Daily Stream: Barbara London Calling

For Barbara London Calling, Barbara London, author, curator, and founder of the Museum of Modern Art's video-media exhibition and collection programs, calls artists from around the world to discuss "the wild world of media art" and what motivates and inspires them. Two episodes of the 12-part series are currently available for listening.

The first call she makes is to Albanian multimedia artist Anri Sala. He and London cover his use of sound and how it grew out of a distrust of words, his reconfigurations of music by composers such as Mozart and Maurice Ravel, and Sala's installations featuring drums outfitted with sticks but no players (the artist utilizes sound reverberations to prompt the sticks to strike the drum heads).

London's series really seems to hit its stride with the second episode, featuring Zino Saro-Wiwa. The Nigerian-born artist, raised in England and currently living in Los Angeles, is infectiously enthusiastic as she talks with London about her studies in European history, her move from journalism to art, and how this history, along with her family history, informed the focus of her work. She also shares what she hates to see in art film, her fascination with Nollywood (the "abnormative" films of the Nigerian film industry), and how the style has inspired works from her such as Mourning Class: Nollywood (2010).

Listen to Barbara London Calling on Spotify. (Also available via Apple Podcasts)