Art Virgins : From Clueless to Collectors

About Art Virgins : From Clueless to Collectors

🎨 Art Virgins: From Clueless to Collectors 🎨 Ever walked into a museum and felt totally lost? Or thought art collecting was only for millionaires? We get it—because that was us. Two friends, complete beginners, decided to start collecting art with zero knowledge (unless you count knowing that Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa). Each week on Art Virgins, we share our step-by-step journey into the art world—learning, laughing, and exploring over coffee. Together, we’ll uncover how to actually enjoy art, understand different movements, and build a collection no matter your budget. We explore the questions every beginner has but is too shy to ask, like: How do you enjoy a museum without feeling overwhelmed? Do you need to be rich to start an art collection? How does context change the way we experience a piece of art? How do artists redefine movements—and how does personal style and courage shape an artist’s legacy? What’s the difference between surrealism, pop art, abstract art, and contemporary art? Can street art be both business and authentic expression? How do you prepare for an exhibition so you actually enjoy it? Along the way we share beginner-friendly breakdowns of movements, stories of famous and contemporary artists, visits to exhibitions, museums, and street art shows, plus tips on how to start your own collection—no matter your budget. Art Virgins is for you if you’ve ever felt: Intimidated by galleries and art jargon. Curious about art but unsure where to start. Overwhelmed by centuries of art history. Like you don’t “belong” in museums. Or simply eager to impress your friends, partner, or colleagues with real art knowledge. Whether you want to enjoy museums without feeling lost, start an affordable collection, or simply sound smart about art at dinner parties—Art Virgins will take you there. 👉 Subscribe now to begin your journey into the art world, one question (and one coffee) at a time.

Publisher

Zahra & Sami

Category

arts · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Aug 2025

Latest episode

19 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

35 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Episode 31: Math & Art + How to collect KAWS

   To make the most out of your listening experience, follow along with the episode's Wingman post on our Instagram: @artvirgins. Show Notes: It's 11:30 on a Friday night, there are two hours of procrastination behind us, and Zahra wants to talk about math. Stay with us. It starts with a line from an old TV series — do we need math to understand beauty, or do we need beauty to understand math? — and turns into three stories: the golden ratio and the Parthenon (myth or fact?), the Fibonacci sequence hiding in your pineapple, and the time Leonardo da Vinci moved in with a mathematician and illustrated a book arguing that one number has the properties of God. Meanwhile, Sami picks up where Part 1 left off. Last time, he stood in front of a wall of 40 KAWS figurines and couldn't tell them apart. This week, he hands you the framework he wishes he'd had: a four-tier pyramid, three things that move a piece up or down inside its tier, and a counterfeit problem so big that one of the world's most serious KAWS collectors says about half the pieces he's compared turned out to be fake. And then, the purchase. A new holiday stop in China, a yellow robot Companion, a 3:45 a.m. alarm — two nights in a row — the wrong date, cold feet, the hidden costs nobody mentions, and a waiting list that opened 30 minutes later. Did Sami finally buy his first KAWS? MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Zahra: math and beauty* Numb3rs — the TV series (on Prime Video) that sparked the question* The Parthenon, on the Acropolis* The golden ratio — 1.618…* Euclid and Pythagoras* The Fibonacci sequence — find it in sunflowers, pineapples and pine cones* Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli* Divina Proporzione (The Divine Proportion) — written in Milan 1496–1498, printed in Venice in 1509, with around 60 illustrations by da Vinci* The Vitruvian Man* The Last Supper Sami: how to collect a KAWS* The KAWS family: Companion, Chum and BFF* The Original Fake era (1999–2013)* KAWS x Disney Pinocchio & Jiminy Cricket Companion (2010, edition of 500)* Karimoku wood Companion (2011, edition of 100)* KAWS x Dior* KAWS Holiday stops: Seoul, Hong Kong, Japan (Mount Fuji), Taipei, UK (Bristol), Singapore, Changbai Mountain (with The North Face), Indonesia, Melbourne, Space and Hangzhou* Fellows — the new figurine released July 27* KAWS x Uniqlo — with new characters Earth, Moon and Sun, and the first KAWS plush toys* Selim Varol — the collector with 700 KAWS pieces* Where to buy and browse: KAWSONE, MoMA Design Store, DDT Store (Hong Kong), StockX, and Galerie Montorgueil (Paris) From the archive* Artivism w/ Banksy + Who Is KAWS? (Part 1)* Our Invader episode — Space 02 on the ISS

2. 

   13 Oct 2026

   Episode 30: Artivism w/ Banksy + Who Is KAWS?

   To make the most out of your listening experience, follow along with the episode's Wingman post on our Instagram: @artvirgins. Show Notes: Banksy once sold signed original canvases from a stall outside Central Park for $60, and most people walked right past. Zahra follows a surprise Banksy sculpture in London down the rabbit hole of art as protest: Keith Haring chalking hundreds of drawings in New York subway stations during the AIDS crisis, and the painting that shredded itself at auction and came back worth almost 19 times more. What if it had shredded all the way? Then Sami walks into a tiny Paris gallery, puts a €4,000 bronze back on the shelf, and leaves with three promises. One of them is this deep dive into KAWS: a Disney background painter by day who drew X's over the eyes of bus-stop ads by night, then turned a dead Mickey Mouse into a toy that took him all the way to Dior. Everything Mentioned: People Banksy Keith Haring Basquiat Shepard Fairey / Obey David Hockney Invader In The Whoop MiFamosa KAWS (Brian Donnelly) Places and institutions Central London (the memorial park where the sculpture appeared, not named) The Berlin Wall Central Park MoMA Galerie Montorgueil, Paris Moco Museum, London Jumbo Pictures Bounty Hunter Medicom Original Fake store, Tokyo (2006–2013) Perrotin Dior Homme Uniqlo Central Embassy mall, Bangkok San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Crystal Bridges, Arkansas Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto Artworks Banksy's London sculpture of a suited man blinded by his own flag (title not given) Banksy's auction print with monkeys in the audience (title not given) Girl with Balloon / Love Is in the Bin [CHECK: transcript says "Love is in the Bean"] Banksy's West Bank wall pieces Banksy's Ukraine pieces Better Out Than In (Banksy's New York month) Haring's subway chalk drawings Haring's Berlin Wall mural (1986) Basquiat's postcards KAWS's 1990s ad posters with X eyes Bendy Companion (1999) Chum (2002) BFF (2016) Holiday The Kaws Album (2005) Family (2021) Past Art Virgins episodes referenced Episode 7, Part 2 (Banksy in Toulon)

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Episode 29: Maurizio Cattelan's Banana + Gustave Fayet, the Forgotten Gauguin Collector

   This summer, someone walked off with a banana taped to a museum wall in Metz, and the museum filed a legal complaint. Zahra traces it back to Maurizio Cattelan, the self-taught Italian behind the solid-gold toilet, the Pope struck by a meteorite and a banana that sold for $6.2 million. She explains why eating it doesn't destroy the art, and the hosts take on everyone who says "I could do that." Then Sami tells the story of Gustave Fayet, a wealthy collector who bought Gauguins while Gauguin was broke and paid him triple what a dealer offered. Fayet was forgotten for decades, until one museum label caught the right person's eye. Plus: what a 19th-century collector's first few purchases can teach two beginners on a much smaller budget.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

12 ratings

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