Our arts editor is retiring after 20 years. Here’s what she learned
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we bring you a special conversation with Jan Dalley, who has just retired as the FT’s arts editor after almost 20 years. When Jan stepped into her job, terrestrial TV ruled, podcasts didn’t exist and the art world wasn’t quite so luxe. And video games? Newspapers didn’t review video games. She joins Lilah in the studio to reflect on how the arts have changed over these two decades (“beyond recognition!”), divulge what the art world is really like (“gruelling”) and share some excellent advice for exploring culture.
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Stay in touch! Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap talking to listeners about culture, and on email at [email protected]. We love hearing from you.
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Jan’s Lunch with 83-year-old artist Michael Craig-Martin is here: https://on.ft.com/4d9rQCF
– A recent profile of artist Tracey Emin: https://on.ft.com/3XPBaa6
– And here’s a column of hers that we love, on the immersive Van Gogh exhibit: https://on.ft.com/4ey7eVt
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos. |
| 0:06.5 | There are some questions that I think a lot of us ask ourselves when it comes to the arts. |
| 0:10.9 | Like what makes something good and what makes it lasting versus a fat? |
| 0:15.1 | Is the art world really as mean as it seems? |
| 0:17.8 | And what are the ways that the arts influence our everyday lives? My colleague, |
| 0:21.9 | Jan Daly, has been the arts editor at the Financial Times for coming up on 20 years, and she's |
| 0:27.1 | been writing about the arts for many more. By the time you hear this, she will be retired. |
| 0:31.7 | She'll still be writing for FT weekend, but this is her last official week on the job. |
| 0:36.2 | And so before she walks away from this wild, prestigious, and all-seeing role that she's been in for so long, we thought we'd use this moment to ask her for some wisdom. |
| 0:45.4 | I'm in London and Jan is with me. |
| 0:47.3 | Jan, welcome back to the show. |
| 0:49.0 | Thank you so much for taking the time. |
| 0:50.7 | Hi, Lila. |
| 0:51.4 | Thank you for having me. |
| 0:52.8 | It's really lovely to be able to kind of say hello and |
| 0:57.1 | goodbye like this. I know. I know. I know. I wanted to ask you first, you know, I know this isn't a |
| 1:03.4 | total goodbye, but I'm just wondering how you're feeling. Are you like ready to go relax in your |
| 1:09.1 | garden? Are you ready to go and just sit in a |
| 1:11.6 | museum and not have to look for a trend? Like, how does it feel? It feels great. I've had what truly |
| 1:18.2 | has been probably the best job in the world for many, many years. And I'm very, very happy for |
| 1:25.2 | somebody else to take it on because I think, you know, new ideas are always important. |
| 1:30.8 | And I will be doing what I love best, which is simply writing about the arts. |
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