Popular Reviews of Death of an Artist

This podcast was True Crime for smart girls. Helen Molesworth brings her curator's perspective to the question of whether it is ethical to separate the artist from the art, asks why the art world practiced silence in the aftermath of this murder, and honors the life and work of Ana Mandieta. Highly recommended.

A few episodes in I was texting artist friends, begging them to hurry up and listen to this podcast so that we could talk about it. Although it is framed by a crime story, this is NOT a true-crime podcast. Molesworth’s insights into the experience of women in the art world, then and now, are trenchant and her questions are unflinching.

This slickly produced podcast investigates the suspicious death in New York in 1985 of US-Cuban performance artist Ana Mendieta, who fell from the 34th floor of the apartment she shared with her husband, sculptor Carl Andre.Hosted by prominent curator, Helen Molesworth, the podcast interrogates themes of power, race and gender in the moneyed and overwhelmingly white art world, then and now. (Episode 6 is the narrative climax: the following episode charts worthy but unsurprising data on the art world’s lack of diversity, better delivered as website notes.)

It was an interesting listen. Art culture hides the murder of another artist by another artist. High priced lawyers do their work, and it all goes away.