Arts First challenges the contemporary view of the arts as tools for social change; highlights how freedom of expression is compromised by political activism and institutional cowardice; explores what is unique and special about the arts; and celebrates new artistic achievement and courage in the face of today’s challenges. Arts First is produced by the Academy of Ideas Arts. and Society Forum. <br/><br/><a href="https://artsfirst.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">artsfirst.substack.com</a>
Arts First
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Podcast Overview
Arts First challenges the contemporary view of the arts as tools for social change; highlights how freedom of expression is compromised by political activism and institutional cowardice; explores what is unique and special about the arts; and celebrates new artistic achievement and courage in the face of today’s challenges. Arts First is produced by the Academy of Ideas Arts. and Society Forum. <br/><br/><a href="https://artsfirst.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">artsfirst.substack.com</a>
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6/16/2024
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Recent Episodes
July 17, 2026
Episode 50 - The Odyssey in film
<p>In our 50th episode we take a bit of a roundabout look at the Odyssey on film. We discuss some of the creative challenges and opportunities faced by filmmakers who choose to take on this epic poem that inspired Classical Greece, but predated it by many centuries.</p><p>Of course, its influence casts a very long shadow over Western art and culture down the ages, and its origins – most likely in oral, semi-improvised song/storytelling – have intrigued academics and historians for centuries.</p><p>As the focus of our discussion is the creative interpretation of the filmmaker, we look in a bit more detail at one film, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 Odyssey-themed Le Mépris (Contempt), starring Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang.</p><p>Our guests are Maren Thom and Alex Dale, writers and commentators on film, TV and theatre, and presenters of the podcast Performance Anxiety.</p><p>We’ve been thinking about how to approach this episode for a while. I had read author and Classics scholar Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2017 memoir, An Odyssey.</p><p>Mendelsohn explores some of the themes in the Odyssey through the prism of a term spent teaching it to a class of young undergraduates, along with his 81-year-old father. Mendelsohn Senior is a seemingly hard-nosed, Brooklyn-raised Maths professor who sees in Odysseus not a hero but a ‘sissy’ who cries too much and is rescued by the Gods whenever he gets into bother.</p><p>The experience reveals much, changes and deepens the relationship between father and son, who have never quite seen eye-to-eye. An Odyssey, then, is partly a study of relationships – father-son, teacher-student, intergenerational etc. And Mendelsohn uses this as a very subtle pretext to explore similar themes in the Odyssey itself. In short, there’s much more to the epic poem than nymphs and one-eyed monsters.</p><p>Over the Christmas holidays I got around to reading the Odyssey itself for the first time. Daniel Mendelsohn’s own translation was published in 2025. I read mainly that, but took the opportunity to dip in and out of different translations on the way, from Penguin Classics, to Emily Wilson’s alleged ‘feminist’ take, to Alexander Pope’s early C18th classic, which Mendelsohn describes as the best translation of anything, ever.</p><p>I barely scratched the surface of the book, but reading it threw up some possibilities for podcasts – the idea of the journey in art and literature, translation as a creative endeavour perhaps, ancient tradition of oral/improvised storytelling.</p><p>And then of course there’s film, which is why I thought immediately of the wonderful Performance Anxiety podcast, and sought the help of Alex Dale and Maren Thom.</p><p>So we agreed a show based on simply comparing films wouldn’t be the best approach, and I was scratching my head to find films that might give us something to work with. I carried on reading, carried on thinking, then I stumbled upon Le Mépris, Godard’s film that, per chance, seemed to address both my original question and theirs (which we talk about in the podcast).</p><p>Godard’s film is centred on an ambitious young playwright who is invited, or perhaps enticed to become involved in a production of the Odyssey (to be shot on the island of Capri) by the film’s brash American producer, who wants a blockbuster and thinks the current director, Fritz Lang (playing himself), is making some incomprehensible European arthouse cinema.</p><p>But that’s the starting point for the film, which then becomes about the playwright’s relationship with his beautiful and enigmatic wife, played by Brigitte Bardot.</p><p>We thought that Le Mépris might provide us with an ideal opportunity to talk about the creative process of the filmmaker, and ask if maybe Godard was trying to find ways to express truths – symbolic or moral etc. – from the Odyssey that maybe a more straightforward telling might not.</p><p>Finally, we discuss some of the themes in Maren’s recent article about pre-release criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s film of the Odyssey, and look forward to the release of the film (we recorded this episode before the film’s release).</p><p>Links</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://performanceanxietythepodcast.blog/">Performance Anxiety podcast</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/05/29/can-nolans-odyssey-survive-the-culture-war/"><strong>Can Nolan’s </strong></a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/05/29/can-nolans-odyssey-survive-the-culture-war/"><strong>Odyssey</strong></a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/05/29/can-nolans-odyssey-survive-the-culture-war/"><strong> survive the culture war?</strong></a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/33571159-an-odyssey">An Odyssey</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/33571159-an-odyssey"> by Daniel Mendelsohn</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057345/">Le Mépris by Jean-Luc Godard</a></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Arts First at <a href="https://artsfirst.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">artsfirst.substack.com/subscribe</a>
July 2, 2026
Episode 49 - Tracey Emin
<p>During this episode, I changed my mind about Tracey Emin and started to understand her as an artist who is not necessarily as narcissistic as some see her. Rather she plumbs the depths of her own experience to create works which are multilayered, shocking, challenging, disturbing and sometimes beautiful. </p><p>Tracey Emin’s exhibition, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/tracey-emin?utm_source=google&utm_medium=performance_max&utm_campaign=CAMP_tracey-emin_conversion_pmax&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23593775937&gbraid=0AAAAA9TfA_sBJzGE-6bfBmmWIL_bU-f6b&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm7Kwi9uVlQMVS5RQBh3WoxvMEAAYASAAEgLlGfD_BwE">A Second Life</a>, is currently running at Tate Modern in London (until August 31 2026). A retrospective of her 40 year career as an artist, it has received rave reviews from most critics.</p><p>One of the things that has struck me about the reception of this exhibition is how it shines a light on the way Tracey Emin has transitioned from being one of the most shocking artists of the 1990s, relentlessly exposing her private life, most notably with the Turner Prize nominated installation of My Bed (1998), to now being one of the most successful and highly regarded of contemporary British artists, to the extent she been honored with a CBE and Dame-hood, without compromising her art-making.</p><p>So when <a target="_blank" href="https://jeanwainwright.com">Professor Jean Wainwright</a>, a specialist in contemporary art who has interviewed Emin a number of times, suggested doing a podcast for Arts First about her exhibition, I leapt at the opportunity.</p><p>Much of Emin’s work seems to be focused inwardly on her life and its trials. She ignores or disregards the separation between public and private in a way that can be deeply discomforting to the viewer. Indeed, much of her significance seems to lie in her exposure of her rather troubled private life to public view. Because of this some people think she is hopelessly narcissistic, successful because she reflects the narcissism of the current age. But others regard her as courageously breaking open a sphere that is all too often suppressed, where very personal anxieties, insecurities and experiences that many share are subject to intense levels of self-examination and self-expression.</p><p>To explore the significance and impact of her work, Professor Jean Wainwright, art historian and critic starts off an analysis of a small selection of works in the exhibition and what they reveal about Emin as an artist. A very special guest, Jean’s particular expertise is Andy Warhol, and she talked about an exhibition of his work in Milton Keynes for one of our early episodes. She has conducted interviews with Tracey Emin and we are really grateful she offered to come back to help us understand Emin’s importance as an artist.</p><p>Commenting and elaborating on Jean’s analysis are <a target="_blank" href="http://didopowell.com/Biography.htm">Dido Powell</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/racheljordanart/">Rachel Jordan</a>, both practicing artists with an active critical interest in contemporary art and art history. Both have appeared on Arts First episodes before, and Dido is the leader of an informative and enjoyable series of tours in London art museums.</p><p>There is a tendency — especially among those of us who are not great fans of conceptual art — to define Emin in terms of the reverberating shock of her early installations and her obsession with her damaged self, but for many her work appeals deeply in all its rawness, authenticity and honesty. There is also a tendency, which I shared, to see Emin as a narcissistic artist reflecting and expressing the narcissism of our age. After discussing Emin’s work and achievements with Jean, Dido and Rachel, I now understand her to be an artist who uses her own experiences to create art that plumbs the depths of engaging in a messed up world, living a troubled existence without giving in to it. I don’t love all she has done but I can see that she makes art that mediates and reflects our age back to us in a way that is worth paying close attention to. </p><p>Wendy Earle June 2026</p><p>The four works we discussed in detail were:</p><p><strong>Why I’ll Never Became a Dancer</strong></p><p>The film can be viewed on YouTube (after a few ads):</p><p><strong>I followed you to the end</strong>:</p><p><strong>Exorcism of the last Painting I ever made</strong> (1996) photo of installation:</p><p><strong>You kept it coming</strong> (2019) </p><p></p><p></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Arts First at <a href="https://artsfirst.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">artsfirst.substack.com/subscribe</a>
June 21, 2026
David Hockney RIP
<p>David Hockney died on June 12, 2026 at the age of 88. The Arts First team, meeting for a planning session just a few days after he died, decided to do an impromptu appreciation of him on video. Wendy Earle, Niall Crowley, Michael Owens and Rachel Jordan talk about what he meant to them, as a true free spirit, totally committed to creating art — talented, innovative, inventive, inimitable, hardworking, prolific and brave. </p><p>We hope to do a more detailed consideration of him as an artist in the not too distant future. </p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/david-hockney-a-year-in-normandie-and-some-other-thoughts-about-painting-exhibition-serpentine-galleries/">David Hockney: A Year in Normandie</a></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Arts First at <a href="https://artsfirst.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">artsfirst.substack.com/subscribe</a>
51 total episodes available
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