural critic and lecturer Calvin Po; and educator and campaigner Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us.

The discussion explores the origins of the current controversies, the importance of beauty and historical imagination, parallels with earlier cultural upheavals, and practical ways forward—including the role of membership, education, traditional craft skills, and alternative models of heritage management such as Historic Houses.

Guest Biographies

Cornelia van der Poll is a co-founder and current chair of Restore Trust, the campaign group formed in 2020 to encourage the National Trust to return to its core mission of caring for historic houses and landscapes. She is a former lecturer in ancient Greek at the University of Oxford.

Calvin Po: is a designer, researcher, writer and educator based in London. He lectures at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and writes on architecture for publications including The Critic and The Spectator. His perspective is informed by both his experience of the British Empire’s final outpost and a deep appreciation of Britain’s architectural heritage.

Dr Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert is an educator, academic, author and director of the campaign group Don’t Divide Us, which advocates for a common-sense approach to race and against the politicisation of education and culture. She stood for election to the National Trust council in 2024 and is a founding supporter of Arts First. She has written and spoken widely on the importance of historical and aesthetic education.

Although the book is not about art, making only occasional references to artworks, as I read it I could see that art, in its historic course, might reflect the changes in ideas about privacy that Tiffany explores.

For example, I recently watched the recent film Hamnet (Dir Chloé Zhao, 2025), which suggested that Shakespeare’s Hamlet was inspired by his son’s early death. Towards the end of the film, it struck me that Shakespeare by giving public expression to a deeply private sense of loss and grief provided an early theatrical example of what Tiffany’s book examines.

So I asked Tiffany if she’d be interested in identifying works of art that illustrate her thesis … and thus an idea was born. And I was very excited by the list of works Tiffany wanted to talk about because I knew they would provide a fascinating way of exploring the motifs within her excellent book.

The BBC Radio 4 programme, Desert Island Discs, inspired the structure of the episode although it is shaped by the narrative in Strangers and Intimates, instead of Tiffany’s biography. Her chosen works are:

Johannes Vermeer, Girl Reading a Letter, exemplifying interiority and the inner life, which became increasingly important emerging from the Reformation in the 17th Century onwards.

Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (1740) and Dr Samuel Johnson’s Diaries in the mid-in the 18th Century, reflecting the emergence of the public and private as separate spheres of life.

In the 19th Century, Mary Cassatt, The Child’s Bath (1893) reflected the growing importance of privacy as a sphere of warmth and intimacy while Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), revealed the tensions and dangers that such a high valuation of privacy might pose to women.

Egon Schiele’s self-portraits in the early 20th Century revealed a growing preoccupation with psychology and a desire to reveal or externalise the ‘authentic self’, the psychological man — expression of angst.

Later in the century, Nan Goldin’s, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1973&1986), in its performative self-examination through candid photographic documentary, reveals important shifts in how private life is displayed and consumed.

Sophie Calle (b1953) created works that highlighted the undermining and loss of privacy as the 20th century proceeded, with the blurring of voyeurism with artistic practice. See Frieze magazine here.

Vincenzo Latronico’s novella, Perfection (2022) seems to reflect a sense that privacy can no longer exist nor is it desirable.

The episode ends by contrasting the depiction of intimacy in Rembrandt’s Isaac and Rebecca (or The Jewish Bride, 1665-69) with Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018).

In this episode we take a bit of time, the three of us, to review where we are at and where we want to go with the podcast. Our conversations with people from various walks of life, from long standing friends to people we have only just reached out to, have confirmed that we are lucky to be able to draw on the experience and expertise of a great range of people.

Although there are a lot of arts podcasts out there, they tend to specialise in a particular art form. We have been deliberately eclectic in our approach.

We don’t have a ‘big plan’ but we do want to talk about the issues that we feel matter. We may seem quite eclectic to listeners, but the guiding themes of our episodes are freedom of expression in the arts and the idea of art for arts sake. We don’t focus on one particular art form, and are keen to look at how these issues are played out across the arts. We believe that the instrumentalisation and politicisation of the arts over recent decades has done them no good, and possibly some harm. We also wonder if there is a tendency in the art world to ‘dehistoricise’ art — even within the discipline of art history. We are worried that art schools have ceased to really care about developing artists as artists with a commitment to free expression, instead seeking to shape ideological agendas around DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), climate catastrophism and other contemporary preoccupations. So we want to explore how/how much these trends have undermined freedom of expression, and hence creativity, and presented artists with new challenges.

Arts First is London-based but we are keen to look at issues in the arts from around the UK and across the globe. So far we have featured episodes from Glasgow, Nottingham, Salford, Warrington, Bishop Auckland and elsewhere. Friends who have offered suggestions are welcomed with open arms! (So far we haven’t reached beyond our national borders yet, but we are open to suggestions.)

We have talked to a few artists who have faced cancellation because they don’t follow what seems to be the dominant ‘line’ in the arts sector: their support for Israel or critiques of transgenderist and Islamist ideologies, have got them into trouble so we have been keen to give them a chance to talk about their experiences. And we are always keen to talk to artists, and people working in the arts, about how they develop their art and their careers in the arts.

Introducing the creators.

Wendy Earle. I grew up loving the arts. I particularly enjoy going to art galleries, the theatre, opera and concerts. I am also a keen traveller, and wherever I go, I prioritise visiting galleries, and if possible attending local musical and theatrical events. I organise an annual series of London Gallery tours which are led by the artist Dido Powell, which take a close up and informative look at visual art. All of this feeds into my thinking about the arts and the reason why I initiated, with Niall, the Arts First podcast. The freedom to enjoy the arts, and to create new work, is essential to a good society.

Niall Crowley. I discovered art history, hanging out after school, aged 11 or 12, in the FE college library where my mom worked as the cleaner. It was here for the first time I encountered Modern Art, the Renaissance, El Greco, Leonardo, Stanley Spencer, David Hockney.

After school, I took an art foundation, and then messed around in design and print for a few years. Meanwhile I developed a passion for inter-war art, architecture, music and history. Later, bored with work, I decided to return to university, study Design History and ‘retrain’ as an academic.

I left with a decent degree but a little disappointed with the direction of the course, and returned back into the world of work. Despite, or perhaps because of its limitations the course did leave me with many unanswered questions. So getting involved in Arts First has been a great opportunity to pick up where I left off, and for me, many of the nascent trends back then, such as the politicisation of the arts, have become mainstream today.

My other passion would be music - 60s and 70s soul, jazz-funk, gospel, Brazilian jazz, opera, and classical. I’ve sung in a couple of amateur choirs and opera companies.

Dr Michael Owens Mick to my friends. I’m a London-based researcher, writer and lecturer, focusing on urban change and the life of cities, reflecting my career background is in urban planning and development. I now teach undergraduate programmes for American university students studying abroad in London.

My Doctoral thesis (2018) is an ethnographic study of London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. I sing in a choir.

The artist, Miriam Elia, is probably best known for her series of very funny spoof children’s ‘learn to read’ books. I first met her about 10 years ago when I interviewed her for an article for Spiked after one of her works, exhibited under a pseudonym, Mimsy, was pulled from an exhibition, curated by the art group, Passion for Freedom*, because the police claimed the exhibit presented a provocation of terrorism against the gallery and threatened to charge an exorbitant security fee if it wasn’t removed. ISIS threatens Sylvania was a series of 3D tableaux using the Sylvanian Families miniature toy-sets to create idyllic scenes, where sinister miniature masked ISIS terrorists lurking at the edges, threatening invasion.

Miriam had already been busy stirring things up with her entertaining little book, ‘We Go to the Gallery’, which gently but sharply mocked the social pretensions of the art world. In this interview, she tells us about the development of her successful business that has emerged from her work as an artist, and about her run in with Penguin who tried to charge her with breach of copyright of the Ladybird logo. And about how she enjoys finding new ways of pricking hypocritical bubbles, not least the effects of lockdown during the COVID.

Miriam takes her inspiration from the traditions of satire in art, but like satirical artists from the past, such as Hogarth and Ralph Steadman, and her grandfather Ralph Sallon, a celebrated caricaturist, she is as committed to the aesthetic underpinnings of art and its subtly subversive potential, not in making bald political statements, but in challenging deluded groupthink and pointing out pretensions and hypocrisy — in a way that is often instantly funny but also challenging. So she explains about how she approaches developing her art, how the ideas emerge and take shape, and the centrality of the visual image.

We also talk about the contemporary threats to freedom of expression, its impacts on artists in Iran and the recent uprisings there, her concern about her Iranian friends, such as journalist Hengameh Shahidi, currently imprisoned in Iran for ‘propaganda against the system’, the impact of antisemitism on artists, and why Miriam thinks the Jewish tradition is so important to the survival of Western civilisation. Finally she tells us about her forthcoming publication which is about Moses … but not quite in the way you might expect.

Miriam’s work can be seen and bought at Dung Beetle Books.

(*You can hear more about the work of Passion for Freedom here, an earlier episode of ArtsFirst, in conversation with Manick Govinda and Passion for Freedom’s founder, Agnieszka Kolek.)

When we set out on putting this episode together, we knew wanted to interview friends and colleagues and find out what Christmas carols mean to them, now or growing up, and if they have any favourites.

We start off with a conversation between Mick and an old colleague, David Adam, who you may remember from our episode on the Paris Olympics opening earlier this year. David kindly agreed to join us to talk about his very talented musical family and the impressive-sounding family carol concert they are staging for themselves and their loved ones this Christmas.

Then we catch up with some dear friends at a very merry Christmas carols party somewhere in north London. It’s an annual and very informal gathering where we eat, drink catch up before Christmas day and sing a few carols together.

Thank you again for everyone who took the time to speak to us and share their thoughts and their memories.

The music for this section was recorded at Waterloo Station where Mick just happened to stumble upon the London Philharmonic Orchestra entertaining commuters. And he also recorded a wonderful choir performing at Vauxhall station but we didn’t get their name. And we eavesdrop on our friends singing along at our annual Christmas carols party.

Today, we are interested in what Christmas carols mean in this religious context – how they function in worship, how they are sung, and how they shape the experience of Christmas for congregations and choirs. To explore this, we hear from three guests: Alice Pettit, the Vicar of St Andrew’s Church in Ham; Margaret Haig, who runs the Orthodox Christian choir, Mosaic; and Mervi Mattilla, Service Manager at the Finnish Church in Rotherhithe.

Together, they provide insight into the living role of carols in Christian worship today. We begin with Alice Pettit. Michael Owens spoke with Alice in the middle of Advent, so she was, understandably, quite busy at the time.

Parts III to IV all now available on our Substack, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See Mosaic choir YouTube channel here.

To help untangle this history, we are digging deeper into these folk roots. In this episode, we speak with two guests embedded in the world of folk music. First, Mick speaks to Emma Waghorn, leader of the Kingston-upon-Thames folk choir, Pielarks.

Next, Mick chats with Jeff Dent. In 2005, Jeff co-founded Traditional Carols in London, a project where friends meet annually to sing in London pubs. Jeff shares how he was inspired by the traditional caroling villages around Sheffield. Throughout the episode, we’ll hear clips of Pielarks and various pub sessions. It is a striking reminder that caroling has a historic place in noisy, public spaces, and it’s a pleasure to hear how these singers cut through the crowd to capture the public’s attention. We begin with Emma Waghorn.

Links

Pielarks choir

Video intro to Pielarks

Traditional Carols in London

Article by Jeff Dent

In part one Michael and Niall speak with historian and chorister Kevin Yuill about the origins and development of Christmas carols, from their medieval roots to their movement between sacred and secular settings. Our conversation introduces key questions that run throughout: what defines a carol, how popular and religious traditions interact, and why carols have proved so adaptable and enduring.

In the second part we take a look at folk and secular traditions, and community carol singing outside the Church, while in part three we dig down into the relationship between carols and the organised Church, in its varied liturgical forms. The final part we gets us to some really fun recordings. We talk to our friends about what carols mean to them and what they are up to this Christmas. We even persuade one or two of them to give us a few lines of their favourite carols.

And as you’d expect there’s lots of music along the way. We’ve been recording in pubs, in churches, in people’s gardens. Music from part one comes from Mick’s wonderful SYRINX Choir, who are performing a song called Winter Song written by Anna Tabbush. You can find that on Spotify.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Parts two, three and four will be out before Christmas Day so please stay tuned.

Merry Christmas!

Jungr has been described as “one of the most accomplished British singers of her generation,” a performer known for her ability to reinterpret familiar material and uncover new layers of meaning. As David Finkle of the Village Voice put it: “There’s no one like her in the States, or in her home, England.”

Joining us is writer and academic Dr Shirley Lawes – specialist in culture and Modern Foreign Languages, and a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques, awarded by the French Ministry of Education for her contribution to French language and culture. Shirley is also a regular at Barb’s London shows.

In a wide-ranging and often funny conversation, Barb speaks about the musical world she grew up in:

“My mum and dad listened to the radio all the time. As a little girl I got taken to the opera; we went to see Carmen and my dad said it was ever so hard to get people to play the role because she has to die every night… and of course I believed him!”

She recalls cinema trips, early musical influences, and the mixture of classical, jazz and popular music that filled the house:

“We were listening to everything – Nina Simone, Nat King Cole, South Pacific. We had the album at home and I learned the whole thing from having that record.”

She talks about musical roots and influences, from northern England to the Southern States of America, which she explores in her 2010 album Stockport to Memphis, and her most recent single Last Orders at Mercy Square.

She tells us about how moved she was on a trip to Memphis, one of America’s great musical cities. She describes arriving at the Stax Museum (former home of the famous soul music record company):

“I burst into tears. All of it tore me apart. I had never understood the very direct links between the Civil Rights Movement, the Lorraine Motel and Stax itself… what a huge threat that label was in the Deep South, because it was utterly integrated. So I finally got to Memphis - I grew up with that music.”

Barb speaks about some of current writing projects, including Worthing Girls, a new musical written with Sue Teddern and inspired by the classic TV comedy Golden Girls:

“It’s about four women who share a Worthing sea front house. It’s very funny and it was a challenge for me ‘cause I said, I’m gonna write all the songs and all the music. We did two nights in Worthing – a workshop performance – I was knocked out that people laughed and got it and cheered.”

It’s a wide-ranging and engaging conversation, full of stories, humour and insight into Barb’s creative life and career. We hope you enjoy it.

Links

Barb Jungr’s website, which includes videos, recordings, gig and show news and more.

Stax Museum Memphis

More on Worthing Girls

Dr Shirley Lawes profile.

Perhaps this wave of progressivism is over. Commentators have heralded Trump’s second term as a ‘vibe shift’ and a rejection of identity politics. Following the cues of New York’s postliberal ‘Dimes Square’ subculture, youth-oriented ‘post-woke’ cultural scenes have popped up in major cities.

But the same issues arise in these enclaves: few of the emerging works appear visually or ideologically new. For example, New York’s Fiume Gallery greeted Trump’s ‘spiritual insurrection’ by adopting the accelerationist ideals of the Italian Futurists and the neoclassical look of online ‘vaporwave’. Fashion designer Elena Velez shocked magazine editors by taking aesthetic cues from Gone with the Wind. And in June, ‘dark enlightenment’ figure Curtis Yarvin put in a bid to represent the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale with a pavilion themed around Titian’s Rape of Europa.

‘Art wants to break taboos’, Yarvin told Vanity Fair. But artists have been trying to break taboos since the age of Duchamp’s urinal. Will these latest provocations continue to resound when even the president himself relies on social-media shock tactics?

How will a post-woke age affect the output of the contemporary art world? What role should artists take in the ‘vibe shift’? Will new styles emerge to greet this new political landscape – or did the roots of our old artistic stagnancy lie in something deeper than identity politics? And after years of a political controversy-offence cycle, is there still potential for grassroots provocation?

Speakers

Dr JJ Charlesworth, Art critic; editor, ArtReview

Pierre d’Alancaisez, Co-founder, Verdurin; art critic, The Critic

Maria Lisogorskaya, Artist; co-founding member, Assemble,

Dr Ella Nixon, Art historian and writer; post-doctoral researcher, University of Cambridge

Chair

Vicky Richardson, architectural writer and curator; former head of architecture and Drue Heinz Curator, Royal Academy of Arts,

We are grateful to the Battle of Ideas 2025 team for recording and allowing us to podcast this discussion here.

This is a beautiful exhibition. Each piece is simple storytelling tied to rich ideas with delicate craftsmanship.

There is a profound melancholy to it all — not because it recalls some general loss of something from the past, but due to the rending of intimate ties of family — of long, long established tradition manifested in a sitting room; in a beautiful teacup; in cloth; in script and scripture; in toys; in the typewriter; in the book; in the walls; in the suitcases; in the opticians lens. The stitched detail is the mark Caren Garfen uses to signify individual presence, individual thoughts, the person and the people of the story.

What makes Garfen so successful in her current work is her mastery of form and content. Craft itself is her mark that forces the story of individual presence.

Her content is the holocaust, but it is also of past and present. The form is the rendering of human life in its banal and its glorious detail. Many exhibitions today can be oblique, apparently challenging the audience to think. But in this exhibition, the main message is right in front of you – asking you to reflect on the parallels between the past and today’s acts of human debasement through applying group identity, the questioning of equal status, the use of tropes, caricatureand distortion – all part of the gradual process of dehumanisation. Nevertheless, it is in the beauty and in the depth of the pieces where the success of the exhibition lies.

This comment from my friend is a great summary,

“The delicacy, intricacy and the craftsmanship of the exhibition, and her insistence of tenderness, is a counter to the horror of the holocaust itself. It forces you to see it under her terms — that is, humane and tender.”

For more details go to: Fabricated? - a Temporary Exhibition by Caren Garfen

National Holocaust Museum, Acre Edge Road, Laxton, Newark, Nottinghamshire NG22 0PA.

The exhibition is part of celebrations marking 30 years of the National Holocaust Museum. Entry varies. Adult price £10.00 valid for a years entrance to the museum.

The arts have long been considered a sphere of freedom, with successful artists often thriving on a reputation for pushing boundaries and challenging how we see the world. But as activism has taken hold, artists are increasingly under scrutiny – whether for their work, what they think or even who they associate with. To what extent does this new censoriousness affect artists and how do they deal with it?

Wendy and Niall are joined by writer and journalist Joan Smith, cultural historian Dr Tiffany Jenkins, dancer Rosie Kay and New Culture Forum Literary Festival director, Philip Kiszeley to reflect on this challenging new climate for artistic production. How has been the impact of activism varied across different spheres of art? How has cancellation – or the threat of cancellation – affected their work, careers and lives? How should artists remake the case for artistic freedom?

Guests panelists

Joan Smith: writer and journalist, whose latest book, Unfortunately She’s a Nymphomaniac, takes a thoroughgoing and fascinating swipe at the misogyny in the representation of women in Ancient Rome… including the failure to expose the vile treatment of women of the time. (full biog here)

Dr Philip Kiszely: academic, author and political commentator, a Senior Fellow of the New Cultural Forum who has confronted attacks on freedom of expression at many different levels as an observer of and warrior in the culture wars. (full biog here)

Rosie Kay: first and foremost a dancer and choreographer, she is a courageous defender of free expression in the arts, and co-founder of Freedom in the Arts with Denise Fahmy, which recently published a report evidencing how much this principle is now under threat. (full biog here)

Dr Tiffany Jenkins: cultural historian, whose most recent book, Strangers and Intimates, provides a fascinating account of the emergence of the modern concept and value of privacy over the past 2000 years, pointing to how much that value is now being undermined. (full biog here)

A big thank you to everyone at the Battle of Ideas Festival and staff at Church House, Westminster for the recording.