Barbara London Calling

For the first episode of "Barbara London Calling," host Barbara London speaks with Anri Sala, an internationally acclaimed artist from Tirana, Albania. Born in 1974, Sala eloquently orchestrates sound in space, with a keen focus on the underlying politics of contemporary life. Incorporating what he calls “a distrust of language,” his multimedia installations investigate the role of language and memory in our social and po...

In the second episode of "Barbara London Calling," Barbara speaks with Zina Saro-Wiwa, an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, photography, sculpture, sound and, sometimes, food. As an artist, Zina has said she wants to expand the meanings of African-ness and, ultimately, to decolonize the idea of self. Born in Nigeria, Zina grew up in the UK and currently lives in Los Angeles, where she brought with her a love ...

For the third episode of "Barbara London Calling," Barbara speaks with Hong Kong–based artist Samson Young, one of the most talented artists investigating sound as art. Samson works in a broad range of disciplines: music composition, performance, installation, sound, video, drawing, and design. His artwork is elegant yet razor-sharp, and sometimes political in nature, as he addresses the vicissitudes of language and histo...

In the fourth episode of "Barbara London Calling," Barbara speaks with Paul Pfeiffer, the American artist well known for utilizing sophisticated digital technologies to scrutinize the role mass media plays in shaping contemporary consciousness. Born in Honolulu, Paul now lives and works in New York, where he investigates the relationship between sporting events, racial politics, and what he calls "spectacle and spect...

In the sixth episode of "Barbara London Calling," host Barbara London speaks with Rachel Rossin, a Brooklyn-based artist investigating the boundaries between reality, hyper-reality and the imaginary. Born in 1987, Rachel grew up in South Florida, where she lived in the shadow of hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters. This sense of anxiety—a kind of dread for nature’s ferocious side—still colors Rachel’s work. By ...

In the seventh episode of "Barbara London Calling," Barbara speaks with Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, two London-based artists and collaborators with a background in installation art and the moving image. Music has always played an important role in their work, culminating in their 2014 feature film, "20,000 Days on Earth," a musical docudrama starring the iconic singer/songwriter Nick Cave. Iain and Jane began...

In the eighth episode of "Barbara London Calling," Barbara speaks with Jana Winderen, a Norwegian artist who straddles the fields of art, music and science. Her work encourages us not just to hear, but to listen, as she explores the aural dimensions of faraway landscapes. Winderen travels to the ends of the Earth, often alone, where she records nearly imperceptible sounds using an arsenal of sophisticated recording gear. ...

In the eleventh episode of "Barbara London Calling," Barbara speaks with Brooklyn-based artist Marina Rosenfeld. As a composer, Marina orchestrated a performance art piece called "Shear Frost Orchestra," which featured 17 women each playing an electric guitar using nothing but bottles of nail polish. Sitting in a line, the women were directed to play their guitars in a series of choreographed actions: drop, hop,...

Season finale! For the thirteenth episode of "Barbara London Calling"—the final episode of Season 1—Barbara changes things up. After 12 conversations with artists, for this special episode she speaks with a curator: namely, Chrissie Iles, a leading authority on contemporary art and the moving image. As the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Chrissie is helping to build new spaces and...

The third episode of Season 2.0 features a conversation with artist Lorraine O'Grady, whose monumental career was recently showcased at the Brooklyn Museum in her first-ever retrospective, “Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And.” Revisiting her trenchant performances and artwork from the past 60 years, Lorraine speaks with Barbara about changing dynamics in the art world and the struggles she faced trying to reveal the art world to itsel...

In the fourth episode of "Barbara London Calling" 2.0, Barbara speaks with Australian artist Tracey Moffat. A true innovator, Tracey began her career as an experimental filmmaker; she has since shown all over the world, including at the Venice Biennale. Her unflinching artwork is a mix of childhood memories, popular culture, history, film, television, literature and dreams, as she uses fiction to comment on her own person...

In the fifth episode of "Barbara London Calling" 2.0, Barbara speaks with Amar Kanwar, an Indian artist whose masterful films and multimedia work explore the politics of power, violence and justice. Born in 1964 in New Delhi, where he is still based, Amar was a researcher for occupational health and safety in the coal mining belt of central India. He turned to art making in 1990, with work that weaves together critical is...