Today on The Art Bystander, our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Francesca Grima — Creative Director of GRIMA Jewellery, and the guardian of one of the most influential design legacies in modern jewellery.

Her father, Andrew Grima, changed everything. Often called the father of modern jewellery, he treated gold like sculpture, embraced raw stones in their natural form, and pushed the art of adornment into the realm of architecture and abstraction. His pieces were worn by royalty, collected by icons, and displayed in major museums — yet his spirit always remained independent and quietly rebellious.

Francesca has carried that legacy forward in her own way. Since taking over the house in 2007, she’s reimagined GRIMA as a contemporary atelier — producing small, handcrafted collections and bespoke pieces alongside her mother, Jojo. Each work still bears that unmistakable GRIMA DNA — sculptural, textured, and fearless — but now infused with Francesca’s own sensitivity to form, emotion, and modern life.

In our conversation, we’ll talk about what it means to inherit and evolve a creative legacy, the emotional side of making wearable art, and how Francesca balances intuition, heritage, and innovation in a world that moves faster than ever.

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The art world is undergoing a profound transformation. Traditional models of collecting and dealing are giving way to new players, platforms, and hybrid business models that blur the lines between galleries, auction houses, advisors, and digital marketplaces. At The Art Bystander, we are closely following these shifts—where technology, luxury, and creativity intersect to redefine how art is experienced, bought, and sold.

In this context, our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Elliot Safra, a figure at the forefront of these changes. Safra is the co-founder of The Art Marketplace, an online platform facilitating global private sales, and the founder of AndArt Agency, a creative consultancy dedicated to building collaborations between luxury brands and the art world.

With a background that includes leadership in the Chairman’s Office at Christie’s and as Senior Director of Global Strategy at Lévy Gorvy (now Lévy Gorvy Dayan), as well as early experience in Management Consulting and Private Equity, he brings a unique vantage point on how the evolving art economy is reshaping opportunities for collectors, brands, and cultural institutions alike.

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In this episode, our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar turns the spotlight on two art fairs that have each shaped the mid-tier ecosystem in distinct ways.

The Affordable Art Fair, founded in London in 1999 by Will Ramsay, has grown into a global franchise with editions in over a dozen cities — from Hong Kong to Hamburg, New York to Stockholm. With its price cap of around €10,000, the fair has opened the art market to tens of thousands of new collectors and offered emerging artists a platform to reach international audiences. Representing AAF in this conversation is Carl-Wilhelm Hirsch, who has helped steward its mission of accessibility and growth.

The Volta Art Fairs, launched in Basel in 2005, are known as the “discovery fair,” championing solo presentations and younger galleries that bring experimental voices to the fore. Active today in both Basel and New York, Volta has built a reputation as the place where collectors often encounter artists just before they break through. Here, we hear from Francesca Starling, who has been instrumental in shaping Volta’s evolving vision.

Together, these two fairs embody a vital counterpoint to the mega-fairs that dominate headlines. They prioritize intimacy, accessibility, and discovery — serving as laboratories where new collector generations are nurtured and where artistic risk-taking remains possible.

As always, I’m fascinated by how the future of the art market unfolds, and conversations like this reveal how fairs at this scale — human, innovative, and open — might shape the next chapter of global collecting.

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In this episode ofThe Art Bystander, the host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar, is meeting a guest who is one of the most distinctive cultural commentators of her generation: Brenda Weischer, known to many simply as BrendaHashtag.

Brenda is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose work moves fluidly between fashion and art. A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, she has always approached fashion less as a marketplace and more as a form of cultural language and archive.

She first made her mark with Disruptive Berlin, a project that treated vintage fashion as living cultural memory. Later, during her time as Fashion Editor at 032c, she developed Brenda’s Business—a series of interviews and essays that quickly became essential reading for their fearless look at designers and creatives through the lens of philosophy, critique, and cultural storytelling.

At the same time, she built a wide audience as BrendaHashtag—a voice that is direct, unfiltered, and unmistakably her own. Her sharp commentary, minimalist aesthetic, and instinct for connecting fashion back to art, identity, and culture have made her a reference point far beyond the fashion industry.

Today, through her own podcast Brenda Awareness, she continues to create dialogues that are as much cultural reflections as they are interviews.

What fascinates me about Brenda is the clarity of her vision: she doesn’t play a role, she embodies it. She shows us how fashion, writing, and culture can merge into one continuous practice of thinking and making.

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In this episode, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar of The Art Bystander is honored to have Camilla Engström as guest—an artist whose bold, dreamlike paintings have captured audiences around the world. Born in Örebro and now based in Los Angeles, Camilla has developed a unique visual language where landscapes, flowers, and the female form intertwine—often playful, always deeply connected to nature, and full of vitality.

This September she opens her ninth solo show with Carl Kostyál, Två Hjärtan, at Hospitalet in Stockholm. The exhibition is a true full-circle moment: her very first show with the gallery was also at Hospitalet, back in 2022, and now she returns to the newly restored space as one of their most celebrated artists.

What makes this show especially meaningful is that Camilla is expecting her first child. The works are infused with that experience—pregnancy as transformation, as mystery, as strength. As she herself has said, the presence of the female form is intentional, a way to center and give shape to this life-changing journey. After this exhibition she will take a hiatus, making Två Hjärtan the last chance for audiences to see new work from her for some time.

In today’s conversation we’ll explore her evolution as an artist, the inspirations behind her latest paintings, and how personal transformation is shaping her practice.

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In this episode of The Art Bystander, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Alexandre Diop — one of the most compelling and radical voices in contemporary art.

Born in Paris in 1995 to a Senegalese father and a French mother, Diop lives and works in Vienna. His practice spans painting, sculpture, and assemblage, anchored in what he calls “object-images” — emotionally charged compositions made from discarded doors, rusted metal, fabric, and street debris. His work doesn’t just recycle materials — it resurrects them. Each surface holds a memory, each gesture a call to truth, justice, and spiritual reckoning.

Diop’s art operates in the tradition of Arte Povera, but is equally shaped by his Afro-European roots, Berlin’s rave scene, and Vienna’s expressionist legacy. At once poetic and political, his works are raw, deeply autobiographical, and grounded in the belief that art should speak directly — “from the street, to the street.”

In his most recent exhibition at CFHill in Sweden In Puer Veritas, Diop enters into a bold transgenerational dialogue with Keith Haring’s subway drawings. “In puer veritas” — “in the child lies truth” — becomes a mantra for both artists’ shared commitment to radical honesty, social responsibility, and art as public testimony. Diop paints on abandoned doors as Haring once drew on subway billboards — urgent, unfiltered, and unafraid. As Diop puts it:

“Children don’t judge. They see with clarity. Haring and I create from that place — not just for children, but through them. They inherit the world we paint.”

In 2022, Diop was selected by Kehinde Wiley for the Reiffers Art Initiatives mentorship, leading to major solo exhibitions and a residency at the Rubell Museum. In 2026, he will become the youngest artist ever to have a solo show at Vienna’s Albertina Museum.

This is an artist who doesn’t just challenge the art world — he reimagines its materials, its histories, and its soul. Let’s dive in.

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The Art Bystander No27: Marcus Jansen. In this episode our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar, sit down with internationally acclaimed artist Marcus Jansen whose work has been exhibited at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and Documenta among others. From his early years between the Bronx and Germany to serving in the U.S. Army and later becoming one of the most important painters of his generation, Jansen’s journey is as compelling as his art.

His new exhibition Faceless at CFHILL, Stockholm, in collaboration with Almine Rech and the Marcus Jansen Foundation, dissects power structures, anonymity, and the systems that shape our lives. Jansen’s raw, gestural abstraction meets a deeply political and emotional narrative, making his work a powerful lens through which to view contemporary society.

We talk about: His transition from soldier to artist; the unseen forces of control in today’s world; how his art challenges historical narratives; the intersection of street art in his practice and the socialist structure of the military.

Jansen’s work has been described as a 21st-century response to Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg, but his voice is distinctly his own—urgent, fearless, and unfiltered.

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In this episode of The Art Bystander, host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar engages in a captivating conversation with Cristina Ljungberg, founder of the Firestorm Foundation—a non-profit organization based in Stockholm that was established in 2021 to support female and nonbinary artists while fostering inclusivity in the art world. Cristina opens up about the foundation's mission to champion underrepresented voices through impactful acquisitions, collaborations, and partnerships.

The Firestorm Foundation’s impressive collection features works by groundbreaking artists including Louise Bonnet, Louise Bourgeois, Arvida Byström, Ann Böttcher, Lena Cronqvist, Cecilia Edefalk, Marie-Louise Ekman, Dame Tracey Emin, Marisol Escobar, Leyla Faye, Edith Hammar, Katrine Helmersson, Sigrid Hjertén, Josefina Holmlund, Tove Jansson, Gittan Jönsson, Barbara Kruger, Lotte Laserstein, Martina Müntzing, Cindy Sherman, Monica Sjöö, Ylva Snöfrid, Paloma Varga Weisz, Ambera Wellmann, Ulla Wiggen, Kennedy Yanko, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Hilma af Klint, and Barbro Östlihn. Each artist represents a unique perspective and contributes to the foundation’s mission of showcasing art that challenges conventions and sparks meaningful dialogue.

Cristina also shares insights into the foundation’s partnerships with leading institutions such as Moderna Museet, the Guggenheim, the Swedish Institute in Paris, and the Stockholm School of Economics. These collaborations focus on research, exhibitions, publications, and artist dialogues that amplify the foundation’s impact on the cultural landscape.

Join us for an inspiring discussion on the transformative power of art, the importance of diversity and representation in the creative sector, and the stories behind some of the most influential artists shaping contemporary culture.

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