Longtime podcast collaborators Allan Schwartzman and Charlotte Burns sit down for a conversation about an art industry in profound flux. After almost a decade of podcasts tracking how everything has changed, the duo is now looking ahead—and the view is complex.

In this frank conversation, they discuss everything from the art market to museum models, to artists history has overlooked. This is a reckoning with the art world at a crossroads.

Schwartzman reflects on challenging times but also opportunities. What new possibilities emerge when old systems transform?

What if we could reimagine how art is supported?

Follow us: @schwartzman.art

Website: www.schwartzmanand.com/

The artist Agnes Denes saw it coming. Machines taking over. Technology converging with consciousness. History on a pendulum swinging perilously back and forth.

In this intimate conversation recorded with host Charlotte Burns in Denes' downtown Manhattan loft apartment and studio space, they talk about her work. When Denes wrote about these things more than 50 years ago, it was prescient, unsettling, and brilliant.

Now the artist is in her mid-90s and is still writing and making art every day. And she’s still asking the questions that matter: What is humanity's purpose? What is love? How do we survive?

Denes planted wheat in downtown Manhattan on landfill that would become Battery Park City. She made ecological art before climate change was front page news. Her work spans conceptual art, poetry, drawings, installations, sculptures, writings and more. Twenty thousand pieces, mostly never seen.

Today? She hands out wheat seeds like promises. Plant hope. Harvest peace. Become part of the art.

The questions never change, she says. Only their importance shifts.

What if we listened?

Follow us: @schwartzman.art

Website: www.schwartzmanand.com/

In this bonus episode, we’re joined by the newly appointed director and CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Dr. Mariët Westermann, who is the first female appointed to the role. Mariët oversees the “constellation” of museums—four over three continents united, she says, in one mission, “to create opportunities for anyone to engage with the transformative and connective power of art and artists”. Mariët is inheriting opportunities and challenges, and we delve into some of those, from the back histories to the budgets. She talks to us about the future of the museum—from plans for the opening of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to the nuts and bolts of balancing the books. One of the key changes Mariët advocates for is a shift in the institutional mindset. Rather than taking a defensive stance, where the museum might try to address gaps or criticisms reactively, she hopes for a move towards a more open approach. "We are learning communities," she says. "We're full of curious people. Artists are curious." All this and much more in this special episode, which brings to an end our second season.