Show Notes
Was Vermeer really the artist behind some of his most well-known works? The question has lingered at the margins of art history for years and was resurfaced during the Dutch master's blockbuster retrospective at the Rijksmuseum in 2023. Helen invited writer Lawrence Weschler and art historian Claudia Swan to interrogate what is at stake—politically, financially, and art historically—in reattributing works by the old master. Claudia Swan is a scholar of northern European art, whose recent books include Rarities of these Lands: Art, Trade and Diplomacy in the Dutch Republic and of Conchophilia. Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe. Lawrence Weschler is the author of numerous works of non-fiction, including the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder. His recent writings can be found at Wondercabinet.
More from Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast
Curator Mark Godfrey and painter Emma McIntyre discuss the importance of Sigmar Polke—skeptic, trickster, and visionary—on the occasion of Sigmar Polke: The Knowledge of Colours, a solo exhibition at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, Netherlands, part of Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW, a project by the Anna Polke Foundation. Polke is widely recognized as one of the most innovative painters and multidisciplinary artists of the postwar era, and the exhibition is on view through February 28 of next year.
The international avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama has passed away at 97, but her work and extraordinary legacy will remain for posterity. As our own small remembrance, we revisit a 2025 episode exploring her unmatched influence, in which art historian Jennifer DeVere Brody, art critic Johanna Fateman, and curator Catherine Taft unpack the many versions of Yayoi Kusama—and her singular importance in 20th and 21st century art.
Curator Adrienne Edwards joins guest host Ebony L. Haynes to share their tips, tricks, and must-see shows from the 2026 Venice Biennale, the sixty-first iteration of the world’s largest and longest-running art biennale.
Dialogues is pleased to present an episode podcast from our colleagues at The New York Review.
In this bonus live episode, Lucas Zwirner returns to the mic for an interview with Nicholas Fox Weber, the director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, to celebrate Weber’s new biography, titled Anni Albers: A Life. Over the course of the exchange, Weber opens up about the writing process behind this major new biography and shares some rare anecdotes from a lifetime spent working closely with the Alberses.