Exhibitionistas: Notes on Contemporary Art and Life

So many definitions of contemporary art… but what if the notion of skill took us deeper into it? As a curator, our host often hears: “my kid could do this”. So, she put her art writer and curator talents to the task of uncovering expectations and misconceptions about visual arts that it expresses. This is also an artist conversation episode: the first part explores 20th century art through the notion of skill, and the second invites the Swiss self-taught artist Reto Pulfer to provide his own ...

Biography enlightens the work of an artist but, in rare occasions, it can obliterate it. A polemic curatorial choice in Ana Mendieta's exhibition at Tate Modern illustrates this puzzling question. This unexpected curatorial twist may lean into anti-feminism if we stay on the surface of the discourse. Dive into it with our host Joana P. R. Neves, a curator and an art writer. What decision did Valentina Umansky and Michael Wellen, the curators of the show make, and what third person, inst...

What if weaving released untold stories? And how does textile art with such narrative yet abstract powers fit into contemporary art and its traditionally European systems? Joana’s conversation with contemporary artist Paula do Prado takes unexpected turns and spreads across at least 3 different continents–if not more. What influence did the lost language of the Charrúa people and her Uruguayan past and lineage have on her work? Or, rather, is it even possible to locate the intuitive, dreamt a...

There are pockets of creativity in our everyday life. The embodied art of READING ALOUD is an overlooked source of joy, containing so many aspects that contemporary art and artists explore in their practice... Performance, drawing, text, breathing patterns... It all starts with Joana P. R. Neves, our host, asking what the body can do by itself, or with very little assistance, inspired by the last episode dedicated to artist Ana Mendieta. This is also our way of introducing the upcoming bonus ...

What does the artist’s body do? No one pushes us to ask this more than the Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. Her excavated silhouettes in the landscape, where her body would at times lie, covered with petals or feathers, are but one of the actions and rituals that she performed during her short career. What did occur in her own body? Community? Communion? What was the origin and the purpose of her embodied art? And what is the medium for this kind of art, happening in and with the body of t...

We have great news! We're an Award Winning Podcast–Women Who Podcast award in the LGBTQIA+ category Bonus Episode: Le Guin / Indigenous History / Lao Tzu / and more... What was Ursula K. Le Guin's favourite book, and what did it uncover about the revered author's world-building and family legacy? Did you enjoy the episode? Leave a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista When she was a guest on the podcast, art Curator Catherine Li brought in a revelation about Ursula K. Le Gui...

How and why do art and Summer join forces? Art, and visual arts especially, show imminent change–but so does Summer and its ideal of creative flow. How did–or did not–art speak of the climate emergency, gender policing, the war–in short, of loss? What role does this hot and luscious season play in the hubris of conquest, or the black hole of grief? Art curator and writer Joana P. R. Neves, our host, reminisces about Agnes Martin and John Cheever, and their opposing ideas of Summer and of crea...

Writer Rachel Cusk asked: "Can a Woman who is an Artist Ever Just Be an Artist?" (NYT). Our host Joana, your favourite contemporary art writer and curator, turns this question of gender and skill on its head: can men be (good) artists? Cusk's book "Parade" (2024) is this Art & Literature episode book of choice to tackle the issue. Can art and life be a continuous flow for female artists, as it seems to be for male ones? Joana embarks on an art and feminism quest: is gender a prison?...

Art criticism is vanishing from mainstream media, but here's the uncomfortable question: does art and culture still need critics? Our host, Joana P. R. Neves, art curator and writer, examines why critics are leaving big outlets without being replaced—and what this means for art criticism, artistic quality assessment, curatorial etiquette, and the future of art evaluation itself. What is art criticism actually for? And where does Joana's feminist critique of critique lead to? And who decides w...

AI is forcing us to define what being human is. So, did our host, an art curator and writer, dare to create a Manifesto? Awkward? Or are we not used to women proclaiming things? How can art–seemingly at the brink of commodification–bear new forms of being human? Or is does it spotlight you, art wanderer? The self-help book "Tiny Experiments " by Anne-Laure Le Cunff sparked this art question: why did it excite such a meditative exploration of the role of art, and its urgent proclamation? Tune ...

As an art curator and writer, our host is often faced with printed or digital art portfolios – does this art digital hygiene go against art etiquette? Is art appreciation valid, or even possible through a copy of an art work? Through art images in a book? This issue hides a bigger one: how do you experience art if you live in a country far from the big museums and collections? Our host gets candid and starts with a personal anecdote–she's not always lived in London... Did you enjoy the episod...

Art curator, writer and host Joana P. R. Neves, asks the ultimate art question of art questions: could art appreciation be a powerful combination of the analog and the digital? Even stranger: how does it hinge on the meaning of word "wonder" and "wander"? In a nutshell, are we in need of art digital hygiene? Is Art Wonderment the response to the decline of 20th century art criticism? As ever, Joana gets candid and exposes her own journey into the art digital spaces and social digital platform...

Miniseries–Does obscurity lead to creative freedom? Why do I ask? Because of one sentence in American writer Chris Kraus' "I Love Dick" saying that once we accept obscurity, we can do what we want. Could this be the most daring feminist art statement? But then, why does it intersect with a cliché of sexual desire, the cowboy? Enter artists Sophie Calle, Hannah Wilke, intellectual Sylvère Lotringer, experimental art, the New York art scene of the 90s and more... Did you enjoy the episode? Thin...

Miniseries–There is a little discussed sub-plot in Proust's books: the narrator growing into art wonderment. Joana unfolds this storyline about art and life: How can you spot artistic talent? To what extent the narrator's art anxiety and art appreciation abilities, first as a child, then a teen, and later a young adult are affected by his environment, the reluctance of his father and the enthusiasm of a fallen high society friend of the family? Or is aesthetic delight inseparable from t...

Miniseries–Is there a dark side to creativity? Can the intersection of art and literature reveal it? Host Joana P. R. Neves, an art curator and writer, steps back from her job, and into the art questions it stimulates by digging into her favourite books: can art and technology have a balanced relationship? What effect do their outcomes have on us, the spectators? Will art and literature bring us a sobering reckoning? "The Invention of Morel" (1940) by Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares br...

Miniseries–Your host, writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves, invites you to read "The Mark on the Wall", a short and strange essay by the British writer Virginia Woolf. What prompts a meditative exploration, and how does it lead to art making? Is the creative flow gendered? Do female artists and writers have direct access to it? Is it possible for them to hold it, uninterrupted? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeac...

What if writing and talking about contemporary art and life, art and literature, were two completely different things - but complementary? Instead of pitching them against each other, have we thought about articulating their qualities? Our host, art writer and curator, Joana P. R. Neves, tests this notion with a performance of sorts: reading one of her texts about the modernist writer Gertrude Stein without correcting her mistakes, with a minimum of editing. The goal: to make it apparent how ...

How can a work of fiction influence the work of an artist? Can a visual arts practice be illuminated by storytelling? Are there art questions at the intersection between art and literature? Our host, art curator and writer Joana P. R. Neves, invites Bengali artist Laisul Hoque to choose an important book for his path into contemporary art. Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista Laisul Hoque c...

You're bound to get an art education with our guest, curator Sarah Carrington! Our art talk with her explores her work as director of the Public Art Trail in East London The Line, as well as the joys of producing visual arts projects and supporting artistic commissions for an urban space full of wildlife and industrial areas, away from the capital's most overcrowded areas. Art Insider is an art discussion segment with fascinating visual arts thinkers and curators who lift the veil on the...

How do you overcome the extreme subjectivity of colour as a topic in art? María Castro Jímenez, pigment specialist and art historian, offers surprising new histories of colour. Can the study of colour reveal hidden pplitics of the past, present and perhaps the future of art? How do we go beyond the usual art explorations of perception? Or do they still have something to teach us? Why is colour taught conceptually and not as something you make? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supp...

What if a visual artist’s favourite tool revealed their creative process and philosophies? Even to themselves? This dual artist series inquires about contemporary artists’ studio practices. What are really artists working with today? What materials do they cherish? What other disciplines are they looking at? Cuban artist Ana María Caballero and British-Lebanese artist Alexandra Jabre answer these questions and reveal what is behind their artworks. Our two guests also discuss what...

A part of our work and leisure is spent online and so is our art. Posted on social media and even made with the help of AI, LLMs, and more, creative initiatives and art objects may now also live in online art spaces. Is an art podcast to be confused with it? What are the joys and dangers of real art spaces becoming virtual ones? Or is the danger elsewhere, and the art education potentially everywhere? Art Topic is an art discussion segment about intriguing art themes, or exciting new ...

Have you ever been under the irresistible spell of an art work? Art Story is a shorter episode exploring an art work, an artist, an exhibition or even a concept through a proudly subjective narrative. Narrated by: the host, Joana P. R. Neves Joana explores an aesthetic shock involving a tongue twister and a photography by Roni Horn in a busy art fair. Maybe you’ll jump into the flow, maybe you’ll be touched by Joana's devotion to the art, the feeling, and the inscrutable nature ...

What can you paint at the end of your life? How does painting feature in a Aboriginal culture? Does contemporary art culture intersect with Aboriginal art – should we even look for this kind of connection? How did exhibitions of the great painter and artist of the Northern Territory explose her work and contextualise it? How do exhibitions in contemporary museums welcome aboriginal art? Exhibition Chinwag is the original segment of the podcast where Joana invites professionals from ot...

Le Guin demonstrates how we can totally change the STORY. But... how does this apply to curating? Hosted by Joana P. R. Neves. Catherine Li chose: Ursula K. Le Guin SIGN UP TO THE EXHIBITIONISTAS FILES. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://joanaprneves.substack.com/s/exhibitionistas → DONATE (give it some time for the donorbox window to charge): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exhibitionistaspodcast.com/support-us Instagram: @exhibitionistas_podcastBluesky: exhibitionistaspod@gmail.com 00:00 Intro 00:05:10 What does a curator do?00:09:...

In My Art Tools (new segment) we look into 2 artists' tool box: what is their fetish instrument? Artists think with their hands. Let's get technical! The artist's hand will guide you through the passion of following one’s vision, the pleasures of trusting an instinct, and the resilience it takes to work creatively. Hosted by Joana P. R. Neves. The guests: Anouk Mercier (UK + FR) and Marina Roca Díe (SP). In an endearingly geeky manner, the answers reveal fantastic methods and unimaginable sto...

Guest: Ben Luke (Host of A Brush With) Ben Luke is an art journalist whose voice reaches a wider audience through his successful podcast A Brush With, where each episode is dedicated to an artist interview led by him. His new book, What is art for? Contemporary artists on their inspirations, influences and disciplines (2025, Heni), stems from it. Art Insider is an interview segment with fascinating figures of the art field who lift the veil on their corner of contemporary art. ...

How do artists paint the body nowadays? And why does Jenny Saville produce monumental images of it? Exhibition Chinwag is the original segment of the podcast where Joana invites professionals from other fields to visit and discuss the work of an artist through their solo exhibition. Guest: Susie Ridell Co-Producer and co-Host of the Podcast ⁠Limited Time Only⁠ The artist: Jenny Saville and her solo exhibition The Anatomy of Painting. National Portrait Gallery - 20 June - 7 Sep...

Exhibitionistas Season 3: a constellation of 8 episode segments opening new doors onto the fascinating, thought-provoking and creative world of contemporary art. Exhibitions, Art Talk, Art Insider Interviews and more. Starting: 5 September 2025. Music by Sarturn Featuring Catherine Li, Susie Ridell, Ben Luke, Marina Roca Díe, Sarah Le Quang Sang, Nick Taylor, and the O.G. Emily Harding. Created & hosted by Joana P. R. Neves Did the episode stir Art Wonderment memories? Share them via tex...

ART TRAVELOGUE is your audio/video journey with contemporary art as a destination. Embark on this trip with your host, curator and art writer Joana P. R. Neves. Ft. Haroon Mirza, Yates Norton, Inês Costa. I travel by train to see British artist Haroon Mirza's commissioned performance and sound installation for the exhibition at Focal Point Gallery Other Worlds: Acts of Translation . The people, the seascapes, the urban areas, the histories of Essex's estuary are seen through the s...

What under-developped skills and perspectives can queer art and artists bring to the fore? Our host, Joana P. R. Neves, interviews queer curator Gemma Rolls Bentley and trans curator E J Scott about their exhibition Talisman with Cardion Arts. How did they grow up with art not seeing themselves represented in it? Is it possible to did find one’s way into representation through thematic approaches to contemporary art? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by l...

Host Joana P. R. Neves, art writer and curator, uncovers new perspectives on contemporary art through the feminist ethos found in podcasting. Joana also shares insights from her attendance at the International Women Podcast Awards, highlighting the non-hierarchical nature of the podcasting community. Looking ahead, she teases new formats and changes for the upcoming season, while opening up about the need for engagement. Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by lea...

How empowering can the art market be? How can a commercial gallery push boundaries? Be more inclusive? And what are the intersections between collections, trans rights, motherhood, family and queer communities? Sarah Le Quang Sang may not have all the answers, but she has all the good questions. She asks: why are birthdates important? Why is there an artistic career template? Who has access to museum collections? Art fairs? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionist...

Contemporary art is a feast for the senses. But have we reduced art to vision? And what does the hand do, now that we have machines and automated ways of making, editing and showing images? In this scenario, have images changed radically? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista This episode is the second audio/video essay of the season. It will take you on a trip to sensory shifts, blurring the boun...

Joana P. R. Neves, our host, new guest, architect Nick Taylor, wonder: with art involving avatars are we spectators or actors? A real art appreciation challenge, British Contemporary artist Ed Atkins' exhibition at Tate Modern! How does a contemporary art student become one of the first artists to mix gaming lore and tech, editing, and avant-garde theatre? How do these popular technologies affect the exhibition space and the enjoyment of the work of art? How important are wall texts, and shou...

Is the Italian contemporary artist Giuseppe Penone a pioneer of eco-art? A late romantic? All of the above? Our host, art curator and writer Joana P. R. Neves is joined by the artist Diogo Pimentão to explore the survey exhibition of this seemingly neo-romantic artist. How did Penone develop his work within one of the most revolutionary movements of Italian and international art, Arte Povera? As one of its youngest members, what sets him apart from the group–could it be his lifelong collabora...

Are you ready for a poetic and existential art travelogue? Our host, curator and writer Joana P. R. Neves, invites you on a new 'art stories' episode, where art, drawing, language and sound turns contemporary art into a meditative form of art-making engaging the spectator in a poetic and existential voyage. She shares her curatorial adventure with the German-Italian artist Irma Blank, the closest she's ever had to a mentor. But a mindful art practice can hold turbulences: indeed, how did mini...

Art Advisor Liberté Nuti joins our host, art curator and writer Joana P. R. Neves, to discuss how cinema can become an art installation. Why did Anthony McCall create immersive art installations with cinema projectors and other technologies of popular culture? This contemporary British artist absorbed the NY vibe, but why did he disappear for more than a decade? Can his work be characterised "pop conceptual technology"? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas b...

How does the typically male transgression of Punk enter into female / feminist art? OG host, is back, art enthusiast Emily Harding, to discuss Linder, a punk female photo-montage contemporary artist with our host, art curator Joana P. R. Neves. Did Linder take on the Punk philosophy or did it change with time? And a feminist question arising in this feminist artist and survivor's work: is art a form of therapy? And what relationship does this entail with the other side of it: the spectator? T...

Our Gen X host, art curator Joana P. R. Neves, talls with two Millenial guests–do their art experiences clash? British contemporary artist Hardeep’s Pandhal’s exhibition “Inner World” is discussed through the lens of neurodivergence (ADHD, Dyslexia, Synesthesia). How don they affect perception and art appreciation? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista In fact, how does history and dis...

Alfredo Cramerotti and Auronda Scalera are a curatorial duo specialising in art and technology, dedicated to bridging digital and contemporary art. Why did the two curators choose to work together, and around the hot topic of art and AI? And why do we fear AI’s impact on creativity? Can we have a real assessment and definition of the metaverse and its potential as an art space? Are women artists still under-represented in the use of new technologies? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about sup...

Contemporary art writer and curator, and host of the podcast, Joana P. R. Neves, is joined by art advisor Liberté Nuti, who pitched On Kawara’s ‘Date Paintings’. Why was the Japanese contemporary artist so elusive? As an art historian, Joana should introduce his artistic career, but also his biography. But how to go against the artist’s careful erasure of self? Indeed, why did On Kawara do everything to reduce life to art and dedicate himself to a meditative exploration? This Art Wonderment&n...

Friends Emily Harding, the art lover and exhibition goer, and Joana P. R. Neves, the art curator and writer, examine Lauren Halsey's exhibition. What was the Los Angeles-based black artist’s strategy with her maximalist, object laden environment? By being so specific to her community, how did it reposition what a spectator is and is their role in a show? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionist...

The two friends who host the podcast, Joana, the art professional, and Emily, the dedicated art lover, are faced with a question: can contemporary art be a form of activism? Zanele Muholi is a South-African non-binary, queer photographer whose art-making focuses on their marginalized community as "visual activism". How, then, do portraits and self-portraiture pierce South-Africa’s LGBTQIA+ discrimination? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a sma...

Contemporary art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves interviews Stephen Ellcock on the occasion of the release of his fabulous book “Elements”. What drew him to this fascinating topic? And how did his ecological trepidation make it into the book? It’s impossible to ask a visual culture curator how they manage to present beauty and dread, spirituality and fear… But this delightful conversation will provide a few clues. Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by...

The two Exhibitionistas friends, contemporary art curator Joana P. R. Neves and art lover Emily Harding examine the unexpectedly sensorial exhibition “Leap Year” by South Korean artist Haegue Yang. How did she accomplish such enchanting aesthetics–and huge sculptural objects–with simple, domestic materials?! Why are they so strange and yet familiar, almost nostalgic? Where do the Korean elements stop and the European interiors begin (Yang lives in Berlin)? Did you enjoy the episode? Think abo...

Emily Harding, our favourite exhibition goer, is back for another exhibition discussion. Along with art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves, they visit beloved and prematurely deceased American contemporary artist Mike Kelley’s survey exhibition at Tate Modern. Is this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition an accurate experience of his work? What part did his upbringing and irreverent personality play in his work and in his disappearance (Kelley died by suicide)? Did you enjoy the episode? Think abo...

Joana P. R. Neves is an art curator but also an art fair artistic director. So, she invited art advisor Liberté Nuti to ask her: what does an art advisor do? And why is her job somewhat maligned? How does one decide to work in the modern art sector? But before anything else, what drew her to art in the first place? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionista This is Exhibitionistas’ first guest episode ...

Our two Exhibitionistas friends, art writer and curator Joana P. R. Neves and dedicated exhibition goer Emily Harding, visit The Curve at The Barbican to see the first institutional exhibition of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum's work in the UK, titled “It Will End in Tears”. How does the combination of film noir with its femme fatale characters resonate with Phatsimo’s mixed race characters? What influence does the naked “film set” structure have in our perception of the drawings, embedded in it? C...

What art journey takes a female British contemporary artist from the status of provocative, unskilled [insert derogatory term for women] to national treasure and cancer survivor–stoma advocate? How did Tracey Emin become one of the most revered British artists, a recognized sculptor, drawer and painter? And why did she self-destroy so visibly at the beginning of her artistic career, which, in turn, helped so many isolated women? Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibiti...