February 12, 2023: Emma Nelson, Lynne O’Donnell and Dipo Faloyin on the weekend’s biggest talking points. We also get the latest from our editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, in Bangkok and speak to Guy De Launey, Monocle’s man in the Balkans.
Georgina Godwin and guests set the tone for the weekend. Simon Brooke reviews the day’s newspapers and Andrew Mueller recaps what we learned this week.
February 10, 2023: In this special episode, we are in Amsterdam for one of the shows of the year: Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum.
As an unprecedented 28 of the 37 surviving Vermeer paintings are gathered in the Dutch capital, Ben Luke talks to several people involved in the project: Gregor Weber, one of the exhibition’s curators, tells us about his new biography that reveals the depth of influence of the Jesuits and Catholicism on the artist.
In the exhibition itself, we talk to Pieter Roelofs, Weber’s co-curator; Ige Verslype, a conservator who led an extensive research project on Vermeer paintings in the Rijksmuseum, Mauritshuis and Frick collections; and Taco Dibbits, the Rijksmuseum’s director. Plus, we bump into the artist Alvaro Barrington in the exhibition and he tells us what he makes of Vermeer as an artist working today.
In this episode’s Work of the Week, we explore a debate around the attribution of a painting: Betsy Wieseman, Curator and Head of the Department of Northern European Paintings at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington DC, discusses Girl with a Flute (around 1669-75). Wieseman and her NGA colleagues now regard the painting as a work by Vermeer’s studio, even though it appears in the Rijksmuseum show as an authentic work by the master.Vermeer, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, until 4 June. Gregor Weber, Johannes Vermeer: Faith, Light, Reflection, Rijksmuseum, €25 (pb)
February 8, 2023 – Jenny Mathers on the directions in which Ukraine and Russia are moving as Moscow prepares its spring assault. Plus: The latest on relief efforts in Turkey from the epicentres of the earthquakes, the day’s papers and the welcome return of the beaver.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, President Joe Biden’s plan to remake America’s economy, Ukraine’s troops in the east are quietly confident (11:20) and the race of the AI labs heats up (18:10).
But America’s plan to spend $2trn could help save the planet
February 6, 2023: The political fallout of the sighting of a Chinese spy balloon above Montana. Plus: protests in India over the Adani scandal, the latest trade and economy news, and the 2023 Grammy Awards.
February 5, 2023: Live from London – Emma Nelson, David Bodanis, Tessa Szyszkowitz and Monocle’s Bangkok correspondent, Gwen Robinson, unpack the weekend’s hottest topics. Plus: a check-in with our editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, in Tokyo.
February 3, 2023: As we approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Art Newspaper has published an investigation that raises serious concerns that works of art taken by Russian troops from a museum in Kherson, Ukraine, in November 2022 may not be repatriated once the fighting ends.
Our London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about his story. Plus, the Sharjah Biennial opens next week, and is the final biennial curated by Okwui Enwezor, who died in 2019, but set the blueprint for the show, entitled Thinking Historically in the Present. We talk to Nadine Khalil about the biennial and Sharjah’s place in the Middle Eastern art ecosystem.
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere (1991) by the American photographer Ming Smith, a key piece in a new exhibition of Smith’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Oluremi Onabanjo, the curator of the show, tells us about the work.The Sharjah Biennial runs from 7 February to 11 June.Projects: Ming Smith, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 4 February-29 May. Ming Smith: Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere, by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 48pp, $14.95/£17 (pb)
February 3, 2023: The presidents of the European Commission and European Council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
Plus: the new “Hello Hong Kong” campaign, Chad’s new embassy in Israel and Andrew Mueller’s irreverent round-up of the week’s news.
February 2, 2023: A look ahead to the EU-Ukraine summit. Plus: Belgium’s crackdown on Russian diamonds, the return of the ball season in Vienna, a flick through today’s papers and the latest from Copenhagen Fashion Week.
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