Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join host Andrew Goldstein every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

There are a lot of things about 2020 that we’d all like to forget, but bright spots still shined through, too, including here on the Art Angle.

To celebrate the podcast’s first full year, our producers compiled a chronological quintet of their favorite episodes from the past 12 months. They cover ups, downs, and in-betweens; activists standing up, fugitives running for cover, and outsiders building something new; art history, the political present, and what might come next.

Put it all together, and the collection provides a whirlwind audio tour through a kaleidoscopic year in the borderlands where the art world meets the real world.

Listen below and subscribe to the Art Angle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. (Or catch up on past episodes here on Artnet News.)

1. How the Art World Fell Under the Spell of the Occult – January 28

If you’ve ever wondered how or why pagan imagery, witchcraft, spiritualism, and other branches of the occult became one of the most prominent propellers driving contemporary art today, author and critic Eleanor Heartney has the answers you seek, traveler.

2. How an Art-Dealing Prodigy Became the Market’s Most Wanted Outlaw – March 3

Artnet News senior market reporter Eileen Kinsella charts the rise and fall of Inigo Philbrick, the fast-rising young dealer who disappeared into the mist after a slew of lawsuits cast his success as a product of fraud rather than business savvy. (Philbrick was eventually apprehended on a South Pacific island in June.)

3. Four Artists on the Front Lines of the George Floyd Protests – June 5

Ebony Brown, Candy Kerr, Marcus Leslie Singleton, and Darryl Westly give searing firsthand accounts of their experiences as Black American artists who turned to collective action in the wake of the tragedy that pushed social and racial justice to the forefront of the national conversation.

4. The Secret Art History of Burning Man – August 27

Burning Man cofounder and photographer Will Roger takes listeners on a rollicking odyssey through the counterculture festival’s history, from its origin as a casual beach party between friends, to a global phenomenon in the Black Rock Desert that is rewriting the definition of 21st century art.

5. Ed Ruscha and Jimmy Iovine on How Art Can End the Trump Era – October 28 

It’s not often you get to hear one of contemporary art’s greatest living talents hold court with one of music’s greatest living producers on the sociocultural power of art, but it happened here on the Art Angle just ahead of the 2020 presidential election. (You can also find the transcript here.)
Thanks for listening, and see you next year!