dunhill x Frieze Masters

The Frieze Masters Podcast, presented in collaboration with dunhill returns for 2025 with a series of nuanced dialogues traversing art, history and contemporary culture. Curated by Arturo Galansino, Director General of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, this year’s edition – titled Woven Histories – brings together artists, curators and writers whose conversations intertwine geographies, generations and ideas. Each episode offers a considered meditation on how the past continues to inform the present, inviting new ways of seeing.

Recorded live at Frieze Masters 2025 in London’s Regent’s Park, the podcast was part of a week-long programme of talks hosted in the dunhill auditorium and lounge space, which drew inspiration from Bourdon House – our historic Mayfair residence – the setting offered a quiet richness of material and atmosphere: oak, leather, brass, and the unmistakable cadence of English refinement.


Within this environment, conversations unfolded on subjects ranging from Renaissance influence and cultural archives to human form, modernity, and the enduring power of the confessional voice. Contributors included Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Émilie Hammen, William Dalrymple and Christopher Rothko – figures who continue to shape the cultural landscape with both clarity and conviction. The full talks series is now available via the Frieze Masters Podcast, presented in collaboration with dunhill.

Episode 7: Sculpting As A New Humanism

In this final episode, Antony Gormley invites listeners into the physical, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of sculpture. In conversation with Arturo Galansino, he reflects on how the sculptural form can reawaken collective awareness - not through monumental grandeur, but through intimate, embodied encounter. A resonant conclusion to the series, this episode reminds us that art, at its most powerful, is not simply seen, but felt.  Listen here

Episode 6: Twisted Classic - Collecting, Displaying And Distorting Old Masters

British artist Glenn Brown - celebrated for his transformative use of historical imagery - joins Arturo Galansino to probe the unstable line between homage and distortion. As they consider the ethics of appropriation, the thrill of irreversibility, and the drama of mark-making, a compelling picture emerges of how artists continue to wrestle with and renew the canon of painting.  Listen here

Episode 5: Fashion As Art

Where does fashion end and art begin? In this incisive exchange, curators Émilie Hammen and Elizabeth Way join Arturo Galansino to examine the shifting borders between disciplines. Drawing on examples from the Renaissance to the Pre-Raphaelites to the present day, they argue for fashion’s place not just on the body, but in cultural history - as a carrier of emotion, intellect and aesthetic radicalism. Listen here.

Episode 4: The Great Mughals - From Babur To Bahadur Shah Zafar

A poetic history unfolds in this richly layered episode, as William Dalrymple and Arturo Galansino revisit the art, court life, and cosmopolitan legacies of the Mughal Empire. Ranging from the empire’s founder to its final philosopher-king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, their dialogue traces a cultural flowering too often eclipsed by colonial distortion - inviting a more nuanced vision of the subcontinent’s past. Listen here

Episode 3: Black Atlas

Artistic memory meets archival depth in this vital conversation between Edward George and Matthew Harle, hosted by Arturo Galansino. Centred on The Warburg Institute’s Image of the Black archive and the recent ‘Black Atlas’ exhibition, this episode explores representation, authorship and the ongoing power of imagery. Together, they consider the archive not as a sealed past but as a living, generative force - unfinished and expansive. Listen Here.

Episode 2: An Encounter In Spiritual Spaces - Mark Rothko And Fra Angelico

In this contemplative exchange, spiritual legacy and visual language converge. Christopher Rothko reflects on his father’s emotional connection to Fra Angelico’s frescoes at San Marco, as he joins curator Carl Strehlke and Arturo Galansino to trace the shared sacred atmosphere between abstract expressionism and Italian Renaissance art. The conversation anticipates a major forthcoming exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence - a meeting of visionaries across centuries. Listen Here.

Episode 1: Confessions in the Museum

In the opening episode, artist Tracey Emin joins Nicholas Cullinan and host Arturo Galansino for a conversation rooted in truth-telling, vulnerability and the personal experience of art. From early encounters with museums to reflections on illness, class and intimacy, their exchange offers a compelling meditation on what it means to speak honestly, and to be heard, within the institutional frame. Listen here