The Image of the Black archive at The Warburg Institute comprises more than 30,000 images documenting representations of people of African descent from antiquity to the civil rights era. In 2025, images from this collection were shown in public for the first time as part of 'Black Atlas', an exhibition and moving-image essay directed by Edward George and produced by Matthew Harle – Arturo Galansino's guests on the third episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast 2025. Together, they discuss the legacy of Black imagery and its ability to reveal more than the creator's intention. The archive has its 'an infinite potential because of its unfinishedness,' says Harle, 'it has its own energy.'

'Black Atlas' is on view at The Warburg Institute, London, 10 October 2025 – 17 January 2026

About the speakers

Edward George is a writer, broadcaster and the founder of Black Audio Film Collective. Matthew Harle is a writer, curator and The Warburg Institute's curator of artistic programmes. They are joined by their host Arturo Galansino, art historian, curator, director general of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and this year's curator of the Frieze Masters Talks programme.

About the Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast is back for 2025, bringing you seven conversations across art history curated by Arturo Galansino (Director General of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence).

Entitled 'Woven Histories' and recorded live at Frieze Masters 2025, this year's series features artists, curators and thinkers, whose conversations weave together geographies and chronologies, and challenge us to look at history in new and unexpected ways.

Topics range from the evolving relationship between fashion and art to the role of the archive in Black history, the last Mughals and their cultural influence in India and the enduring inspiration of the old masters and renaissance art on contemporary making. Speakers include artists Tracey Emin, Glenn Brown and Antony Gormley, museum directors and curators Nicholas Cullinan, Émilie Hammen, Elizabeth Way and Carl Strehlke, and writers Edward George, Matthew Harle, Christopher Rothko and William Dalrymple.

Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.

When Mark Rothko visited Fra Angelico's frescoes at the convent of San Marco in Florence, he was 'overwhelmed,' recounts his son, the psychologist and writer Christopher Rothko. 'That's what he wanted for his viewer,' says Rothko, 'to look at his artwork as sources of inspiration, spirituality and contemplation.'

In the second episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast 2025, Christopher Rothko is in conversation with curator and art historian Carl Strehlke and Arturo Galansino, director general of Palazzo Strozzi, to discuss the affinity between Rothko's abstract expressionism and the Italian renaissance, ahead of a landmark show of Rothko's work in Florence in 2026.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill

'Rothko in Florence' is on view at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 14 March – 26 July 2026

About the speakers

Christopher Rothko is a writer, psychologist and son of artist Mark Rothko. He has written extensively on his father's legacy. Carl Strehlke is an art historian and curator of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They are joined by their host Arturo Galansino, art historian, curator, director general of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and this year's curator of the Frieze Masters Talks programme.

About the Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast is back for 2025, bringing you seven conversations across art history curated by Arturo Galansino (Director General of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence).

Entitled 'Woven Histories' and recorded live at Frieze Masters 2025, this year's series features artists, curators and thinkers, whose conversations weave together geographies and chronologies, and challenge us to look at history in new and unexpected ways.

Topics range from the evolving relationship between fashion and art to the role of the archive in Black history, the last Mughals and their cultural influence in India and the enduring inspiration of the old masters and renaissance art on contemporary making. Speakers include artists Tracey Emin, Glenn Brown and Antony Gormley, museum directors and curators Nicholas Cullinan, Émilie Hammen, Elizabeth Way and Carl Strehlke, and writers Edward George, Matthew Harle, Christopher Rothko and William Dalrymple.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.

Further Information

To keep up to date on all the latest news from Frieze, sign up to our newsletter at frieze.com, and follow @friezeofficial on Instagram, Twitter and Frieze Official on Facebook.

'My discovery of early Renaissance art was completely by accident in the National Gallery, by just walking down a few more stairs...I'd stay there for about an hour, and then I would come out, I'd close my eyes, and as I pushed the doors, I would imagine my paintings'. –Tracey Emin

In the first episode of the 2025 Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Tracey Emin, Nicholas Cullinan (director, British Museum), and their host Arturo Galansino (Director General, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi) discuss their early experiences and evolving relationships within the arts, delving into topics such as intimacy and feelings of safety in the context of an institution, overcoming class struggle and illness, and speaking the truth.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.

Full transcript available at frieze.com

Dame Tracey Emin OBE is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation, known for her autobiographical and confessional work. Nicholas Cullinan OBE, art historian and curator has been the Director of the British Museum since 2024, and prior to that was appointed the 12th Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 2015. They are joined by their host Arturo Galansino - art historian, curator, and Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and the curator of this year's Frieze Masters Talks programme.

About the Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast is back for 2025, bringing you seven conversations across art history curated by Arturo Galansino (Director General of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence).

Entitled 'Woven Histories' and recorded live at Frieze Masters 2025, this year's series features artists, curators and thinkers, whose conversations weave together geographies and chronologies, and challenge us to look at history in new and unexpected ways.

Topics range from the evolving relationship between fashion and art to the role of the archive in Black history, the last Mughals and their cultural influence in India and the enduring inspiration of the old masters and renaissance art on contemporary making. Speakers include artists Tracey Emin, Glenn Brown and Antony Gormley, museum directors and curators Nicholas Cullinan, Émilie Hammen, Elizabeth Way and Carl Strehlke, and writers Edward George, Matthew Harle, Christopher Rothko and William Dalrymple.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill.

'When you make a painting, you want to make a good painting. You are more interested in the composition of the things, than in the precise description of the things.' – Nathalie Du Pasquier

In the seventh and final episode of Series 3 of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Nathalie Du Pasquier, architect Annabelle Selldorf and Curator Abraham Thomas discuss the plasticity of the creative environment, and the collisions and contrasts between the visions of artists, architects and curators.

Nathalie du Pasquier is an artist and co-founder of the Memphis design group in the 1980s; Annabelle Selldorf of Selldorf Architects has a global practice with expertise in complex cultural projects, including museums and temporary structures such as Frieze Masters; and Abraham Thomas is the Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Full transcript available at frieze.com

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – NairyBaghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'If I can let the viewer stand in front of my painting and question – if they can ask a question – this is success.' – Glenn Ligon

How does the written and spoken word relate to the visual language of painting, sculpture and installation? To discuss this connection and the power and potential of poetry, the sixth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast brings together artists Glenn Ligon and Dia al-Azzawi and Chisenhale Director Zoé Whitley.

Glenn Ligon is a New York-based artist whose career has explored history, literature and society through painting and conceptual art; Dia al-Azzawi is now a central figure in the development of modernist art in the Arab world; and Zoé Whitley is Director of the non-profit Chisenhale Gallery in London.

Full transcript available at frieze.com.

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – NairyBaghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'What's left for art? Art can offer ritual and ceremony, a communal place where bodies can gather. It's a place where things can happen visually, musically, sonically, and in dance and with the voice.' – Mark Leckey

In the fifth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Mark Leckey, curator Polly Staple and Director of Art Fund Jenny Waldman reflect on the legacy and future of British art and discuss how it might expand its reach to engage young and underrepresented audiences.

Mark Leckey is a Turner Prize-winning artist whose work is infused with popular culture, memory and experience; Polly Staple is Director of Collection, British Art, at Tate; and Jenny Waldman CBE is Director of Art Fund.

Full transcript available at frieze.com

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'Isn't to exhibit to historicize?' – Julian Rose

Artist Nairy Baghramian, Director of the Museum of Modern Art Glenn Lowry and historian Julian Rose all have extensive experience of presenting art in public places and thinking about civic spaces. In the fourth episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, they come together to rethink the role and design of museums in shaping cultural exchange.

Nairy Baghramian is an artist whose sculptures offer new ways to address the architectural, social and political conditions of contemporary culture; Glenn Lowry is director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and Julian Rose is a historian of art and architecture, exploring the design of art museums.

Full transcript available at frieze.com

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – NairyBaghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'The viewer makes the painting alive. Without the viewer, that thing doesn't exist.' – Shirazeh Houshiary

What happens to our understanding of painting when we expand the canon across eras and cultures? In the third episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artist Shirazeh Houshiary, Director of the National Gallery Gabriele Finaldi and arts editor Jan Dalley reflect on the celebration and subversion of narrative through painting.

Shirazeh Houshiary is an Iran-born, London-based artist, working in painting and sculpture; Gabriele Finaldi is Director of the National Gallery in London; and Jan Dalley is the former Arts Editor at the Financial Times.

Full transcript available at frieze.com

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'You have an idea and it goes off in another direction and you either pull it back or you go on the journey. I knew I wanted to make some portraits, but I also knew I didn't want to. I wanted to create some tension.' – Barbara Walker

In the second episode of the Frieze Masters Podcast, artists Barbara Walker and Ming Smith, and writer and curator Lou Stoppard discuss the evolution of portraiture and ask how it can better reflect and build community.

Barbara Walker is a British artist whose work interrogates power, identity and the visibility of Black experience; Ming Smith is an American photographer whose practice explores her immediate cultural community; and Lou Stoppard is a British writer and curator.

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'What do we want the UK to look like in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years in terms of culture?' – Victoria Siddall

The first episode of the 2024 Frieze Masters Podcast brings together Sir Chris Bryant MP, artist Jeremy Deller and new director of the National Portrait Gallery Victoria Siddall to talk about 'Good Governance'. How can everyone in the UK access art? And what role should government play in the country's creative education?

Chris Bryant is the recently appointed as Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Jeremy Deller is a Turner Prize-winning artist whose collaborative practice focuses on communities and Britain's heritage; and Victoria Siddall is the new director of the National Portrait Gallery in London.

About Frieze Masters Podcast

The Frieze Masters Podcast in collaboration with dunhill is back for 2024, bringing you the annual Frieze Masters Talks programme recorded during this year's fair. The series of seven discussions was curated by Sheena Wagstaff and Shanay Jhaveri, with the title 'The Creative Mind', and features 21 intergenerational and international speakers exploring how the art of the past can help make sense of the present.

The series includes topics 'The State We're In', 'The Faces of Community' and 'The Power of Painting', with speakers ranging from artists – Nairy Baghramian, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shirazeh Houshiary, Mark Leckey, Glenn Ligon, Ming Smith – to curators such as Gabriele Finaldi, Glenn Lowry and Victoria Siddall, plus writers, thinkers, architects and politicians.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial

'Sex, death, race and religion' – these are the topics that the London-based artists Gilbert and George announced they wanted to cover in this talk with Dr Nicholas Cullinan of the National Portrait Gallery. On Context offers insights into the artist's relationship to concepts: from sculpture to the city, 'picture making' to posterity. Gilbert and George resist many of the contexts and interpretations projected onto their practice: trying to keep their work as accessible and open as possible, reflecting their self-proclaimed belief in 'art for all'.

'We like to let the pictures make themselves as much as possible. We like to think that there are other forces apart from us, being in the studio knowing what to do. […] When we go to the studio in the morning and see what we were doing the day before, it's always impossible for us to reconstruct exactly how we arrived at it.' – Gilbert & George

Gilbert and George live and work in London and since they met in 1967, they have made over 100 museum exhibitions. In 2023, the Gilbert & George Centre opened in East London. Dr Nicholas Cullinan is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Find images of the artwork discussed here.

About Frieze Masters Podcast

Series two of the Frieze Masters Podcast is now available, bringing you our annual programme of live talks – the Frieze Masters Talks programme – curated by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Nicholas Cullinan. These eight conversations between leading artists, writers, museum directors and curators all reflect the ethos of the Frieze Masters fair: looking at the past with a contemporary gaze.

The Frieze Masters Talks programme and the Frieze Masters Podcast are brought to you by Frieze in collaboration with dunhill, the foremost British luxury menswear house.

This podcast is a Reduced Listening production. The producer was Silvia Malnati and sound engineer was Andy Fell.

About Frieze

Frieze is the world's leading platform for modern and contemporary art, dedicated to artists, galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Frieze comprises three magazines – 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘻𝘦, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; five international art fairs – Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York, Frieze Los Angeles and Frieze Seoul; and No.9 Cork Street, a permanent gallery space in the heart of London.

www.frieze.com

@friezeofficial