This week, we talk to Cecilia Alemani, this year's artistic director of the Venice Biennale, which opens in April, about her show, The Milk of Dreams. She discusses the story by the Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington that gives the Biennale its title, the “time capsules” of historic art that punctuate the exhibition, the thematic structure, and the fact that it is the first Venice Biennale featuring a majority of women artists. You can read more in our article here.
Van Gogh: Self-Portraits at the Courtauld Gallery. Photo: ©Fergus Carmichael
For this episode’s Work of the Week, Martin Bailey visits the Courtauld Gallery, where 15 of Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait paintings have been gathered for a once-in-a-generation show. He talks to the curator Karen Serres about Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), one of Martin's favourite self-portraits by the artist. You can read more about Van Gogh in Martin's weekly blog here.
Salvador Dalí's Le jeu lugubre (1929). Private Collection © Photo: White Images/Scala, Florence © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Bildrecht, Wien 2021
And at the Belvedere in Vienna, a new exhibition explores the relationship between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud—Ben Luke talks to Stephanie Auer from the museum about Dalí’s obsession with the father of psychoanalysis, his attempts to meet Freud in Vienna, and what happened when they finally encountered each other in London.
The Week in Art podcast byThe Art Newspaper is available every Friday on our website and all the usual places where you find podcasts. This podcast is sponsored by Christie's.