Free Thinking Folgen

A novel about Matisse, hand glazed ceramic panels, red ochre to Yves Klein blue, the story of female pioneers of colour theory: Laurence Scott is joined by the artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Michèle Roberts and art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier to celebrate colour and find out more about the history of different colours and the way we look at them.Lubna Chowdhary's exhibition at Peer in London until November will be expanded when it goes on show in Middlesborough at MIMA in 2022 https://lubnachowdhary.co.uk/ James Fox's book is called The World According to Colour: A Cultural History Michèle Roberts' novel is called Cut, Out. You can hear Michèle talking about failure and female friendship in a previous Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jvwp Kelly Grovier is writing about female pioneers of colour theory for bbc.com You can find more of his work at https://www.kellygrovier.com/In the Free Thinking visual arts playlist we talk to painter Sean Scully, a fashion expert and a neuro scientist about colour perception https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046cs01 and Kelly thinks about how we look at art in this episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xrzd5 And if you want to experience colour on the walls of galleries at the moment – the Royal Academy Summer show is ablaze with it, the Hayward Gallery has a display of painters, Frieze London art fair is on this week, Mit Jai Inn has created a Dreamworld at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, Charleston farmhouse in Sussex – the colourfully decorated home of the Bloomsbury gang - pairs the work of Duncan Grant with contemporary art and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge has a show focusing on gold artefacts found in Kazakhstan.Producer: Jessica Treen

The National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut were among the many arts institutions forced to close during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. How has this experience changed the running of these galleries and museums? Anne McElvoy talks to:Gabriele Finaldi - Director of the National Gallery in London, which filmed its Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition and then sold online passes to view the show. Courtney J. Martin - Paul Mellon Director, Yale Center for British Art. Daniel Weiss - President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.You can find directors of museums and galleries in Singapore, Beijing, Paris, St Petersburg, Washington, Los Angeles, London and Dresden in previous Frieze/Free Thinking discussions. There's a playlist on the Free Thinking website called Visual Arts which also includes conversations about colour in art, slow looking, women's art, Black British art, the role of critics.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The theme of this year's National Poetry Day is choice. Shahidha Bari is joined by Marvin Thompson, winner of this year's Poetry Society National Poetry Competition, and poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell to discuss the choices poets make in their work, and the choices audiences make in their reception of poetry too. But is choice an illusion? What does it mean to choose anyway? Philosopher Clare Carlisle discusses the analysis of choice offered by the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the economist Carol Propper discusses the concept of choice in economics.Marvin Thompson's prize winning poem is The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love (Galatians 5:22) https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-fruit-of-the-spirit-is-love-galatians-522 His poem for National Poetry Day is May 8th, 2020 https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/may-8th-2020/Clare Carlisle's book Spinoza's Religion is published by Princeton University Press on the 12th OctoberJake Morris-Campbell will be at the Durham Book Festival on the 17th October reading from his forthcoming collection Corrigenda for Costafine Town, tickets are available here https://durhambookfestival.com/programme/event/north-east-poetry-showcase-john-challis-jo-clement-and-jake-morris-campbell/Producer: Luke Mulhall