Art Insiders New York Podcast hosted by Anders Holst

Greg Kwiat, whose “thinking is as clear as the diamonds he’s selling” is the CEO of Kwiat, a four-generation family company founded in 1907.

In this interview we talk about what it was like growing up in a diamond family, the history of the diamond industry, De Beers dominating role, and the legendary advertising campaign “A Diamond is Forever” to stimulate demand in the 1950s and how Miuccia Prada, Nicole Kidman and Fred Leighton became pioneers in displaying beautiful vintage jewelry on the red carpet at the Oscars.

Greg also gives us an insightful guide about the basic knowledge you need to make more educated choices, when buying diamonds, based on the four Cs; carat weight, color, clarity and cut. In 2018 Kwiat and Fred Leighton opened their combined flagship stores on Madison Avenue and at the Wynn Las Vegas, bringing two iconic brands under one roof.

Evan Snyderman and Zesty Meyers, owners, and co-founders of the R & Company Gallery, have managed to transform their passion for design into one of the world's finest design galleries.

With an obsession for seeking deeper beauty of design objects, and a philosophy based on teamwork, collaboration, and a cross-disciplinary approach, they have defined a full-blown global trade called Collectible Design.

In this interview we talk about their creative, and entrepreneurial journey from the B Team, a performance-based glass-artist collaborative group, via the Wild West of the Chelsea Flee market, to exploring design markets in Brazil and Scandinavia. They share the story of how an unexpected sale of Marcel Breuer commissioned furniture, laid the foundation of the gallery we know today.   

R & Company exhibits historic designers and represents 22 contemporary artists, creating unique works, limited, editions, and site-specific installations. The present exhibition at 64 White Street includes Katie Stout, a young Brazilian designer Zanine de Zanine and Jeff Zimmerman.

Photo credit Francois Dischinger

(Evan is slightly to the left and Zesty is slightly to the right in the audio recording)

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is an award-winning American geographer and writer. In his latest book “Names of New York”, he traces the ways in which native Lenape, Dutch settlers, British invaders, and successive waves of immigrants, have left their marks on the city’s map.

In this interview, we talk about how several places in New York got their names: Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bowery, Greenwich Village, Spuyten Duyvil, Lackawanna, Boerum Hill, Gramercy Park, Rockaway, to mention a few. We talk about how place matters to us as human beings and how it shapes our believes about who we are.

We also discuss more complex issue relating to place naming, for example, 70 streets in Brooklyn are named after slave owners. Should these names be erased from the city scape, or should they remain as a historic marker?

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a regular contributor to “The New York Review of Books”.  He lives in New York and is a scholar in residence at the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, where he also teaches.

Photographer credit: Mirissa Neff.

Award-winning photographer Mark Seliger was Rolling Stone’s Chief Photographer from 1992-2002, where he shot over 175 covers. From 2002-2012, he was on contract with Condé Nast where he shot regularly for Vanity Fair and GQ.

We talk about Mark’s latest book “The City That Finally Sleeps", where during the pandemic, “he took to the desolate streets, camera in hand and often in the quietest hours … these hauntingly beautiful portraits of New York’s streets and cityscapes grip the viewer in varying balances of beauty, sorrow, wonder and quiet concern.” All the proceeds from the sale of the book goes to New York Cares in their covid-19 relief efforts.

We also talk about Mark’s creative process as a photographer, as well as a singer and songwriter. The song "1,000 Kisses" in the interview is performed by Mark Seliger’s country and western band Rusty Truck.

Mark Seliger is the recipient of such esteemed awards as the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award. The Lucie Award, The Clio Grand Prix, Cannes Lions Grand Prix to mention a few.

Bella Neyman and JB Jones are the co-founders of NYC Jewelry Week, an annual event dedicated to promoting and celebrating the world of jewelry, from the window shopper to the avid collector.

NYC Jewelry Week is about creating an intimate emotional connection with jewelry; giving consumers a way to get to know artists, learn the history and explore all the stories that bring unique pieces to life. 

This year’s event is free and open to the public and will take place November 15-21, under the theme “The Power of Jewelry.” The power to seduce, inspire, and communicate. Not only as an object and an adornment for the body, but how objects make you feel, like an adornment for the soul.

On this episode, Bella and JB talk about this year’s program with around 80 events over multiple platforms. Among them, exciting collaborations with The Museum of Arts and Design, Bergdorf Goodman, The Art Salon + Design, 1^stDibs, and 92Y, just to mention a few.

They also give us some breaking news!  The launch of a ground- breaking new Virtual Booth concept that will connect jewelry artists and consumers around the world and a new app that maps New York's jewelry retailers, hand-selected by the two founders.

Kyle Bergman is the founder and director of ADFF, the Architecture & Design Film Festival, which is the world’s largest film festival devoted to the creative spirit of architecture and design. 

With a curated selection of films, events, and panel discussions, in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Washington DC, Vancouver and on-line, ADFF creates an opportunity to entertain, engage and educate everyone who are excited about architecture and design

In this interview Kyle talks about architecture as storytelling, the striking resemblance between the art of making film and the art of making architecture. We talk about how important it is to use the film medium to expand the conversation about the role of architecture and design today.

We discuss “knowledge of design”, a separated kind of knowledge, that tells us when something is well designed or not, and this fall’s major event when ADFF and MoMA will showcase the documentary about the genius of Bruce Mau. 

Kyle also gives us some great recommendations of films we must watch and reflects on the fact that the films, that make it to the festival, often have an emotional and engaging human dimension in them 

Emma Enderby is the Chief Curator at The Shed at Hudson Yards, a unique art institution with a bold vision of and for the century we are in.

In this fascinating interview, Emma talks passionately about the guiding principles that helped building the program and how “artists can tell us realities of our time; stories of the past can predict the future, so important in helping us understand the moment that we are in.” We discuss what makes good art; her personal taste in art as well as books and artists that inspire her, among them Agnes Denes and Hilma af Klint.

Commissions are at the heart of The Shed’s mission -- one prime example being their annual “Open Call,” which opens on June 3 this year. “Open Call” is a series of exhibitions and events aimed at providing invaluable support, visibility, and recognition to New York's early-career artists, working across all forms and media. This year “Open Call” received 1,500 proposals and features 27 artists. 

The Shed's remarkably innovative design is at the core of its support of artists’ visions and the work they create – from hip hop to classical music, visual art to literature, film to theatre or dance, and beyond, all under one roof. Or in this case, no roof is an option!  

Photo: Scott Rudd Events © 2018

George Smart is the founder and executive director of USModernist, which is an award-winning nonprofit educational archive for the documentation, preservation, and promotion of residential Modernist architecture.

In this free floating, fun, and inspiring conversation, we cover the philosophy and art form of Modernism, how a house “can live back at you”, the geniuses of Bjarke Ingels and Santiago Calatrava, the history of the butterfly chair and the intricate relationship between Modernism and jazz.

With 8,000 houses and nearly 3.1 million pages of 20th-century architecture magazines, USModernist is America's largest open digital archive of Modernist houses and their architects. The organization has won 16 local, state, and national awards, including the 2016 AIA Institute Honors for Collaborative and Professional Achievement, the AIA's highest award for non-architects. 

Photo by Elizabeth Galecke

Craig Dykers is one of the founding partners of the internationally renowned architectural firm Snøhetta. In this fascinating interview he tells the emotional and inspiring story of the creation of the National September 11 Museum Pavilion in New York.

He also tells the story of Snøhetta’s collaborative and creative philosophy, describing the architectural firm as “a place that nobody is from, but anyone can go to."  This, along with Craig Dyker’s renaissance personality -- architect, business leader, artist, poet, nature lover and linguist -- gives a unique and rare insight into Snøhetta’s international success.

In 2020, Snøhetta was recognized as #2 on Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the architecture category “for pioneering carbon-negative buildings that generate more energy than they consume.”

Philip Williams is the prolific collector and director of Philip Williams Posters, founded in 1973. His Tribeca gallery, located on Chambers Street, is the largest vintage poster gallery in the world with over 100,000 unique posters dating from 1870 to the present. The Tribeca brick-and-mortar storefront is supplemented with an online platform, PosterMuseum.com, which contains some 26,000 posters.

In this episode, Philip Williams tells fascinating stories cultivated from over 40 years of collecting vintage posters and details how it all started, after finding letters from aviation pioneer Orville Wright in an abandoned suitcase. 

We also learn about the poster as cultural artifact: From the first golden age of the vintage poster in the late 19^th century driven by innovative printing techniques and emerging mass markets; to the second golden age in the mid 1960s, where posters were repurposed as countercultural protest; to its use today, as a staple in contemporary interior design

Justin Rivers, the multi-talented Chief Experience Officer at Untapped New York, takes us on a fascinating tour of the city, unearthing the history of the old Penn Station and the new Daniel Moynihan Train Hall, considered to be one of the city’s most ambitious modern civic projects.

We will also visit the little-known underground subway landmark, the City Hall Loop, as well as the Chamber Street Station inside the David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building.

Justin Rivers is a writer, playwright, educator and a tour guide of Untapped NYC, whose most popular tours include “The Underground Tour of the NYC Subway,” the “Remnants of Dutch New Amsterdam” and the “Remnants of Penn Station.” 

Untapped New York, founded by Michelle Young in 2009, is dedicated to help New Yorkers rediscovering their city, and its website is visited by over 4 million people a year. Untapped New York has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, on Netflix and more.

Roselee Goldberg is a renowned art historian, critic and Founding Director and Chief Curator of Performa, a “museum without walls”, a non–profit arts organization which - since its inception in 2005 – has quickly become one of the most anticipated bi-annual contemporary art events in the country and abroad.

Performa has reached an international audience of over 250,000 people and features more than 700 artists at 216 venues throughout New York City.  

Roselee Goldberg pioneered the study of performance art with her seminal book, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, first published in 1979, now in its third edition and translated to thirteen languages. It serves as a key text for teaching performance in universities throughout the world.

Photo by Paula Court.

James and Karla Murray are not only husband-and-wife but also prolific architectural and interior design photographers whose critically acclaimed books include Store Front: The Disappearing Face New York, New York Nights, Store Front II- A History Preserved and Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC. 

Their important mission is to document the disappearance of the Mom and Pop economy, often the backbone of the New York's cityscape standing in sharp contrast to the city's rapidly evolving corporate facade. 

Their photographs have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, London Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Daily News, New York Magazine and The New Yorker

You can follow them on YouTube where they have published some 90 episodes of verité-style neighborhood exploration around New York City from their unique perspective.

Richard Southwick, Partner at the international architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle, tells the fascinating story behind the preservation, restoration and reinvention of Eero Saarinen’s architectural masterpiece, the TWA Flight Center at J F Kennedy International Airport, now called the TWA Hotel.

Saarinen described the head house form as being like the “Leonardo da Vinci flying machine", according to his associate Kevin Roche. 

Hailed as the “Grand Central of the Jet Age,” the TWA Flight Center welcomed hundreds of thousands of travelers to JFK Airport from 1962 through 2001. Since then tens of thousands of people have been touring the building.

We talk about the beautiful design of the building, the genius of Eero Saarinen and Richard’s favorite role models as well as his top three projects over his successful career.

Clodagh is an Irish-born New York-based designer who are among Architectural Digest Top 100 Interior Designers and a member of the Interior Design Hall of Fame. Clodagh just release her most recent book Clodagh: Life-Enhancing Design published by GArts.

In this fascinating conversation, sprinkled with good humor and smart tips for re-inventing your space, Clodagh reflects on a deeper level about great design coming from within and the role of design as a healing art.

Clodagh talks about the spiritual side of her work influenced by her childhood’s healers and mystics in Ireland and her early adoption of Feng Shui and her innovative approach by integrating concepts like Chromotheraphy and Biophilia and sustainable material. This contributes to her unique look, structure and flow that appeal to all human senses, that go beyond the physical to things you can feel but not see.

Clodagh received the Platinum Circle Humanitarian Award from Hospitality Design Magazine in 2016 and won the 2018 Global Wellness Awards for spearheading wellness design at the Global Wellness Summit. She has an honorary doctorate from the New York School of Interior Design and the San Francisco Academy of Art. Photo by Jonathan Beckerman. 

Maxi Cohen is an award-winning multimedia artist and independent filmmaker based in New York, who co-founded Art 2 Heart SoHo - an ongoing call for over 100 artists to bring optimism, healing and love by painting messages on boarded up buildings in the neighborhood that birthed contemporary art and that was heavily looted in a riot on May 31.

Art2Heart is collaborating with James Cavello of Westwood Gallery to curate future exhibitions of these pieces to benefit the participating artists and Black Lives Matter causes.

Maxi Cohen also discusses her groundbreaking and inspiring documentaries: Joe and Maxi, a feature-length documentary about her relationship with her father, Anger, part of the Seven Sins, Seven Women film, South Central Los Angeles,: Inside Voices, in response to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, From Shock to Awe, the story of suicidal veterans, Ladies Rooms All Over the World and Movement of Water.

David Montgomery, a Brooklyn-born photographer living in London since many years, is one of the most legendary photographers of all time, capable to mix art, fashion, music, cinema and pop culture, a regular contributor to Vogue, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and many more.

In this interview David shares extraordinary stories from his long career, meetings with people and memorable moments, we talk about talent and creativity, the influence of jazz and divine inspiration and the role of spirituality in his work.

In this episode we are on tour “al fresco” with John Stern, President of Storm King Art Center, located in New York’s Hudson Valley, where visitors experience large-scale sculpture and site-specific commissions under open sky.

John tells the fascinating stories about the history of the place and of the many installation by artist like Mark di Suvero, Maya Lin, Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, Alexander Liebermann, Isamu Noguchi and many more. 

Storm King - “one of the most significant sculpture gardens in the world,” according to Adam D. Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art – is celebrating 60 years of nurturing a vibrant bond between art, nature, and people, creating a place where discovery is limitless.

John Stern with Mark di Suvero's "Pyramidian" in the background. Photo credit: Eva Deitch.     

In this interview Mohn Family professor David Raskin at the School of Art Institute of Chicago talks about the essence of the American artist Donald Judd’s artistry.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents the exhibition Donald Judd from March 1 through July 11, 2020, the first major US retrospective dedicated to Judd in over three decades.

David Raskin has spent more than ten years researching and writing the book Donald Judd about one of the most significant artists of the 20^th century, who revolutionized the history of sculpture and who still exercises an increasing influence in the field of art, architecture and design.

In this interview Vanessa Seis, the director of the Affordable Art Fair talks about the 29th edition of the Affordable Art Fair NYC with 72 local, national & international galleries exhibiting from as far as South Korea, Israel, Azerbaijan and South Africa that can be discovered alongside an exciting group of US favorites.

Vanessa also discusses the origin of the Affordable Art Fair phenomenon and what it means to bring contemporary art to a global digital art market. With contemporary artworks by over 400 established artists and rising stars, and price points ranging from $100-$10,000 – there is something to suit every taste and wallet whether you are a first-time art buyer or a seasoned collector.

In this interview, pioneer designer Jakob Trollbäck, tells the intriguing story behind the challenge to design a comprehensive communication system for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), or Global Goals for short, accessible for seven billion people around the world and intended to be achieved by 2030.

Jacob is speaking passionately and poetically about global sustainability as a beautiful equation of a system in total harmony, just like nature has taught us, and how this project changed his professional life. Jakob also shares his inspiration for music that can be found in many of his playlists on Spotify!

Paul Goldberger began his career at The New York Times, where, in 1984, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Distinguished Criticism in architecture. In this inspiring interview, Paul tells us the story behind his biography “Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry,” about one of the world’s most iconic architects. He also comments on his latest book “Ballpark: Baseball in the American City”, and his next project about the neighborhood of Dumbo as well as offering his critique of the Hudson Yards project. Paul Goldberger sits in a Frank Gehry’s Wiggle Side Chair. Photo credit: Michael Lionstar. (add 10 downloads to the number of downloads indicated below to get the correct number of total downloads to date) 

Gregory Wessner is the Executive Director of Open House New York (OHNY), an organization with a mission to provide broad audiences with unparalleled access to the extraordinary architecture of New York and to the people who help design, build, and preserve those city structures. OHNY just completed its 17^th annual Open House New York weekend held on October 18th to the 20th, with 80,000 visitors in 283 sites and a total of 1,350 tours. In this interview Gregory tells the inspiring story of OHNY’s important role as an exercise in democracy, in citizenship and in creating a deeper sense of what it means to be a New Yorker! 

Robert Hammond is, together with Joshua David, the co-founder of the Friends of the High Line, the entity that maintains, operates and creates programs for the High Line in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. In this interview, Robert tells a thriller-like story with the many twist and turns that arose in protecting, preserving and reinventing the former southern viaduct section of the New York Central Railroad, known as the West Side Line, into one of the most successful public attractions in New York City. Photo by Liz Ligon courtesy of Friends of the High Line.

Bob Greenberg is the founder & Executive Chairman of R/GA, an international innovation consultancy headquartered in New York. Bob has been a pioneer in the advertising and communications industry for nearly four decades. 

In this interview Bob gives us insights into what it’s like to be at the epicenter of the ever-changing digital landscape, his vision for the company and the groundbreaking design of the new headquarters at Hudson Yards. Bob also delves into his passion for collecting outsider art and his recently curated Bob Greenberg Selects collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (add 83 downloads to the number of downloads indicated below to get the correct number of total downloads to date) 

Jan Broman is one of the founders of a new museum for photography Fotografiska New York, which will open its doors to the public at the Church Mission House in New York on December 14, 2019. Jan Broman tells the inspiring stories of the many moving parts that went into building a new museum with a clear vision and values that, like its Swedish predecessor Fotografiska Stockholm  - with about 170 exhibitions including David LaChapelle, Annie Leibowitz, Albert Watson, Sally Mann, Zanele Muholi, Cooper & Gorfer, Ren Hang, Irwing Penn to name a few - aims to provoke global conversations around important topics through photography. (This interview is from 2018).

Jim Elkind is one of New York’s legendary art collectors of 20^thcentury fine art and design. In this interview Jim takes us back to the beginning of his career and shares stories of discovery and adventure over the years, with a great deal of warmth and humor.

In the 80’s he founded Lost City Arts to preserve decorative architectural artifacts that lined the facades of buildings in Manhattan. He is widely recognized as the leading authority on the work of Harry Bertoia, who has become the subject of exponentially growing interest in recent years. At the end of this fascinating interview, you will have opportunity to enjoy the sound of some of Harry Bertoia’s Sonambient sculptures!

Studio 54 was an infamous nightclub that defined an era. Almost 50 years later, it has become fodder for American filmmaker and Vanity Fair correspondent, Matt Tyrnauer. The award-winning documentarian shares the impetus behind his 2018 film, Studio 54, about the notorious nightspot. We also discuss Matt Tyrnauer’s other New York-centered documentary, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016), about Jane Jacobs, famed author of the book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities and an activist who is credited with saving Soho from powerful city-planner, Robert Moses’ dreaded Lower Manhattan Expressway. Matt Tyrnauer just recently release his latest documentary: "Where is my Roy Cohn". 

The recent turmoil surrounding Dean and Deluca in Soho marks the end of an era for this dynamic neighborhood in New York. How did we get to this point? Aaron Shkuda, the author of The Lofts of Soho: Gentrification, Art, and Industry in New York, shares the dramatic story of how Soho became Soho, one of the most iconic neighborhoods in Manhattan. With its quaint cobble stone streets, unique collection of cast iron buildings and sophisticated blend of fashion, art and business, it is hard to imagine Soho, as it once was - an industrial neighborhood dubbed “Hell’s Hundred Acres.”

Richard Dattner of Dattner Architects is the architect behind the sculptural Spring Street Salt Shed at the intersection of Spring Street and West Side Highway in Manhattan. The salt crystal shape inspired the building’s exterior design, a peculiar structure that has piqued the interest of spectators and made it an ideal backdrop for a number of fashion shoots. Richard Dattner tells the intricate and exciting story of a somewhat mundane project on its face that became perhaps one of the most complicated and challenging projects of his career.

Rafael Risemberg, founder of New York Gallery Tours, comments on the current contemporary art gallery scene, giving insights and perspective on the ever-changing art community in New York. New York City is the world's center for contemporary art, with over 600 galleries and Rafael Risemberg visits them all to curate an exciting and inspiring art experience for his clients. Each tour is based on a selection of the most fascinating and varied exhibits; the newest in painting, sculpture, electronic media and photography, by American and International artists. The most frequent tours take place in Chelsea, with its 300 galleries, plus special tours in Soho, Lower East Side, Upper East Side, and Midtown.

Victoria Shaw, provides valuable insights and observations regarding trends in the burgeoning online auction market for mid century design. A special focus will be devoted to transparency and the often-intriguing approach to determining the provenance for design objects sold online. Victoria is a certified appraiser with over 25 years of experience in the world of art, antiques and auctions following a career spent working with Christie’s and 1^st Dibs. Victoria is certified with the Appraisers Association of America in Postwar, Contemporary and Emerging Art as well as 20th Century Design.  Her clients include private clients, artists' estates in addition to family offices.

Every May, thousands of spectators, innovators and investors meet in New York City for a one-of-a-kind spotlight into the best of the design world called NYCxDESIGN. What does it take to organize and coordinate such a celebration of design, with over 400 events in five boroughs over two weeks? Who better to share the fascinating story of how a design event of this magnitude takes place each year than the person at the epicenter of it all, Ed Hogikyan. 

Marcus Fairs is the founder of the website Dezeen - a portmanteau of design and magazine. With 2.5 million monthly users, Dezeen is widely regarded as one of the most influential and popular design website in the world. Marcus Fairs tells the fascinating story of how Dezeen came about and how it has developed over the years, including their first ever award program celebrating the world's best architecture, interiors and design. Marcus himself has won numerous awards over the years, and he is the first digital journalist to be awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Jacob Pabst is the CEO of Artnet, the leading online resource for the international art market, that has revolutionized the way we buy, sell and research art online. This online art auction empire is based on more than 13 million auction results spanning over 30 years, servicing 3 million monthly users, nearly 1,800 auction houses and 400,000 artists. In this episode Jacob Pabst shares his experience of running Artnet and current trends in the online contemporary art auction market.