About Art

What does it mean to write about the art world from the inside?In this episode of About Art, Heidi Zuckerman is joined by writer and critic James Cahill to discuss his novel The Violet Hour and the psychological complexity of the contemporary art world.Drawing on his experience as both an art historian and gallery insider, Cahill reflects on the strange paradox of the art world—where even those at its center can feel on the periphery. The conversation explores how fiction can illuminate what criticism cannot, allowing for a deeper exploration of character, memory, and emotional truth.They discuss the ways art functions in our lives: as an escape, a mirror, and sometimes a veil. Through stories of artists, collectors, and curators, this episode considers how meaning is constructed—and why it often resists clarity. At its core, this is a conversation about ambiguity, perception, and the enduring power of art to hold complexity.About Art is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Mike Zuckerman is a cultural strategist, city builder, and humanitarian activist whose work is rooted in one central idea: regeneration. Mike has designed and activated community-centered spaces all over the world—from temporary refugee settlements in Uganda, to post-crisis recovery zones in Haiti and Colombia, to experimental urban projects in San Francisco. He thinks deeply about how to repair broken systems by placing trust and power back in the hands of local communities. We talk about how he moves between the art world, humanitarian work, and activism—and what he’s learned about design, dignity, and hope along the way. Mike is Heidi Zuckerman’s brother, and this is the last in her sibling series podcast.

In this episode of About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with actor Josh Zuckerman about creativity, vulnerability, and why art—at its best—helps us feel less alone.Josh has worked professionally in film and television since his late teens, with an eclectic career that spans comedy, drama, and horror. He currently appears in the Paramount+ series School Spirits and previously starred as the lead in The CW’s Significant Mother. His film work ranges from comedies such as Sex Drive and Austin Powers: Goldmember to dramas including Oppenheimer, The Hottest State, and CBGB, as well as genre films like Feast. His television credits include The Offer, Hunters, Alaska Daily, Fatal Attraction, Boston Legal, House, NYPD Blue, Strange Angel, and 90210, among many others.In their conversation, Heidi and Josh discuss:•Growing up alongside art and creativity—and how it shaped his sense of self•What acting has taught him about empathy, presence, and emotional risk•How inhabiting other lives can deepen understanding and connection•The difference between performing for validation and creating with purpose•Why art, storytelling, and shared experience help us feel seenThis episode is also a personal one: Josh is Heidi’s brother, and their shared history brings an added layer of honesty, humor, and reflection to the conversation.

Derek Fordjour was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Ghanaian parents. He is the recipient of the 2025 Gordon Parks Foundation Artist Fellowship, the 2023 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Spirit of the Dream Award, and previously served as the Alex Katz Chair at Cooper Union. He has received public commissions for the Highline, the NYC AIDS Memorial, MOCA Grand Avenue and the MTA’s Arts & Design program. Fordjour’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times. A monograph of his work will be published by Phaidon in 2027.He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia, earned a Master’s Degree in Art Education from Harvard University and an MFA in painting from Hunter College. His work is held in the private and public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, and The Royal Collection in London among others. He is the founder of the Contemporary Arts Memphis.He and Zuckerman discuss his work, particularly his exhibition “Night Song,” identity, memory, and community, how art can evoke emotional responses and create shared experiences, his creative process, the importance of collaboration, his commitment to giving back to the community through his foundation in Memphis, and how art is life!

In this episode of About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, founder of ART X and ART X Lagos, the leading international art fair in West Africa. Through ART X, Peterside-Schwebig has played a pivotal role in positioning Lagos on the global cultural stage while remaining deeply committed to local communities and creative voices.Their conversation explores the development of ART X Lagos; the importance of engaging both local and international audiences; connecting African artists and collectors; and supporting new generations of creatives through initiatives such as ART X Live!, the ART X Prize, and ART X Cinema. Together, they discuss artistic innovation across Africa, the power of cultural entrepreneurship, and how younger generations are shaping the future of art on the continent and beyond.This is a conversation about building platforms, expanding narratives, and reimagining what global cultural leadership can look like.

Aindrea Emelife is Curator, Modern and Contemporary at MOWAA (Museum of West African Art), a new museum which opened in Benin City, Nigeria in November 2025. She was also the curator of the Nigeria Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Born in London, United Kingdom, Emelife studied at The Courtauld Institute of Art. Her work focuses on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. Her recent exhibitions include BLACK VENUS; a survey of the legacy of the Black woman in visual culture which opened at Fotografiska NY and toured to MOAD (San Francisco, USA) and Somerset House (London, UK). Emelife’s first book, A Brief History of Protest Art was released by Tate in March 2022, Emelife has contributed to exhibition catalogues and publications, most recently including Revising Modern British Art (Lund Humphries, 2022). In 2021, Emelife was appointed to the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm.She and Zuckerman discuss being seen in institutions, how exhibition making can shape the curator, nuance, artists as activists, what a museum can be, power, ancient traditions as innovation, impact, visibility and belonging, the archive, the human imagination, and not being afraid of imaginative possibility!

Spencer Lewis, born 1979 in Hartford, Connecticut, lives and works in Los Angeles. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of California, Los Angeles. Known for his gestural paintings on cardboard and jute, Lewis uses flashy bright and colorful notions executed through streaked lines, smears of paint and rough strokes that suggest the impulsive creative process underneath. With chaotic, almost infinite layers, Lewis's canvases conceal and simultaneously unveil a brushstroke, a gesture over the other, stories and moments culminating and accumulating on the painting's densest parts. Despite the apparent unpredictability of Lewis's compositions, they are based on a methodology and structure. Lewis is, in fact, interested in pictorial organization and image-making. Consistently concentrating towards the centre of the canvas, Lewis's brushstrokes frantically tell the different layers of the same narrative. In a podcast recorded live in his LA studio, he and Zuckerman discuss wanting positive things, paint as a fluid object, seeing and feeling distance between ideas, cities, being courageous, finding novelty, what art is really good at, timelessness, how artists want to be free, having an anxious attachment style, why people like complexity, what feels big, the space of color, how and why you need a studio, how to make great paintings, his phrase “for me to make a painting,” how art is still about beauty, remembering that making art will feel bad, and how gratitude works every time!

Rodman Primack and Rudy Weissenberg are co-founders of US-AD100 design firm AGO Interiors and co-founders of Wallpaper 400 collectible design gallery AGO Projects. Their firm’s first book, Love How You Live: Adventures in Interior Design (2024), showcases their projects and the makers they’ve nurtured throughout the years. His practice emphasizes comfort, connection, and supporting local artisans.They and Zuckerman discuss art versus design versus craft, erasing hierarchies, Collectible design and how it is often misunderstood or overused, fairs, the first work of art they each acquired and the most recent, and as collectors what they wish they had been taught about collecting when they started out!