This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' covers three main stories. Host Ben Luke discusses the mood at the Frieze art fairs in London with art market editor Kabir Jhala, amid ongoing debate about the health of the art market. The episode also explores Hypha Studios, a UK initiative that provides free exhibition and studio space to unrepresented artists in vacant properties, which has just launched an online sales platform called Hypha Curates. Finally, the podcast features a 'Work of the Week' segment on a Renoir drawing from the 1880s, a study for 'The Great Bathers,' now on view at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York as part of the exhibition 'Renoir Drawings.'
The episode matters because it captures the tension between the high-profile commercial art market—represented by Frieze—and the grassroots, alternative art world that supports unrepresented artists. Hypha Studios' new online platform signals an innovative model for artist support beyond traditional galleries. The Renoir exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum, which will later travel to the Musée d'Orsay, offers fresh scholarly insight into the artist's working process through his rarely seen drawings.