Zandra Rhodes is a true British original, as integral to the creative iconography of British culture as Bowie, Ab Fab and the Spice Girls; an independent fashion designer who kick-started her career as a student on the Pop Art scene with David Hockney in London the 1960s; who built a successful global fashion empire in the 70s and 80s beloved by Jackie Kennedy, Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross, Princess Diana and Cher; and who, in the face of dwindling popularity in the 90s when her exuberant prints were no match for the grunge and minimalism trends of the era, pivoted to launch the Fashion and Textile Museum and designing costumes for the opera.

The through line to all of this has been her innovative use of sketch and pattern as a founding block of her design; a love of travel and a delight in absorbing the world around her into her work; and her deep-rooted friendships with the likes of artists Andrew Logan, David Sassoon and Duggie Fields. Diagnosed with cancer in 2020, the electric-pink haired Dame Zandra has defied the grim diagnosis and remains as exuberant and erudite as ever, quick to throw out a throaty chuckle and share a salty anecdote with her trademark gregariousness. As The Holburne Musuem in Bath, England, stages a retrospective of her famous prints, the 85-year old takes a moment out of her jam-packed schedule to talk to Danielle Radojcin about just what it is that makes her keep on keeping on…

In this episode, Danielle travels to the sweeping grounds of Wolterton, an 18th-century Palladian Hall in Norfolk, where centuries of history and years of careful restoration have set the stage for a bold new chapter in contemporary art. The Arts & Culture Programme at Wolterton launched this summer with Sea State, an exhibition co-curated by Simon Oldfield and Gemma Rolls-Bentley, featuring two extraordinary artists whose practices are deeply tied to the natural world: Maggi Hambling and Ro Robertson.

For Hambling, the sea has always been both muse and adversary – unpredictable, overpowering, and endlessly alive. Here, she unveils new works, including Time, an intimate installation honouring her late partner Tory Lawrence, and her ongoing Wall of Water series, paintings that crash with the force and emotion of the waves themselves. As well as her relationship to the sea, she talks about how her painting process relates to her grief and the passing of time.

Alongside Hambling, Robertson’s site-specific sculpture The Swell rises in Wolterton’s Marble Hall – a fluid, steel form rooted in nature’s cycles and the artist’s own connection to the queer body in the landscape.

Together, their works transform this historic house into a space of reflection, grief, power, and renewal – inviting us to confront our place within the vastness of the natural world. Both discuss the sea as both subject and metaphor, about love and loss, queerness and sexual desire, identity and memory, and how Wolterton’s history has become a showcase for these ideas.

“A friend said my superpower is to make serious things seem lighhearted.” Danielle Radojcin meets artist Nicole Wermers at Herald St’s Museum Street space in Bloomsbury, London, where she was showing her new exhibition Tails & Fainters. Best known for her sculptural assemblages that slyly explore class, gender and the unseen labour that shapes urban life, Wermers talks through the thinking behind this latest body of work.

Born in 1971 in West Germany, Wermers moved to London in the 1990s and has lived and worked here ever since. She studied at Central Saint Martins and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2015 for her exhibition Infrastruktur. Her installation, The Violet Revs, representing a fictional female biker gang, is currently on display at Tate Modern. She’s also a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and her work continues to offer a sharp, humorous commentary on the shifting landscapes of cities and the invisible forces shaping how we live.

Portrait of Nicole Wermers. Courtesy of the artist and Herald St, London. Photo by Peter Guenzel.

Architectural critic Charles Jencks once said that a building should speak - that it should express meaning and emotion, surprise and humour, and reflect the values of the culture it sits within. Step inside The Cosmic House, and you’ll find a home that does exactly that.

In this episode, Danielle visits one of London’s most astonishing hidden gems: The Cosmic House in Holland Park, the former home of the late Charles Jencks and his then wife, the landscape designer Maggie Keswick. Designed between 1978 and 1983, the house is a maximalist, multi-layered essay in built form - every inch of it embedded with symbolism, references to cosmology, art history, and post-modern thought. There’s an upside-down dome, a Solar Stair, and a Cosmic Oval: this is not your typical Victorian townhouse.

Danielle is joined by Eszter Steierhoffer, Director of the Jencks Foundation and former Senior Curator at the Design Museum, who walks her through this truly unique building and the mind behind it. Together, they discuss Jencks’ radical approach to architecture, his belief in “radical eclecticism” and his support of Maggie’s Centres for cancer patients following Maggie’s death in 1995, as well as the legacy he left behind - not just in the bricks and geometry of his home, but in his writing, his gardens, and his intergalactic thinking.

Part museum, part manifesto, The Cosmic House remains almost exactly as it was when the Jencks' lived there, and is now open to the public as a site of critical experimentation and creative response. Tune in to discover the legacy of one of architecture’s most original thinkers, and hear how the house continues to inspire artists, architects and visitors alike.

The Cosmic House

Artist Pam Glick is the quintessential gritty New York artist. Born in Albany and raised partly on an aristocrat's estate in England, she spent her rebellious teen years smoking pot and hitchhiking in search of Woody Guthrie while her glamorous laissez-faire parents imbued her with the confidence and optimism that has seen her through the many chapters in her extraordinary life, including living and working in New York - where she would hang out in cafes chatting to the likes of Quentin Crisp, and where she had a basement studio next to Richard Prince - to raising kids, divorce and surviving cancer.

Through it all, she has never stopped creating. Known for her instinctive use of colour and emotionally resonant abstraction, Glick studied Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she received the Florence\ Leif Award, and later earned her MFA from the University of Buffalo. Her work was widely shown throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with solo exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles. Her paintings have also featured in group exhibitions at Pat Hearn Gallery, the Drawing Center, and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. More recently, she has held solo exhibitions at White Columns (2016) and The Journal Gallery, New York (2021). For this conversation, Danielle Radojcin met Pam at the Maruani Mercier gallery in Brussels, which is holding an exhibition of her work.

Dive into the world of Tom Wesselmann - both a defining figure in American Pop Art and an outlier within it.

Known for his bold, humorous, and unabashedly sexual work, Wesselmann explored desire through iconic series like Great American Nudes, his close-up depictions of female mouths, his larger-than-life still lifes, and his lesser known but no less striking penis paintings. First exhibited in New York in the 1970s, these works push his signature flat, abstract style into deeply personal territory. They also invite reflection on the male gaze, eroticism, and how his art is perceived today.

Joining host Danielle Radojcin to discuss Wesselmann’s legacy is Jeffrey Sturges, director of The Estate of Tom Wesselmann. Having worked closely with the artist in his studio and home during the 1980s, Sturges offers a rare, firsthand perspective—not just on Wesselmann’s work, but on the man himself.

Recorded at Almine Rech gallery in London, where Wesselmann’s penis paintings and other works are on view until 12 April 2025, this conversation unpacks the wit, provocation, and enduring impact of this fascinating artist.

Photo: Portrait of Tom Wesselmann, 1969 (detail)

© 2024 The Estate of Tom Wesselmann / Artists

Rights Society (ARS), New York - Courtesy of the Estate and Almine Rech. Photo: Jack Mitchell

From her early days as a magazine editor in Milan during the late '60s and '70s to launching Italian Elle in 1987, Carla’s career has always been driven by an unwavering commitment to creative integrity, even when it came at the cost of her own career. Along with her late sister, the legendary Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, she has shaped the lives of some of the most important fashion designers and photographers of the past 50 years, and created some of the most memorable imagery, working with photographers like Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh and Steven Meisel.

Throughout her career, Carla has been a mentor to independent designers, offering friendship, guidance and resources. She shares heartfelt memories of her great friend, the late Azzedine Alaïa, whom she helped save from bankruptcy, ultimately founding the Alaïa Foundation to preserve his legacy.

In this episode, Carla talks about fashion designers today, from the independent designer she most rates, to her thoughts on incoming Chanel creative director Matthieu Blazy, as well as discussing what makes print magazines relevant, and why you can't rely on AI to replace individual human creativity.

Carla is the founder of 10 Corso Como, the groundbreaking concept store she opened in Milan in 1990. Long before spaces like Dover Street Market or Colette existed, 10 Corso Como redefined the shopping experience, becoming a pilgrimage site for fashion lovers worldwide. She is also the founder of Fondazione Sozzani, which aims to support new generations of creative talent.

Carla’s new book, Carla Sozzani: Art, Life, Fashion by Louise Baring, offers an intimate look at her life and contributions to the worlds of fashion, art, and design.

Resources:

• Carla Sozzani: Art, Life, Fashion by Louise Baring (2024, Thames & Hudson)
• Fondation Azzedine Alaïa
• 10 Corso Como
• Fondazione Sozzani

This episode features guest host, Simon Chilvers. Simon travelled to the seaside town of Margate in the UK, where he visited the TKE studios, part of the remarkable Tracey Emin Foundation to speak with Dutch artist Joline Kwakkenbos.

Known for her evocative self-portraits, Joline's work delves into themes of identity, memory, queerness, and the fluidity of the self. The current exhibition, 'Shape Shifters', curated by Dame Tracey Emin, offers a deeply personal yet universally resonant exploration of self-representation by Kwakkenbos alongside the beautiful photographic work of Elissa Cray.

Born in 1997 in the Netherlands, Joline grew up in a small Dutch village where her creativity was nurtured from an early age. Her parents’ hands-on, creative approach to life sparked her fascination with making and inspired her journey into the arts. Initially trained in fashion design, she graduated in 2019 and discovered a love for painting as a medium for expressing her unique visual language. Over the years, her work has evolved to include a collection of garments that reflect the diverse personas and narratives within her self-portraits.

In this episode, Simon and Joline discuss her path from fashion to fine art, the transformative power of self-portraiture, and how her work challenges traditional notions of identity, representation, and history.

https://www.traceyeminfoundation.com/joline-kwakkenbos

https://jolinekwakkenbos.nl/

https://www.instagram.com/joline_kwakkenbos/