Podcast · Arts & Books

The Art World: What If...?!

by Allan Schwartzman and Charlotte Burns · English · Arts & Books

What if we reimagined everything in culture, from painting to patronage? Tune in to The Art World: What If…?! to hear leading thinkers, creators and innovators in art rethink the system, exploring the consequences with wit, wisdom and humor. Join art journalist Charlotte Burns and world-renowned a

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 51 min
Latest: 16 Oct 2025
Language: English

Latest episode

16 Oct 2025 · 49 min

The Art World: What If...?! with Allan Schwartzman

As this season of The Art World: What If?! takes a break, Charlotte and Allan reflect on the conversations that have shaped it — from artists reimagining knowledge, time, and truth, to institutional leaders grappling with the frameworks that hold culture. Agnes Denes, Glenn Ligon, Sin Wai Kin, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, Glenn Lowry, Thelma Golden, and Kemi Ilesanmi offered perspectives that span generations, geographies, and roles in the cultural ecosystem. Together, they reveal a field in flux. Charlotte and Allan look back at what they've heard — and ahead to where the art world is heading next.…

Play episodeWhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S3 · E9 · 9 Oct 2025 · 1 hr 3 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Thelma Golden
In this episode, Allan Schwartzman sits down with Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, ahead of the November opening of the museum's first purpose-built home. Rising seven stories and spanning 82,000 square feet on 125th Street, the new building is rooted in the aspirations and vision of the artists, activists, philanthropists, and Harlem residents who founded the institution in 1968. One of the most transformative museum leaders of any era, Golden reflects on her career—from groundbreaking exhibitions at the Whitney straight out of college, to the…
S3 · E8 · 2 Oct 2025 · 57 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Glenn Lowry
In this episode, host Charlotte Burns sits down once more with Glenn Lowry during his final week as director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Over three decades, Lowry transformed MoMA—expanding its collection, reshaping its galleries, and reimagining what a museum, and "modern" itself, can mean. He has guided the museum through moments of crisis and transformation—from 9/11 and global financial shocks to a pandemic and the culture wars of recent years. Now, as Lowry steps down, he shares what it really takes to guide an institution through moments of upheaval and reinvention. He…
S3 · E7 · 25 Sep 2025 · 53 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Sin Wai Kin
Artist Sin Wai Kin constructs fantasy worlds to show how storytelling doesn't just reflect reality—it creates it. Through characters like 'The Storyteller', and works that present us with newsreaders in parallel universes or boy band members embodying the marketed self, their practice threads the line between frightening and funny, stretching language to places where it becomes both meaningless and profound. In this conversation with host Charlotte Burns, Sin Wai Kin talks about their creative process, their hopes of transforming the personal into the universal and the power of art and…
S3 · E6 · 18 Sep 2025 · 49 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Allan Schwartzman
After a long, news-filled summer, host Charlotte Burns reconvenes with founder Allan Schwartzman to take stock of an art market that feels… different. From major shifts at the auction houses and slowing sales at international fairs to a mounting list of gallery closures, this episode digs into the forces reshaping today's market. What does contraction mean for artists—especially those losing representation—and for collectors trying to buy wisely without feeding speculation? And why is keeping artists at the center of the conversation more urgent than ever? What if this reset isn't just a…
S3 · E5 · 11 Sep 2025 · 1 hr 9 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Nana Oforiatta-Ayim
There is never just one way of seeing. And Nana Oforiatta-Ayim—writer, filmmaker, cultural historian, and institution builder—has spent her career proving exactly that. For Nana, who founded the ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge in Ghana and curated the country's critically acclaimed first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019, art is not sealed off in white cubes but alive, porous, and connective. In this episode, she opens up about the journey from proving worth to claiming inherent value in conversation with host Charlotte Burns. She speaks about the victories and challenges…
S3 · E4 · 4 Sep 2025 · 1 hr 14 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Glenn Ligon
Glenn Ligon makes art that asks us to look again. An artist, writer, and curator, his practice moves between the studio and the gallery, the page and the public sphere, spanning painting, neon, print, installation, and beyond. From text-based canvases grounded in the words of James Baldwin to glowing neons that play with the idea of America, and from intimate drawings to monumental works, Glenn explores disappearance, distance, and what happens when language is obscured or transformed. In this conversation, he reflects on the through-lines in his work: from artistic heroes to navigating…
S3 · E3 · 28 Aug 2025 · 1 hr 8 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Kemi Ilesanmi
Kemi Ilesanmi is planting seeds for the future. Three years ago, she stepped back from running The Laundromat Project, took a gap year in which she visited 13 countries, and came back full of ideas and possibilities. Now she's an independent arts worker. A diaspora weaver. A connector of people and worlds. She says that five core values drive her work: Assume abundance. Foster connections. Multiply knowledge. Center joy. Manifest dreams. In this third conversation with host Charlotte Burns, Kemi reflects on building sustainable institutions, the women who shaped contemporary art across…
S3 · E2 · 21 Aug 2025 · 46 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Allan Schwartzman
Longtime podcast collaborators Allan Schwartzman and Charlotte Burns sit down for a conversation about an art industry in profound flux. After almost a decade of podcasts tracking how everything has changed, the duo is now looking ahead—and the view is complex. In this frank conversation, they discuss everything from the art market to museum models, to artists history has overlooked. This is a reckoning with the art world at a crossroads. Schwartzman reflects on challenging times but also opportunities. What new possibilities emerge when old systems transform? What if we could reimagine how…
S3 · E1 · 14 Aug 2025 · 42 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Agnes Denes
The artist Agnes Denes saw it coming. Machines taking over. Technology converging with consciousness. History on a pendulum swinging perilously back and forth. In this intimate conversation recorded with host Charlotte Burns in Denes' downtown Manhattan loft apartment and studio space, they talk about her work. When Denes wrote about these things more than 50 years ago, it was prescient, unsettling, and brilliant. Now the artist is in her mid-90s and is still writing and making art every day. And she's still asking the questions that matter: What is humanity's purpose? What is love? How do…
S2 · E17 · 3 Jul 2024 · 1 hr 2 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Dr. Mariët Westermann
In this bonus episode, we're joined by the newly appointed director and CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Dr. Mariët Westermann, who is the first female appointed to the role. Mariët oversees the "constellation" of museums—four over three continents united, she says, in one mission, "to create opportunities for anyone to engage with the transformative and connective power of art and artists". Mariët is inheriting opportunities and challenges, and we delve into some of those, from the back histories to the budgets. She talks to us about the future of the museum—from…
S2 · E16 · 13 Jun 2024 · 1 hr 6 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Deana Haggag, Mia Locks and Jay Sanders
Join us for the almost final episode of this season where we welcome back our incredible team of editorial advisors who guide, suggest — and even challenge — what we've discussed this series. Joining us are Deana Haggag (program officer at the Mellon Foundation), Mia Locks (curator and co-founder of Museums Moving Forward), Jay Sanders (curator, writer, and director of Artists Space), and of course Allan Schwartzman, together with host Charlotte Burns. They reflect on the wonderful and wide-ranging conversations with our guests this season, about creativity, the nature of change, the future…
S2 · E15 · 23 May 2024 · 57 min
The Art World: What If...?! Transforming Museums with Mia Locks, Fatoş Üstek and Laura Raicovich
What if you were embroiled in a public workplace controversy? And what happens on the other side of the headlines—would you walk away from your field, or would you reengage with it to try and improve upon it? This very special episode is a break from the norm. In it, we discuss museums and change—and what it takes to get to that change. We're joined by three curators—Mia Locks, director and co-founder of Museums Moving Forward; Fatoş Üstek, curator and former director of the Liverpool Biennial; and Laura Raicovich, writer, curator, and former president and executive director of the Queens…
S2 · E14 · 9 May 2024 · 1 hr 6 min
The Art World: What If...?! with LaToya Ruby Frazier
This time, we're joined by the artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, just before the opening of her major new exhibition 'Monuments of Solidarity' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. "This exhibition spiritually uplifts people," she says. "It inspires people to be the change they need, but it also inspires them to be better human beings. To look beyond the self, to look beyond individualistic desires, to think about the fact that you are connected to an ecosystem and a world around you. People won't be the same. This is a transformative exhibition." We delve into LaToya's faith and the impact of…
S2 · E13 · 2 May 2024 · 1 hr 13 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Bryan Stevenson
In this episode, we visit the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama, including the newly opened Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, a 17-acre site on the banks of the Alabama River. We interview their founder, the lawyer and civil rights hero, Bryan Stevenson, who says that a founding narrative of racial difference was created in America that "was like an infection. I believe the infection has spread. We've never treated that infection and the consequences of it are still with us today." The US has never created cultural sites that have "motivated people to say, 'never again can we tolerate…
S2 · E12 · 18 Apr 2024 · 46 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Karen Patterson
This time we welcome Karen Patterson, the Executive Director of the Ruth Foundation for the Arts. The organisation immediately became a major player when it launched in 2022, announcing plans to give away up to $20 million a year to arts organisations, thanks to a $440 million bequest from Ruth DeYoung Kohler. We delve into the what-ifs of philanthropy, the foundation's ethos, and its ambitious initiatives. Through a focus on generosity, experimentation, and consideration, Ruth Arts aims to transform the philanthropic landscape. "What if we made a big difference? What if people saw…
S2 · E11 · 11 Apr 2024 · 43 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Allan Schwartzman
"The market is poised for a big fall, so it's more 'when', than 'what if'," says Allan Schwartzman, founder of the podcast. He's back on the show to talk all about the state of the art market and the broader implications of its changing dynamics for the artists and for the cultural landscape at large. "Greatness doesn't grow at the same rate as a population does," says Allan. "Greatness is extremely rare. And right now we're at a moment where I think there's greater confusion than ever about what actually is going on in art and what will be seen as significant 20 or 30 years from now."
S2 · E10 · 4 Apr 2024 · 47 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Kemi Ilesanmi
We welcome back Kemi Ilesanmi, the former executive director of the Laundromat Project and one of the standout stars of our first season. In season one, Kemi was just about to head off on the trip of a lifetime around 13 countries, including ten in Africa. She promised to come back and tell us how the trip changed her 'What Ifs.' "I'm looking for freedom of movement, freedom of ideas, and freedom of manifestation of those ideas. Right now, it feels like I can only find that by working outside of any singular institution." Kemi talks about creating a "beautiful, joyful, sustainable, cultural…
S2 · E9 · 28 Mar 2024 · 32 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Koyo Kouoh ~ Part 2
For the second part of our interview with Koyo Kouoh, the chief curator and executive director of Zeitz MOCAA, we hear about how she has worked to overhaul the infrastructure of the institution internally as well as better connect the museum externally within Cape Town. Koyo talks about how "colonialism as an enterprise, as a model of global relating, has done a lot of harm that we are still mending and attending to." She says: "That is a field of thinking, a space of emotion and knowledge that I am deeply passionate about. And that is why my investment in the space of Black geographies is…
S2 · E9 · 21 Mar 2024 · 39 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Koyo Kouoh ~ Part 1
Joining us from Cape Town in South Africa is Koyo Kouoh, the chief curator and executive director of Zeitz MOCAA for the first in a two-part special. Originally destined for a career in finance, Koyo talks about her journey into the art world, and from Basel in Switzerland to Dakar in Senegal, where she founded RAW Material Company in 2008. She tells us about her move to South Africa in 2019 to take over at Zeitz MOCAA, a new institution, but one in crisis. "We need to take the time to do the things that are urgent, that are essential, that are necessary," Koyo says. "And, for me, building…
S2 · E8 · 14 Mar 2024 · 1 hr 5 min
The Art World: What If...?! With Barbara Gladstone
Legendary art dealer Barbara Gladstone joins us for a very rare interview from the studio in New York. What would she do differently if she started a gallery today? "I probably wouldn't do it," she says. Barbara has been at the top of the business since the 1980s and now represents more than 70 artists and estates. She tells us how she started out with a small print business, and how things developed from there. We talk about art now, the future of the gallery, and what she would change about the art market, including the "idea that collecting is shopping, because I think that there is…
S2 · E7 · 7 Mar 2024 · 54 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Phillip Ihenacho
"West African culture is starting to become the future" says Phillip Ihenacho, the director of the newly established Museum of West African Art. What if you built a new museum in West Africa, where a glorious ancient history contrasts with a brutal colonial one? What if we really considered the full meaning of restitution and repair? Can a cultural organisation build a stable financial future by becoming its own landlord? Phillip and his team are building not just a new museum — but an entire neighbourhood set within the ancient walls of Benin City in Edo. Phillip talks to us about how…
S2 · E6 · 29 Feb 2024 · 56 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Jarl Mohn
In this episode, we welcome Jarl Mohn, the LA art collector and philanthropist who founded the E! Entertainment network in his professional life, among other impressive media and business ventures. Jarl became a DJ at a young age, partly in an attempt to escape the realities of life in a state foster home. Success in his professional career led him to the art world - which he initially distrusted as an industry "designed to take advantage of idiots like us". Jarl talks to us about what changed his mind, and how he ended up building two distinct art collections. An ardent Angeleno, he tells…
S2 · E5 · 22 Feb 2024 · 47 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Hoor Al Qasimi
What if we write our own histories? What if we create the change we seek? In this episode, we talk to the President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, Hoor Al Qasimi, under whose watch, Sharjah has become one of the most influential centers for cultural creation and research in the Global South. From revamping art biennials to creating new universities, overseeing architectural triennials, running a fashion house, sitting on international museum boards, to curating large and small scale art projects around the world, Hoor Al Qasimi is perhaps one of the busiest people we have ever…
S2 · E4 · 15 Feb 2024 · 42 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Salome Asega
Described as the "next generation of leadership", in this episode we welcome Salome Asega, the director of NEW INC in New York and an accomplished artist, whose work is at the cutting edge of creativity and technology. Salome's ability to look towards—and build—the future shines through in this conversation with host Charlotte Burns. Part of her work at NEW INC, she says, is about creating chance encounters for creative people that feel like "choosing your own adventure." What if we focused on new inventions, narratives and opportunities? Tune in for more.
S2 · E3 · 8 Feb 2024 · 51 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Alvaro Barrington
In this episode host Charlotte Burns is joined by artist Alvaro Barrington, who brings as much generosity of spirit to this conversation as he does to his art practice. Fundamentally curious, Alvaro wants to connect with as many people as possible and to make art that is as relevant to people today as Hip Hop was to him as a kid growing up in New York in the 1990s. But, as the art world has expanded, he says, it's also become narrower in terms of who gets in. Alvaro is interested in changing that, creating less hierarchy and more connections. What if art could be as beloved as music by…
S2 · E2 · 1 Feb 2024 · 41 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Jessica Morgan
We're back! In this episode, host Charlotte Burns talks to Jessica Morgan, the director of the Dia Art Foundation. She has revitalized the institution, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, since arriving in 2015, bringing new energy and distinct vision to the museum and creating change behind-the-scenes as much as she has to the work on display. In this episode Jessica talks openly about the museum field, from funding structures to her future plans, from unions to boards. What if Jessica ran the art world? She tells us what she would do first.
S2 · E1 · 25 Jan 2024 · 40 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Alice Smith
Welcome back to The Art World: What If…?! the podcast all about imagining new futures. To kick off the second season in style, host Charlotte Burns is joined by the phenomenally talented, Grammy-nominated, singer and songwriter, Alice Smith who is, she says, currently at work on her masterpiece. This is a frank, free — and very fun — conversation, with lots of surprises. Alice delves into what it really means to be creative, and why it matters. What if she could pick her dream role? You might be surprised. Tune in for more.
S2 · 18 Jan 2024 · 1 min
Introducing Series 2 ~ The Art World: What If... ?!
Welcome back to The Art World: What If... ?! the podcast all about imagining new and better futures. There are some fantastic guests lined up for this second season, leading creative thinkers from all around the world, ready to talk to our hosts Allan Schwartzman and Charlotte Burns. Tune in! New episodes drop every Thursday starting 25 January.
S1 · E16 · 13 Apr 2023 · 42 min
The Art World: What If...?! with Deana Haggag, Mia Locks and Jay Sanders
This time hosts Charlotte Burns and Allan Schwartzman welcome their team of editorial advisors Deana Haggag, Mia Locks and Jay Sanders. They're the brilliant trio who've helped steer this season's conversations acting as an independent sounding board lending editorial advice and expertise - all essential in the creation of this podcast. This is (almost) the season finale - so time to reflect and look back at some of the surprises, delights and, of course, the many "What Ifs". Listen out in the next few weeks for some special bonus episodes!

About The Art World: What If...?!

The Art World: What If...?! is a English arts & books podcast from Allan Schwartzman and Charlotte Burns. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Allan Schwartzman and Charlotte Burns
Language: English
Category: Arts & Books
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 51 min
Latest episode: 16 Oct 2025
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1203133627
Rights: 2022 Schwartzman& 304303

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English arts & books

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.