Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast

Curator Mark Godfrey and painter Emma McIntyre discuss the importance of Sigmar Polke—skeptic, trickster, and visionary—on the occasion of Sigmar Polke: The Knowledge of Colours, a solo exhibition at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, Netherlands, part of Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW, a project by the Anna Polke Foundation. Polke is widely recognized as one of the most innovative painters and multidisciplinary artists of the postwar era, and the exhibition is on view through February 28 of next year. Emma McIntyre creates vivid abstractions imbued with chromatic and gestural energy. Her third solo exhibition with David Zwirner, This body holds / swamp stuff, is now on view at David Zwirner Tribeca through October 24, 2026. Mark Godfrey is the curator of Kerry James Marshall: The Histories, now on view at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. He is codirector of New Curators, a one-year curatorial training program for international curators from structurally disadvantaged backgrounds. He was senior curator of international art at Tate Modern from 2007 to 2021. Learn more about Emma McIntyre’s exhibition at David Zwirner Tribeca: https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2026/emma-mcintyre Learn more about Sigmar Polke: The Knowledge of Colours at the De Pont Museum: https://www.depont.nl/en/exhibitions/sigmar-polke-3 Learn more about Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW: https://sigmar-polke-athanor-now.com/en

Acclaimed artist Amy Sillman and curator Donna De Salvo join Helen Molesworth for a deep dive into how an art exhibition comes to life. Amy Sillman is widely recognized as one of the most significant painters of her generation. Amy Sillman: Oh, Clock!, the artist’s first major institutional solo exhibition in Europe, was presented at Kunstmuseum Bern in 2024, before traveling to Ludwig Forum Aachen the following year. Amy Sillman: Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32) is currently on view at Dia Bridgehampton through June 2026. Donna De Salvo is a senior adjunct curator at Dia Art Foundation and previously served as the chief curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Recent projects include Steve McQueen at Dia Chelsea and Dia Beacon, featuring the immersive installation Bass (2024), co-commissioned with the Laurenz Foundation, Basel; Roni Horn at Dia Beacon; Walter De Maria: The Singular Experience, Gagosian, Paris; and the forthcoming This Land: Considering the American Landscape, cocurated with Seph Rodney for The Church, Sag Harbor.

Every era has its own version of Leonardo da Vinci, according to art historian Stephen J. Campbell. Campbell joins Helen Molesworth to unpack the 21st century myth of the tech genius that surrounds the Renaissance artist. Stephen J. Campbell is the Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor in the Department of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University. His books include Andrea Mantegna: Humanist Aesthetics, Faith, and the Force of Images and The Endless Periphery: Toward a Geopolitics of Art in Lorenzo Lotto’s Italy.

Helen Molesworth and Steve Locke sort through the many exhibitions of the last year to highlight their favorites, from Jack Whitten at MoMA and Stanley Whitney at the ICA/Boston, to Bo Bartlett and Lisa Yuskavage.

Helen is joined by writer Francine Prose, artist David Salle, and photographer Neil Selkirk for a conversation about Arbus’s singular importance. Francine Prose’s new novel, Five Weeks in the Country, will be published in May. David Salle is a painter and essayist living in New York. Neil Selkirk is a photographer and filmmaker and the only person to print the photographs of Diane Arbus other than the photographer herself. Visit two exhibitions of Arbus on view this fall: Diane Arbus: Konstellationen is on view at Gropius Bau in Berlin, Germany through January 18, 2026 and Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum is on view at David Zwirner London through December 20, 2025.

Helen Molesworth speaks to art historian and culture critic Jonathan Crary, whose recent books Scorched Earth and 24/7 constitute both a polemic against what he calls the “internet complex”—and a diagnosis of where society is now. Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University and is a founding coeditor of Zone Books.

On the occasion of Joan Mitchell’s centennial year, Helen Molesworth speaks to artist Julie Mehretu and poet Eileen Myles about what Mitchell’s life and work means to them. Julie Mehretu, (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Mehretu is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2025, the MacArthur Fellowship in 2005, and the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award in 2015. Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature (anthology) and a “Working Life” (poems) are their most recent books. They live in New York & in Marfa, Texas. Visit the Joan Mitchell Foundation to learn more about their global centennial programming. Corrections: At 17:21 Helen Molesworth mentions the writer Jen Quilter; the correct name is Jenni Quitler. At 22:53, it should note that Joan Mitchell used a device she called a "diminishing glass" to get a visual sense of works as if seen from a greater distance. Explore Joan Mitchell (Yale University Press, 2021) for further research and reference.

Celebrated architect Annabelle Selldorf on her life and work, which includes numerous cultural spaces, from commercial galleries to major museums. Selldorf Architects's most recent project, a critically acclaimed expansion of the Frick Collection in New York, opens to the public on April 17, 2025. David Zwirner’s new Chelsea building at 533 West 19th Street, also designed by Selldorf Architects, will open May 8 with a solo exhibition by Michael Armitage.