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Jane Wang is a journalist focusing on culture, leadership and entrepreneurship.
Pearl Lam has been established as a successful gallerist for over twenty years. But with the advancement of the digital age, gallerists must adapt to incorporate modern developments. Pearl Lam certainly isn’t one to shy away from a challenge, and has tackled the digital age head-on with the launch of her successful and innovative new podcast.
Pearl Lam’s podcast, The Pearl Lam Podcast, has been a phenomenal success in more ways than one. Firstly, for art dealers in the contemporary art world, creating an even bigger digital platform is a sure-fire way of amplifying the promotion of art and artists. Yet there is something more to Pearl Lam’s podcast. There is another layer that when peeled back, reveals deep conversations that have meaning beyond the contemporary art world.
But who is Pearl Lam? Who is the woman behind this innovative new podcast series? The Hong Kong-born Lam is often described as an outspoken gallerist, art collector and entrepreneur. She is a well-known figure in the contemporary art world had has been interviewed by various magazines and publications, including The Financial Times.
In 2008, Pearl Lam founded the China Art Foundation, which promotes a history of Chinese culture and traditions on the world stage and the use of art to bridge cultural understanding.
Pearl Lam Galleries, which are located in Hong Kong and Shanghai, are known for exhibitions that encourage their visitors to re-evaluate cultural practice both within Asia and within the contemporary art world as a whole. The galleries were founded by Lam in 2005 and are recognised globally as well as in Asia. In 2021, Tatler recognized Pearl Lam as one of Asia’s most Influential people.
The Pearl Lam Podcast is a space where Pearl Lam openly discusses navigating the modern world with her guests. One of the most notable things about Pearl Lam is the platform that she has built to support and elevate art and artists. In many ways her new podcast is just another component to the platform that Pearl Lam already uses to relentlessly promote contemporary artists and their art on the world stage.
In the Pearl Lam Podcast episode one, Pearl Lam strikes up conversation with Rebecca Jones, a renowned journalist and former BBC arts correspondent. It is not only art that the two renowned women discuss; they tackle other topics too. Lam describes how Western domination in contemporary art is a legacy of “a colonialism of culture.” This is not a new topic of conversation for Lam, as her galleries have been known to aim to promote cultural conversation and exchange between the Western world and East Asia.
Pearl Lam highlights that non-Western ideas are often communicated in non-Western art and the Western world often overlooks this. Lam and Jones’ conversation then covers other extremely relevant cross-cultural topics and draws attention to details that, like Eastern art, may have been overlooked by their Western counterparts.
In episode two, Pearl Lam continues the trajectory of bringing important cross-cultural topics of conversation to the table. This episode sees an honest conversation between Pearl Lam, who is known for speaking out in support of inclusivity in the art market, and Alayo Akinkugbe, an art historian and a creative social media presence behind the Instagram page @ablackhistoryofart.
This episode is particularly enlightening as the two women cover a huge interdisciplinary range, covering topics such as feminism, racism and gender. These disciplines are woven into conversation in order to create a picture for the listeners about their roles within the world of contemporary art. Lam’s podcast does an excellent job at giving yet another platform to Akinkugbe, who makes some truly excellent points.
The two discuss questions including whether or not there is such a thing as black art and if elitism still exists in the art world. Listening to the podcast, viewers will perhaps be most struck when Akinkugbe reveals that during the first year of her history of art degree at Cambridge University, “we did not touch the work of a black artist… I find that insane”.
Akinkugbe’s revelation reveals a dark truth hidden behind the face of academia and highlights how far we have yet to go until black artists and their art are no longer ‘othered’ from the mainstream art world. Akinkugbe goes on to tell Lam that black representation in art is always “deemed political, even if it’s not political”. The two women’s open and honest conversation may surprise some viewers, but it does much to highlight the hurdles that many black artists still face when entering the contemporary art industry.
Pearl Lam’s next podcast guests are set to be just as interesting as the first two so we should be very excited for the release of the next episodes. Due to be published shortly are Pearl Lam’s frank and honest conversations with Zahra Khan, founder of Feya Café, and Imogen Kwok, Michelin trained chef, history of art scholar and food designer.
Pearl Lam’s conversation with Zahra Khan delves into the topic of gender equality. Khan’s Feya Café is famous for its rose avocado toast, but behind this Instagram-worthy backdrop, a much deeper mission is taking place.
Khan is trying to counteract the gender pay gap and champion gender equality through the artistic meals that her café creates. Khan is trying to do her part to make it easier for women to make their way up in the world. One of her aims is to comply with the UN gender equality initiative and break through the glass ceiling which exists for women in many careers.
Pearl Lam’s conversation with Imogen Kwok covers how contemporary art has evolved in the digital age to cover a broader range of topics including food, interior design and fashion.
Kwok and Pearl Lam discuss how Kwok has interpreted contemporary art in the modern age. Kwok’s modern spin on art has seen her doing a range of activities including cooking for art galleries and reflecting the art within her edible creations. Kwok is very insistent that cooking is an art form, and that anyone who wants to pursue art should have a prior knowledge of cooking in order to create contemporary art to the best of their ability.
Whilst podcasts that cover themes within the contemporary art world do exist already, The Pearl Lam Podcast has an honest and open quality to its conversation and topics. The Pearl Lam Podcast certainly feels on par with its obvious peers including The Lonely Palette, Art History Babes and Art Matters. The Pearl Lam Podcast may be new, but it is certainly finding its voice and occupying a space that needs to be watched beyond the art world.
