The Art Bystander

Omar Kholeif has curated more than 100 exhibitions and written or edited over forty books. Showing their own paintings under their own name, however, meant giving up something they had wanted to keep private. Recorded at Kholeif’s home in East London, this episode of The Art Bystander brings Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar into conversation with the artist, author, curator and broadcaster about the experiences behind their work.Kholeif is Professor of Global Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Glasgow School of Art and leads its postgraduate programme in curatorial practice, delivered jointly with the University of Glasgow. They previously held senior positions at Sharjah Art Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Whitechapel Gallery. Their books include Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs.We discuss Fellow Travellers at Tabari in Dubai, which brings five women artists into conversation with Kholeif’s paintings, and the research, friendships and personal decisions behind the exhibition. Kholeif recalls the trickster stories of their childhood, the influence of Jean Fisher and the encounter with Derek Jarman’s Blue that helped them understand why they had to make art.The conversation also addresses the art world’s fixation on biography, the financial reality behind a public career, and “dreamwork”: protecting the conditions in which people can imagine and create. We conclude with Afterglow in London and paintings made through experiences of physical pain, family separation and survival.Fellow Travellers: Tabari, DIFC, Dubai, until 10 January 2027.Afterglow: From the Residue of a Departed Sun, No.9 Frieze Cork Street, London, 30 October–21 November 2026.

Jordan Roth spent years helping other people bring their creative visions to the stage. Eventually, he began to miss his own. His route back started with something he could practise every day: getting dressed.Recorded in Paris during Art Basel week in October 2026, this episode brings together the artist, actor and seven-time Tony Award-winning theatre producer and designer Adam Charlap Hyman for a conversation with Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar about identity, performance and the emotional lives of objects.Their starting point is Roth’s exhibition To Think of the Tranquil Life of Things, designed by Charlap Hyman & Herrero. Before leaving the New York apartment where he had lived for 15 years, Roth was photographed wearing clothes from different chapters of his life. Those photographs became collages printed onto silk crepe and draped over furniture, giving physical form to the memories held within a home. The exhibition takes its title from Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual.Roth speaks candidly about being a child who struggled to make sense to others, finding belonging on stage, and the professional uniform that eventually began to feel restrictive. He explains why performance is a way of revealing himself, and why he now imagines identity as an expanding circle that continues to contain earlier versions of a life.Charlap Hyman describes translating the apartment into a Parisian exhibition, where rooms and objects recur in altered forms. Together, they consider the home as a self-portrait, collecting as a means of changing ourselves, and the difficulty of distinguishing our own instincts from other people’s expectations.There are also deeply personal memories: a chair where Roth fed his baby, a kitchen sink used for a first bath, and a child making music with his great-grandmother.To Think of the Tranquil Life of Things is presented in partnership with Salon 94 Design and Design Miami at 72 rue de l’Université, Paris, from 20 to 25 October 2026.

You can love a work of art and still question its price. You can support an artist and still want to understand what happens when you need to sell.In this episode of The Art Bystander, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar joins collector and Artscapy co-founder Emilia De Stasio in London for a conversation about the emotional convictions and financial decisions that shape a collection.With a background spanning the European Central Bank, Moody’s and technology investment, Emilia brings an analytical eye to a deeply personal pursuit. Together with her husband, Alessandro, she owns around 200 works, with one firm rule: they buy living artists. Their collection explores identity, social politics and the relationship between humanity and the natural world.We discuss what draws her to difficult, demanding art; how galleries and institutions influence an artist’s market; and the uncomfortable gap between buying a work and being able to sell it. We also examine why useful technology can struggle to gain acceptance in an industry built on personal relationships.Those questions led the couple to establish Artscapy. Now, the platform is entering the auction market: its first Modern and Contemporary Art sale runs online from 2–12 November 2026, with 0% seller commission and a 16% buyer’s premium.I ask Emilia whether those economics are sustainable, how the model serves collectors over time, and what support remains when a work fails to sell. Throughout our conversation, one question persists: whose interests does the art market actually serve?

What happens when you spend enough time with a painting to imagine living with it? In this episode of The Art Bystander, our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar speak with David Rothschild, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art Private Sales in the UK and Global Lead for Private Sales Exhibitions, and Valerio Polimeno, founder of _POLIMENO, about Chez Sotheby’s.Taking place from 19–24 October during Art Basel Paris, the project brings nearly $150 million of art into an apartment on Rue de Rivoli overlooking the Jardin des Tuileries. Works by Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, Richter, Bacon and others inhabit rooms conceived for dining, conversation and the pleasure of looking. The curation is just perfect.Our conversation follows the collaboration from its beginnings in Gstaad and London to the personal experiences that shaped Valerio’s approach to hospitality. He recounts how a dismissive remark about the pasta served at an earlier exhibition helped inspire this project, and why creating a welcoming space begins with the intentions of its hosts.David discusses sourcing works from private collections and the connections that emerge when different periods share a room. Among them is a pairing both guests would happily take home: Degas’s ballerinas and a painting by Cecily Brown, whose encounters with Degas helped inspire her work.We also discuss the business behind the invitation. Everything is available for private sale, and the setting allows collectors to consider art within the rhythms of everyday life. Drawing on Paris’s history of salons, homes and restaurants, Chez Sotheby’s asks how the company we keep, the rooms we inhabit and the time we give a work might influence what we see.Chez Sotheby’s | Paris | 19–24 October 2026Viewing enquiries: chezsothebys@sothebys.comAddress supplied on request.Exhibition details and catalogue:https://www.sothebys.com/en/digital-catalogues/chez-sothebys

Collector Karen Boros joins Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar in the latest episode of The Art Bystander podcast. Karen Boros and her husband Christian began by collecting artists of their own generation. As they grew older, they made a deliberate decision to keep following younger artists, eventually those of their son’s generation. Collecting became a way of staying engaged with experiences and ideas beyond their own.That willingness to remain curious runs through our conversation, recorded in Karen’s home above the Boros bunker in Berlin, after she had taken us through the collection downstairs.Opened to the public in 2008, the collection occupies a former air-raid shelter that has also served as a prison, a warehouse and a techno club. Its changing presentations bring contemporary art into spaces where the building’s history remains impossible to ignore.Karen’s experience extends across several parts of the art world. With a background in psychology and art history, she worked in galleries before joining Art Basel in 2005, working in VIP relations for Germany. Alongside building the collection with Christian, she has spent years engaging with other collectors and the relationships through which people find their way into art.She is candid about how their own decisions happen. “Sometimes I think we should have a strategy, but we don’t,” she tells me. The collection grows through exhibitions, encounters and conversations, supported by longstanding trust in particular galleries.I wanted to explore how an initial interest becomes a lasting commitment to an artist. What gives you confidence in a practice? What happens when it develops in a direction you hadn’t expected? And what can collectors contribute through the works they buy, the projects they support and the audiences they help artists reach?Karen makes a point about galleries that deserves more attention: they produce exhibitions that anyone can visit for free. She also speaks about the importance of a work leaving the studio, being seen and entering into discussion. Supporting art involves making those encounters possible.We talk about Berlin’s changing artistic communities, the challenge of encouraging younger people to collect, and the care involved in opening a private collection to the public. Some people arrive at the bunker knowing the artists; others come for the building and discover the art.Karen calls them guests. By the end of our conversation, you understand how much work goes into making that word meaningful.

Lidewij Edelkoort on how long trends really take“Most of the time we only work on the long-term trend. Because the short TikTok things, for a few weeks, are not really interesting in the long run. They just give shape to the big movement. Recently, I showed my books to a publisher and we came to the conclusion that most trends take 20 to 25 years to arrive and to really blossom.”What happens when we give ourselves permission to play, make mistakes and follow an idea before we know where it will lead? Recorded at Hotel Diplomat in Stockholm, this episode of The Art Bystander brings together host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar, trend forecaster, publisher and educator Lidewij Edelkoort, and design curator, author and trend analyst Philip Fimmano.Lidewij Edelkoort on trusting intuition“I have given my intuition the sole power to give me the messages. So it’s almost something which is working outside my body and my own spirit. It’s going around without me even knowing it is. So it’s completely subconscious, doing its work, and then I just have to say, ‘Thank you very much. This is a very good idea.’ And I do believe that ultimately our intuition is not ours. It’s our common field, which is this big field of experience and soul processes which are around us.”Their exhibition, INNER CHILD: Playing with Design at Artipelag, provides the starting point for a conversation about childhood, intuition, craftsmanship and the human need to create.Philip Fimmano on play and the freedom to make mistakes“Being experimental and taking risks and not being afraid of making mistakes or starting again. These are all the lessons that you learn when you’re playing with toys or even art materials as a child. It’s hard if you’re a perfectionist, like Li and me, but I think through the exhibition we’ve learned how to let go a little bit more. We’re also in a time frame now where everything doesn’t have to be perfect all the time. You can allow yourself to be a bit more playful or express a sense of humour and not take everything so seriously."Edelkoort explains why the cultural changes she identifies can take 20 to 25 years to become fully established. Fimmano reflects on experimentation, the freedom to begin again and how designers have reconsidered their priorities since the pandemic.Lidewij Edelkoort on craft and the need for touch“I believe that people want to speak about craft more as a unique discipline because we need to rekindle it. […] Craft is not just a word like design and art. It’s almost a mentality. […] Our fingers are sort of thirsty for touch. So I guess this is why craft is now so prominent.”Together, we discuss fashion’s relentless overproduction, the increasingly fluid boundaries between art, craft and design, and how AI might reshape work and education. We also explore Edelkoort’s “age of the amateur”: a possible future in which learning, making and shared interests occupy a larger place in our lives.Philip Fimmano on the “age of the amateur”“This is what Li calls the age of the amateur, because we’re going to be embracing hobbies and learning and craft like never before, where it becomes our main focus. In our spare time, so-called free time, we’re going to be investing in learning more, in becoming better at a certain technique or a certain pastime. The idea of cottage industries and doing things at home, and interacting with others, coming together as groups and socialising, all of this is going to be based on this idea that we’re all amateurs and lovers of certain things, and that we then invest ourselves in them like never before.”INNER CHILD: Playing with Design brings together more than 200 objects by over 100 designers and studios from 23 countries. On view at Artipelag, outside Stockholm, from 10 October 2026 to 11 April 2027.

What changes when an artist runs a gallery? Recorded inside 2 Mira Archiv in Madrid, this episode of The Art Bystander Podcast brings Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar together with Spanish artist and gallerist Mira Bernabeu, founder of 1 Mira Madrid and an archive space dedicated to conserving, digitising and exhibiting cultural material.Bernabeu’s career connects the making of images with the practical responsibilities of supporting other artists. From studying psychology and fine art to developing staged photographs with his own family, he has consistently examined the relationships, expectations and systems through which people organise their lives.That perspective also informs his gallery. We discuss his years co-directing Espaivisor in Valencia, his move to Madrid, and why he decided never to exhibit his own work in his gallery. He explains how he builds connections between exhibitions, what he has learnt from international art fairs, and how he balances artistic conviction with the need to sustain a business.At the centre of the conversation is the archive. Bernabeu recalls working with Graciela Carnevale to create a facsimile of the Tucumán Arde archive, enabling it to circulate while the original remained in Argentina. He also describes the research and conservation involved in working with artists’ papers, photographs and objects, including the archive of Lea Lublin, and considers how that work will change as more of an artist’s life is recorded digitally.The conversation becomes personal as Bernabeu reflects on surviving a stroke, becoming more direct, and resisting the expectation that he should abandon his plans. He describes how he protects time for his own practice while establishing an archive that has become a substantial new commitment.

In Berlin, a gallery floor is disappearing, one stone at a time.In this episode of The Art Bystander Podcast, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar meets Michael Sailstorfer at Galerie Judin’s Mercator Höfe space for a conversation about artistic freedom, physical labour and the uncertainty that runs through the German artist’s latest installation, Pull the Rug.Around 11,000 paving stones cover the exhibition floor. Every 50 seconds, a worker removes one and feeds it through an opening in the wall. A concealed machine then propels it into an adjoining room, sending the sound and vibration of its impact back into the gallery. Over the course of the exhibition, the floor is gradually removed, exposing the sand beneath.Born in Bavaria in 1979, Sailstorfer grew up around his family’s stone workshop before studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and Goldsmiths in London. Now based in Berlin, he has spent more than two decades expanding sculpture through movement, sound, scent and processes of transformation and destruction.Their conversation moves from his childhood and early ambitions to the pressures of finding success while still at art school, the importance of working directly with materials, and the unpredictable relationship between an idea and its realisation. Sailstorfer explains why he once considered becoming a farmer or an architect, and why the freedom of art ultimately persuaded him to take another path.Returning to Pull the Rug, they discuss the stability he remembers from his own childhood, the world his children are growing up in, and the uneasy proximity of repetitive labour, contemplation and aggression. A simple act of feeding a stone into a wall becomes the starting point for a wider discussion about machinery, responsibility and what happens when the consequences of our actions are hidden from view.Recorded at Galerie Judin, Berlin, during Berlin Art Week 2026.Michael Sailstorfer: Pull the Rug10 September to 10 October 2026Galerie Judin, Mercator Höfe, BerlinExplore Michael Sailstorfer’s workExhibition information at Galerie Judin