Time Sensitive

The novelist, essayist, and short-story writer George Saunders—widely celebrated for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), which won the Man Booker Prize, and book of short stories Tenth of December (2013)—has made it his mission to “de-dullify” the world through his clear-eyed, empathic, often-puckish prose. There’s an unwavering spirit of generosity embedded in the way Saunders tells stories and teaches his craft that ensures his readers and students alike stay along for the ride. Saunders’s curiosity about the afterlife, a recurring motif in his writing, rises to the fore in his latest novel, Vigil, which follows a pair of ghostly figures as they visit the deathbed of a prideful, climate-change-denying Texas oil tycoon.

On this episode, he shares how practicing meditation has shifted his approach to writing and his outlook on life, the underlying importance of humor in his work, and why to be a good storyteller is akin to being a good host. 

Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

George Saunders

[04:34] Vigil (2026)

[04:34] Lincoln in the Bardo (2018)

[19:18] Master and Man and Other Stories (1895)

[19:18] Tolstoy

[27:41] CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996)

[30:22] Esther Forbes

[30:22] Johnny Tremain (1943)

[35:03] John Steinbeck

[35:03] The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

[36:58] Kurt Vonnegut

[36:58] Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

[42:13] Terry Eagleton

[42:30] Mary Karr

[42:43] Jack Handey

[47:19] Jimi Hendrix

[53:13] Aldous Huxley

[56:11] Tobias Wolff

[59:22] A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021)

There’s an animate quality to the biomorphic sculptures of the self-taught, Utah-born artist Alma Allen. His works, carved from wood, marble, and bronze—and informed by his deep appreciation for the natural world—appear as if they’re living, breathing things, at once prehistoric and futuristic. Far from fixed objects, they eschew any overt symbolism or predetermined narratives.

For this “site-specific” episode of Time Sensitive, our milestone 150th, we traveled to Mexico City to sit down with Allen inside his family’s home there to discuss his highest-visibility exhibition yet: “Call Me the Breeze,” a solo presentation at the U.S. Pavilion for the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale, opening May 9 and on view through Nov. 22. In addition to his plans for Venice and how he’s been navigating the noise and public debate around his selection for this year’s U.S. Pavilion, he also delves into the hard-to-pin-down nature of his material-forward sculptures and his peripatetic path to art-world ascendancy. 

Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

Alma Allen

[20:04] Issey Miyake

[20:04] Todd Oldham

[20:04] Julio Espada

[26:06] "Call Me the Breeze" (2026)

[29:00] Mauricio Rocha

[29:00] Isamu Noguchi

[32:02] The Sound and the Fury

[32:02] Thomas Pynchon

[32:02] Samuel Beckett

[41:03] Clyfford Still

[39:10] Pierre Soulages

[50:13] Glenn Adamson

[53:00] J.J. Cale

[55:41] JB Blunk

[57:42] Constantin Brâncuși

[57:42] Lynda Benglis

[57:42] Louise Bourgeois

[57:42] Thaddeus Mosley

[59:24] Museo Anahuacalli

[1:04:38] Alma Allen on Park Avenue (2025)

To be in a room with one of the artist and audiophile Devon Turnbull’s texture-rich Ojas hi-fi audio systems may be the closest one can get to being in the studio with the musicians themselves. It’s not a stretch to call what he creates “sound sculptures”: Over the past two decades, Turnbull has built up his company Ojas through experimentation, engineering, and deep exploration, and in recent years, his work has been presented at SFMOMA, as well as at Lisson Gallery, both in New York and London. Currently at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (through July 19), as part of its “Art of Noise” exhibition, he’s showcasing his large-scale “HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3,” with listening sessions on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Turnbull discusses why, while there’s a certain spiritual factor to his practice, he wants to “at all costs, avoid the guru complex”; the role of Japan in shaping his understanding of sonic purity; and the synergistic relationship between D.I.Y. culture and his systems.

Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

Devon Turnbull

[01:34] “Art of Noise”

[14:24] Hamfests

[17:07] Isamu Asano

[18:29] Wabi-sabi

[18:29] Kanso

[18:29] Shibui

[18:29] Mingei movement

[18:29] Theaster Gates

[20:27] Tube Kingdom

[20:27] Stereo Sound

[20:55] Tamura Transformer Company

[26:04] Sound Practices

[27:29] Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)

[28:14] Nils Frahm

[33:09] Alex Calderwood

[33:09] Sarah Andelman

[33:09] Virgil Abloh

[33:09] James Jebbia

[38:43] Toccata and Fugue in D minor

[43:24] Karimoku

[45:17] Kunichi Nomura

[58:45] Arne Jacobsen

[58:45] Poul Kjærholm

[1:00:20] New Sounds

[1:02:35] Fred Again

According to the Japanese-born, New York–based architect Shohei Shigematsu, there’s such a thing as a building being too refined. What matters most, in his view, is creating what he calls “memorable space”: the antithesis of anything lifeless or lacking a symbiotic relationship to the city or its surroundings. As a long-time partner at the firm OMA, Shigematsu leads its New York studio with a sense of openness, radicality, and unexpectedness. This philosophy connects the dots between his multifarious projects, whether they take the form of the new diamond-like extension to the New Museum in New York; the torquing Faena Forum in Miami; or the Casa Wabi Mushroom Pavilion in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. 

For this (serendipitously “site-specific”) episode of Time Sensitive, Spencer met with Shigematsu inside a Hotel Chelsea suite, a fitting location for their long-view conversation on cities, urbanism, mixed-use design, and spaces for art and community-building—with a particular focus on the New Museum. They also discuss Shigematsu’s nearly three-decade evolution at OMA, how he has carved his own distinctive path at the firm, and the ways in which his Japaneseness has come alive through several of his recent building designs.

Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show Notes:

Shohei Shigematsu

[4:33] Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)

[5:10] Rem Koolhaas

[5:47] S,M,L,XL (1995)

[6:59] Delirious New York (1978)

[7:43] Learning From Las Vegas (1972)

[10:57] OMA New York

[21:33] Toyo Ito

[23:20] Universal Headquarters

[26:42] New Museum

[31:55] SANAA New Museum Building

[48:16] Cai Guo-Quiang

[48:16] Taryn Simon

[48:16] “An Occupation of Loss” (2016)

[50:38] Kengo Kuma

[50:38] Alberto Kalach

[50:49] Bosco Sodi

[50:49] Casa Wabi Mushroom Pavilion

[54:22] Wilshire [Boulevard] Temple

[59:58] Tenjin Business Center

[59:58] Toranomon Hills Station Tower

[1:07:14] Olafur Eliasson

Over six decades and counting, the postmodern choreographer and dancer Lucinda Childs has built an exceptional, category-defining body of work grounded in a style that draws as much from “pedestrian,” everyday movements as it does from her foundational ballet training. Emerging out of the 1960s Judson Dance Theater in New York City, Childs founded her namesake company in 1973 and has created more than 50 works since. This year will see two major New York presentations of her pieces—the first, from March 14–15, 2026, at the Guggenheim as part of Van Cleef & Arpels’s Dance Reflections Festival, will restage five of her early dances, most of them silent; the second, titled “Momentary Reprise,” will be showcased at Bard College’s Fisher Center from June 26–28 and include her collaborations with the likes of Frank Gehry, Philip Glass, and Robert Wilson.

On this episode—our Season 13 opener—Childs reflects on her various experimental collaborations with Glass and Wilson; her profound perspectives on time through the lens of choreography and performance; and how she has remained unapologetically steadfast in refining her highly distinctive approach to dance.

Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

Lucinda Childs

[06:23] Philip Glass

[12:46] Merce Cunningham Dance Company

[10:02] John Cage

[12:17] “Pastime” (1963)

[12:36] Judson Dance Theater

[13:19] Yvonne Rainer

[14:04] Robert Ellis Dunn

[15:34] “Calico Mingling” (1973)

[15:38] “Untitled Trio” (1973)

[17:01] Babette Mangolte

[17:29] “Reclining Rondo” (1975)

[17:29] Robert Morris

[29:44] Hanya Holm

[22:59] “Radial Courses” (1976)

[22:08] “Katema” (1978)

[32:30] “Shoulder” (1964)

[37:44] Robert Wilson

[37:44] Einstein on the Beach (1976)

[33:59] Susan Sontag

[33:59] Against Interpretation (1966)

[34:28] Marguerite Duras

[36:34] “Description (of a Description)” (2000)

[46:07] “Dance” (1979)

[48:36] “Available Light” (1983)