As this season of The Art World: What If?! takes a break, Charlotte and Allan reflect on the conversations that have shaped it — from artists reimagining knowledge, time, and truth, to institutional leaders grappling with the frameworks that hold culture.

Agnes Denes, Glenn Ligon, Sin Wai Kin, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, Glenn Lowry, Thelma Golden, and Kemi Ilesanmi offered perspectives that span generations, geographies, and roles in the cultural ecosystem.

Together, they reveal a field in flux. Charlotte and Allan look back at what they’ve heard — and ahead to where the art world is heading next.

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us @schwartzman.art for more, and subscribe to our Substack at artandschwartzman.substack.com.

Find out more about The Art World: What If…?! at schwartzmanand.com/the-art-world.

In this episode, Allan Schwartzman sits down with Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, ahead of the November opening of the museum’s first purpose-built home. Rising seven stories and spanning 82,000 square feet on 125th Street, the new building is rooted in the aspirations and vision of the artists, activists, philanthropists, and Harlem residents who founded the institution in 1968.

One of the most transformative museum leaders of any era, Golden reflects on her career—from groundbreaking exhibitions at the Whitney straight out of college, to the mentors who shaped her, to her 25 years at the Studio Museum. She speaks about leading an institution that is at once hyperlocal and hyperglobal, and about building the structures and spaces that nurture generations of artists, curators, and thinkers.

This new Studio Museum stands a testament to possibility, asking: What if we imagined and created the spaces necessary for art and ideas to truly flourish?

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us @schwartzman.art for more, and subscribe to our Substack at artandschwartzman.substack.com.

Find out more about The Art World: What If…?! at schwartzmanand.com/the-art-world.

In this episode, host Charlotte Burns sits down once more with Glenn Lowry during his final week as director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Over three decades, Lowry transformed MoMA—expanding its collection, reshaping its galleries, and reimagining what a museum, and “modern” itself, can mean.

He has guided the museum through moments of crisis and transformation—from 9/11 and global financial shocks to a pandemic and the culture wars of recent years. Now, as Lowry steps down, he shares what it really takes to guide an institution through moments of upheaval and reinvention.

He looks back on the lessons learned, the challenges ahead for the cultural sector, and the art of leadership: how ideas are tested, institutions reshaped, and futures imagined.

Tune in as Lowry asks: what if museums had the courage to believe that the art that will come will be every bit as interesting and important as the art of the past?

Find us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us @schwartzman.art for more, and subscribe to our Substack at artandschwartzman.substack.com.

Find out more about The Art World: What If…?! at schwartzmanand.com/the-art-world.