The Art Bystander

Today, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Nadya Tolokonnikova — conceptual artist, musician, activist, wanted criminal, and one of the founders of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest-art collective formed in Moscow in 2011.Tolokonnikova spent nearly two years in a Russian prison after Pussy Riot’s 2012 performance Punk Prayer inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour — an action that transformed a brief act of punk dissent into one of the defining works of political performance art of the 21st century. Since then, her work has continued to confront the spaces where power presents itself as untouchable: the church, the state, the prison system, the museum, the media image.That history matters in Venice. A national pavilion at the Biennale is never just architecture. It is a state speaking through culture.Last week, in May 2026, as Russia returned to the Venice Biennale for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pussy Riot and FEMEN staged two connected protests. On May 6, they confronted the Russian Pavilion itself, using Ukrainian flags, pink balaclavas, smoke, flares, punk music, and slogans against Russia’s war. The action forced the pavilion to close temporarily. On May 7, the confrontation moved from the pavilion to the institution that had allowed Russia back in. At Ca’ Giustinian, the headquarters of the Biennale Foundation, Tolokonnikova and the protesters challenged the Biennale’s leadership and its president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, over the claim that culture can remain neutral while being used by the Russian state. Reuters reported that the demonstration continued from the previous day’s action at the Russian Pavilion and was redirected by police to the Biennale Foundation’s headquarters, where flares in the colours of Ukraine were ignited. This continuity — from the cathedral in Moscow to the pavilion in Venice, and from the pavilion to the Biennale’s own leadership — sits at the centre of our conversation.Tolokonnikova’s recent work has only sharpened this confrontation between art, punishment, and political theatre. Her 2023 performance and exhibition Putin’s Ashes, later shown at institutions and galleries including Dallas Contemporary, turned the image of Putin into ritual material and helped place her back on Russia’s wanted list. In 2025, POLICE STATE premiered at MOCA in Los Angeles as a durational performance and installation built around the architecture of confinement, before travelling to MCA Chicago later that year. Her accolades include Time Woman of the Year, the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought, the LennonOno Grant for Peace, the Woody Guthrie Prize, and an Honorary Doctorate from RISD. She also carries, as a kind of involuntary badge of honour, the Russian Federation’s 2025 designation of Pussy Riot as an extremist organisation — a reminder that, in authoritarian systems, art is not treated as metaphor when it threatens power. Reuters also reported that Pussy Riot was declared an extremist organisation and banned in Russia in 2025. So this episode is about protest as art, culture as power, exile, propaganda, and the impossibility of neutrality when neutrality itself becomes a political position.

In this episode, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar speaks with Galerie Nordenhake about the role of the gallery today, the importance of sustained artist relationships, and how a gallery with Nordic roots continues to operate within an increasingly global contemporary art world.Founded by Claes Nordenhake in Malmö in 1976 (meaning celebrating 50 yr in 2026), Galerie Nordenhake is one of Scandinavia’s most internationally respected contemporary art galleries. Today, the gallery operates across Stockholm, Berlin and Mexico City, connecting a Nordic point of origin with a broader European and Latin American presence.Over nearly five decades, Nordenhake has built a reputation for a rigorous and intellectually grounded programme, representing both established and emerging artists across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, conceptual practice and performance. The gallery is particularly known for its long-term commitment to artists, its close dialogue with institutions, and its ability to support practices that often unfold slowly, critically and with lasting cultural depth.Historically, the gallery has played an important role in introducing and supporting artists such as Anthony Gormley, Hreinn Friðfinnsson, John Coplans, Esko Männikkö and Mirosław Bałka, while continuing to work with a diverse international roster. Its programme reflects a clear belief in art as a space for visual precision, material intelligence and conceptual seriousness.

In this episode of The Art Bystander, our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Marc Spiegler, one of the key figures shaping the global art market over the past decade.Having led Art Basel from 2007 to 2022, he helped transform the fair from a marketplace into a global cultural platform—redefining how art is experienced, communicated, and sold. Today, Spiegler operates across a portfolio of cultural, strategic, and advisory initiatives at the intersection of art, business, and technology. He is co-founder of Art Market Minds, including the course AI & The Art Market, which explores how AI is beginning to reshape structures, behaviours, and opportunities across the industry. Alongside this, Spiegler is a Visiting Professor at Bocconi University, where he teaches cultural management and the impact of artificial intelligence on the art world, and serves as President of the Board of Directors of Superblue, as well as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the future UBS Digital Art Museum. Spiegler collaborates with the Luma Foundation, sits on the boards of the ArtTech Foundation and Art Explora Foundation, and advises companies including Prada Group, KEF, and Sanlorenzo on cultural strategy.In this conversation, we trace that full arc—from journalism to Art Basel to AMM—and what it reveals about the structural shifts shaping the art world today.Also mentioned in the episode New York Real Estate and the Ruin of American Art and Will AI Slop and Deep Fakes Kill Culture.Sign up to join AI & THE ART MARKETArtificial intelligence is rapidly redefining many industries. While there are parts of the Art Market to which it may never apply, it would be foolish to think that our industry won't be strongly impacted. This sprint course - designed and moderated by Marc Spiegler, and featuring experts from inside and outside the artworld - will examine where things stand now, where they're likely to go and how you can deploy artificial intelligence to the benefit of your art world activities.Discount code: TABAI15, and booking HERE. 

In this episode, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar meets with Frej Forsblom a Finnish gallerist and the founder of Makasiini Contemporary, which he established in Turku in 2016. With a clear international outlook from the outset, Makasiini has developed into one of the more dynamic contemporary art platforms in Finland, working with a new generation of artists while actively positioning them within a broader European and global context.Before founding Makasiini, Frej was closely connected to the Finnish gallery landscape through Galerie Forsblom, gaining early insight into the mechanics of building and sustaining an international gallery program. With Makasiini, however, he has shaped a distinct identity — one that is less tied to legacy structures and more attuned to the shifts in how artists, galleries, and collectors operate today.The gallery’s program spans painting, sculpture, and conceptual practices, with a particular sensitivity to materiality, narrative, and emerging artistic voices. At the same time, it reflects a strategic understanding of how to operate from a smaller market like Finland while remaining globally relevant.In this conversation, Frej Forsblom speaks about building a gallery from the ground up, the realities of working within the Nordic ecosystem, and the evolving role of the gallerist in a market that is increasingly international, network-driven, and relationship-based. We also touch on artist development, collector behaviour, and what it takes to create momentum beyond the traditional centres of the art world.

In this episode of The Art Bystander, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar meets with Barbara Corti, Partner at Hauser & Wirth and Senior Director overseeing the gallery’s spaces in Zurich Limmatstrasse and St. Moritz.Having spent more than two decades with the gallery across Europe and the United States, Corti brings a rare perspective on the evolving geography of the contemporary art world. After fourteen years in New York — including leading Hauser & Wirth’s Manhattan location in the former Roxy disco and roller-skating rink — she returned to Switzerland in 2020, where she now helps shape the gallery’s programming and presence across Zurich and St. Moritz.The conversation moves between continents and contexts: from the velocity of the New York art world to the quieter but deeply rooted collector culture of Switzerland. We discuss the particular rhythms of Zurich and St. Moritz, the role of seasonality in shaping art audiences, and the long-term relationships between galleries and artists that continue to define Hauser & Wirth’s approach. Alongside her institutional role, Corti works closely with artists including Rita Ackermann, Anna Maria Maiolino, Mary Heilmann and Nicolas Party.As always on The Art Bystander, the discussion unfolds in a conversational format — offering insight into how galleries, artists, places and collectors shape one another over time. Mentioned in the episode: Upcoming exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse opening during Zurich Art Weekend 2026: War_overlays — Avery Singer and Sometimes a straight line has to be crooked — James Jarvaise & Henry TaylorSome of the hotels and restaurants discussed in the episode belong to Artfarm, the hospitality company founded by Iwan Wirth and Manuela Wirth. Artfarm operates independently from Hauser & Wirth.

This episode is for you — my loyal friends and followers who share my deep love for the purest form of human expression there is: art.Many of you have asked me to open up more, to share what sits behind the platform, the voice, and the choices — so here we are.As The Art Bystander marks its three-year anniversary this February, I sit down for an intimate conversation with my life and business partner, Ellen. Together we reflect on why I started The Art Bystander, what has driven it from the beginning, and what continues to guide everything we do.From the bottom of my heart — thank you for being part of this journey, for your curiosity, your trust, and your presence. I’m deeply grateful you’re here with us.#theartbystander

Today on The Art Bystander, I speak with Marlies Wirth, Curator for Digital Culture and Head of the Design Collection at the MAK in Vienna, about one of the most quietly radical figures of late-20th- and early-21st-century culture: Helmut Lang. Our conversation turns not to his later sculptural practice, but to the architecture of a legacy that reshaped how we understand design, communication, identity, and the very idea of what a fashion house could be.The MAK’s new exhibition, Excerpts from the MAK Helmut Lang Archive — running 10.12.2025 → 03.05.2026 — reflects on the years 1986–2005, a period in which Lang’s vision dissolved the boundaries between disciplines. His work unfolded across clothing, graphics, architecture, staging, branding, and digital experimentation — not as separate gestures, but as parts of a single cultural language. Long before he stepped away from fashion, Lang had already begun to operate like an artist moving across mediums, using every surface as a site of meaning.This retrospective reveals how deeply his ideas anticipated the world we now take for granted. It recalls the moment he livestreamed a runway before the internet had become a stage; the years when he turned New York itself into an extension of his voice; the way his presentations and stores became environments rather than commercial spaces. Lang’s legacy is not simply a story of minimalism or aesthetic restraint — it is a study in how form can become communication, and how identity can be constructed with both precision and quiet intensity.In speaking with Marlies, the past becomes newly vivid: not nostalgic, but architectural. We explore how Lang’s decisions — from the shape of a jacket to the rhythm of a campaign, to the destruction of his own archive — can be understood as part of a larger narrative about authorship, memory, and the courage to redefine oneself.This episode looks back at the cultural landscape Helmut Lang helped build, and the echoes of his vision that continue to structure how we see and experience the world today.

Welcome back to The Art Bystander, the podcast that explores the stories, ideas, and people shaping the world of contemporary art. Our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is taking you behind the scenes of one of the most influential art fairs in the world — Paris Photo. Founded in 1997, it has become the leading international fair dedicated entirely to photography, a place where artists, collectors, curators, and institutions converge to celebrate and challenge the medium.Joining me are Florence Bourgeois, Director of Paris Photo, and Anna Planas, Artistic Director. Together, they’ve been redefining what a photography fair can be — expanding its cultural scope, international reach, and curatorial ambition.In this conversation, we’ll discuss the evolving role of photography in the art ecosystem, how Paris Photo bridges artistic and commercial worlds, and what it takes to curate a fair that remains both relevant and visionary. So whether you’re a collector, a photographer, or simply curious about how images shape our times — this episode is for you.