Talk Art

• Juergen Teller

  Season 25 begins! We meet Juergen Teller, one of the world’s most sought-after contemporary photographers, successfully straddling the interface of both art and commercial photography.We discuss childhood, touring with Nirvana, Agnès Varda, Tracey Emin, William Eggleston, Kate Moss, Pope Francis, Kristen McMenemy, Zoe Bedeaux, collaborating with @DovileDrizyte and breakthroughs with Marc Jacobs. Juergen Teller’s new exhibition of his photographs taken at Auschwitz Birkenau is now open Kunsthaus Göttingen, Germany until 1 June 2025 @KunsthausGoettingen. An accompanying photobook is published by @SteidlVerlag. 7 ½, Teller’s concurrent exhibition runs at Galleria Degli Antichi, Sabbioneta, Italy until 23 November 2025 @VisitSabbioneta.Teller (b.1964) grew up in Bubenreuth near Erlangen, Germany. Teller graduated in 1986 and moved to London, finding work in the music industry shooting record covers for musicians such as Simply Red, Sinéad O’Connor and Morrissey with the help of the photographer, Nick Knight. By the early 1990s, he was working for avant-garde fashion magazines such as i-D, The Face, Details and Arena. Teller has collaborated with many fashion designers over the years, including Helmut Lang, Marc Jacobs, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood, Celine and Louis Vuitton.Teller was the recipient of the Citibank Photography Prize in association with the Photographer’s Gallery, London in 2003. In 2007, he represented the Ukraine as one of five artists in the 52nd Venice Biennale. Teller has exhibited internationally, including solo shows at the Photographer’s Gallery, London (1998), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2004), Foundation Cartier, Paris (2006), Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany (2009), Daelim Contemporary Art Museum, Seoul (2011), Dallas Contemporary, USA (2011), Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2013), Deste Foundation, Athens (2014), Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (2015) and Bundeskunstalle, Bonn (2016).Teller’s work is featured in numerous collections around the world, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; International Center for Photography, New York; Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. He has published forty-one artist books and exhibition catalogues since 1996. He currently holds a Professorship of Photography at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg, and lives and works in London. Follow @JuergenTellerStudio and https://www.juergenteller.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Chris Levine

  We meet artist Chris Levine, a British contemporary artist renowned for his pioneering work with light and lasers. His innovative approach transcends traditional mediums, integrating technology and spirituality to create immersive art installations that challenge and expand human perception. Levine's multidisciplinary practice encompasses installation, photography, performance, fashion, music, and design. He employs lasers and sound frequencies to craft environments that engage viewers on both sensory and contemplative levels. This synthesis of technology and art positions Levine's work within a broader historical context, aligning with movements that seek to transcend the physical and delve into the metaphysical.A seminal piece in Levine's portfolio is "Lightness of Being" (2004), a holographic portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. This work has been lauded for its spiritual depth and technical mastery, with the National Portrait Gallery describing it as "the most evocative image of a royal by any artist." The portrait captures the ethereal quality of light and presence, reflecting Levine's ability to merge artistic expression with technological innovation. Beyond portraiture, Levine has engaged in numerous projects that bridge various artistic disciplines. In 2012, the artist partnered with Anohni and the Johnsons for their "Swanlight" performance at Radio City Music Hall, commissioned by the MoMA, New York, integrating laser with musical performance and creating a multisensory experience. Levine’s site-specific large scale installations have pushed the boundaries of light art, taking diverse settings from the historic Durham Cathedral to the contemporary landscape of Hobart, Tasmania. Aligned with the traditions of public art inspiring communities, Levine’s works make immersive art accessible to broader audiences. In 2021, Levine's exhibition at Houghton Hall, 528 Hz Love Frequency, featured "Molecule of Light," a monumental 25-meter-high sculpture that transformed the landscape and cemented his innovative approach to light art. This installation not only showcased the artist’s technical prowess but also his ability to harmonize art with architectural space, creating a dialogue between the artwork and its environment. Through his multidisciplinary practice, Levine continues to explore the infinite possibilities of light in art, contributing to the ongoing dialogue on the intersection of technology, spirituality, and visual expression. His work stands as a testament to the transformative power of art, inviting viewers to experience the world through a lens of heightened awareness.Follow @ChrisLevine on InstagramVisit: https://chrislevine.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• TM Davy

  Best known for his figurative paintings and pastels, which evoke a luminous, dreamlike reality, TM Davy conjures intimate worlds where figures glow with an almost metaphysical presence, transcending the purely visual. Light and form take on an ethereal quality, reflecting emotions, memories, and the quiet subtleties of human experience. Every brushstroke, every shift of light, seems imbued with a deeper resonance — suggesting that the figures portrayed are not mere representations but vessels of something otherworldly, carrying with them the weight of untold stories and silent truths.Blending careful realism with archetypal symbolism, Davy’s work explores love as a sphere of magic and protection — a space where human connection is not just physical, but transcendent; where bonds are forged in realms of the spiritual and the unseen. His figures often seem suspended in a state of grace, bathed in light that is both gentle and intense, creating an atmosphere of reverence and awe. His work suggests that love, in its purest form, is both a force of transformation and a quiet shield — invisible, radiant, and profound.Grounded in the belief that all of art history informs the present, Davy’s technique is marked by a virtuosic layering of colour and a masterful use of light and shadow. His attention to texture and hue draws deeply from classical tradition, while his handling of paint — confident, gestural, at times joyously loose — is unmistakably contemporary. With a lineage that stretches from Reynolds to Turner, Davy takes us to a threshold where intimacy, mystery, and the inner self converge. He stands at the intersection of classical technique and modern sensibility, drawing on the rich tradition of portraiture to create images that feel at once ancient and immediate. Through his luminous compositions, he invites us to pause and reflect — to step into a space where the boundaries between the real and the imagined dissolve, and where the soul’s journey is lit by love, presence, and the quiet mysteries of being.Over the past few months, Davy has been living and working in Margate, creating an exhibition deeply attuned to its elemental surroundings. Rooted in the present moment, yet echoing timeless myth, the works are shaped by the sea, the chalk cliffs, and the ancient caves that punctuate the coast. These landscapes are not just scenery but portals, inhabited by archetypal beings — Satyrs, Mermaids, White Horses — who rise from seafoam and shadow, conjured from deep cultural memory as much as from the terrain itself. The show is at once an homage to place and a meditation on the mythic — a bridge between the ancient and the now.Davy has the rare ability to render his subjects and scenes with an acute physical presence — they feel almost touchable, real — all the while keeping us fully aware that these are just paintings. He revels in paint’s materiality, with areas of sumptuous brushwork, loose rhythms, and a heightened palette that amplifies the intensity and luminosity of the image. His approach knowingly risks oversentimentality in the pursuit of a higher realm of expression: an emotional frequency that calls us to remain in the present, to feel fully, and to glimpse — even momentarily — the shared magic of human connection.Follow @TMDavy on Instagram.TM Davy's Tine Mara runs from 27th April until 22nd June 2025.Preview is Saturday 26th April 6-8pm, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, UK.Visit @CarlFreedmanGallery and https://carlfreedman.com/exhibition/tm-davy/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Delaine Le Bas

  Delaine Le Bas works in a transdisciplinary way: she combines visual, performative and literary practices to create an artistic oeuvre that encompasses all areas of life. In her works she deals with many facets, political as well as private and emotional, which involve belonging to the Rom*nja people, their history and rich cultural heritage.Within her work, Delaine Le Bas transforms her surroundings into monumental immersive environments filled with painted fabrics, theatrical costumes and sculptures. Her art draws on the rich cultural history of the Roma people and mythologies, focusing on themes of death, loss and renewal.Le Bas reflects on her identity, grief and the intertwining of art and life as she says: 'My whole life is just one whole thing. I don't think it's divided off, really.... What I'm like and what I dress like, and then what I do. It's like one big piece of work.'English-Romani artist Delaine Le Bas lives and works across the UK and Europe. Born in 1965 in Worthing, she graduated from Central St Martin’s and her work explores themes of nationhood, land, belonging, and gender through various media such as embroidery, painting, collage, sculpture, installation, and performance. Describing the intertwined nature of her identity and her work, Le Bas has stated “…as a Romani, my viewpoint has always been that of the outsider and this position of the 'other' is reflected in the materials and messages within my work. We live in a culture of mixed values and garbled messages. My works are crafted from the disregarded and disparate objects of the car boot sale and the charity shops."Le Bas has played a significant role in the building of a Roma/Traveller contemporary art movement and aesthetic. Her work has been featured in the 52nd and 58th Venice Biennales and the Gwangju Biennale in 2012. She co-curated the first Roma Biennale, 'Come out Now!', in Berlin in 2018. She was Delaine Le Bas was nominated for the 2024 Turner Prize, with an exhibition at Tate Britain, and is currently artist-in-residence at The White House, Dagenham; a contemporary and community art space operated by Create London. https://www.whitehouseart.org/delaine-le-basStranger in Silver Walking on Air by DELAINE LE BAS, is a new solo exhibition running until 27th September 2025, at The White House, Dagenham: https://createlondon.org/event/atchin-tan-by-delaine-le-bas/Step into an immersive exhibition that transforms The White House on the Becontree Estate into a dreamlike space of shifting, layered imagery with textile, sculptural objects, glasswork and interactive installations.From 31st May - 2nd August 2025, Newcastle Contemporary Art proudly presents +Fabricating My Own Myth – Red Threads & Silver Needles, a solo exhibition by artist Delaine Le Bas, who continues her exploration of linguistics, mythology, and Gypsy Roma Traveller narratives through the tactile power of textiles, language, and storytelling: https://www.visitnca.com/exhibitions/delaine-le-basFollow @DeDeLeBasVisit: https://www.delainelebas.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  1:10:25
• Gary Kemp

  We meet Gary Kemp, one of the UK’s most successful songwriters of the past 40 years. As guitarist and founding member of the most influential and iconic band of the 80s, Spandau Ballet, he was responsible for writing the words and music for 23 hit singles and albums, including modern day standards like True and Gold. We discuss his passion for the Arts & Crafts movement, William Morris, collecting, and living with, Edward William Godwin furniture, the 70s and 80s creative scene in London, and why art and design is so important to his life.Gary’s songs have had an extraordinary combined total of over 500 weeks in the charts and are hits all over the world. They’ve generated over 25 million record sales and the songs were part of the soundtrack to the 80s. Last year, he received the BMI Icon Award at the 2023 BMI London Awards for his contributions to popular culture and music. He joined an elite group that includes The Bee Gees, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Ray Davies, Peter Gabriel, Queen, Sting, and Van Morrison.Kemp’s songs have proven truly timeless. The ubiquitous hit single True has logged over 5 million air plays in North America alone, and his songs have featured in an incredible 100 feature films over the years including Sixteen Candles, The Wedding Singer, Charlie’s Angels, Pixels and Crazy Stupid Love as well as countless TV programs including The Simpsons, Spin City, Gilmore Girls (all three times each) Euphoria, Modern Family and, Ugly Betty plus many, many more.In 2012, he was presented with the Ivor Novello's prestigious Outstanding Song Collection award. Gary has also won numerous awards and accolades for his work in Spandau Ballet, including an MTV award, a Brit and a Q award.In recent years, Gary has become synonymous with the Rockonteurs podcast which he hosts with fellow musician Guy Pratt, interviewing music legends and becoming the most listened to music podcast in the UK. Gary is a Trustee of the Theatres Trust with a passion for keeping theatres at the heart of communities.Gary grew up in Islington (born October 16, 1959) and attended local grammar school Dame Alice Owens and Anna Scher’s Children’s Theatre drama club, becoming a child actor in film and TV before concentrating on playing guitar and songwriting and forming Spandau Ballet . In the 90s, Gary decided to return to acting, starring in numerous films including hugely successful British crime thriller, The Krays and Hollywood blockbuster, The Bodyguard. He has continued to feature regularly on stage and in film and TV.Follow @GaryJKempVisit https://www.garykemp.com to learn more about his new album This Destination, out now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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