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The Conversation Art Podcast

A podcast that goes behind the scenes and between the lines of the contemporary art worlds, through conversations with artists, dealers, curators, and collectors--based in Los Angeles, but reaching nationally and internationally.
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The Conversation Art Podcast
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Now displaying: Page 2
Oct 1, 2022

In part 2 with ArtNet News critic Ben Davis, we talk about: environmentalism and our approach to the climate, as well his emphasis on finding a good middle ground between overly dire and overly sugar-coated perspectives on the conversation; Christian Marclay’s video works “Telephone” – which Apple co-opted, making their own version when Marclay wouldn’t sell it to them – and “The Clock,” which Ben considers to be Marclay’s response to Apple and its iPhone, and images’ ‘place-lessness’ (which “The Clock” returns to us); how he frames the immersive art trend as a question of ‘what’s at stake here?,’ and how there are many trends that he feels needs to be seen from both sides; Alfredo Jaar’s immersive video in the most recent Whitney Biennial, prompted by the very short time window artists now have to gain viewers’ attention; the case of the lovably ordinary @world_record_egg, an Instagram feed that both parodied and addressed concerns about the effects of social media on our individual psyches as an artistic provocation; and Ben’s own tricky relationship with social media (IG).

Sep 17, 2022

Ben Davis, Artnet News's National Art Critic and author most recently of Art in the After-Culture, talks about:

Cultural Appropriation in its many forms, including in the context of Dana Schutz’s controversial “Open Casket” painting; Conspiracy Theory culture, including how videos connecting Marina Abramovic with satanic cults are far, far more viewed than videos about Marina Abramovic herself or her work; the culture that Conspiracy narratives come from, how they persist (often through individuals’ alienation), and why they become so popular; the luxury of people who get to say ‘neener-neener-neener’ in judgement of those who buy into them (the socially superior judging the inferior); Rubem Robierb’s ice sculpture at a fancy club during Miami Basel, which spelled out Greta Thunberg’s “How Dare You” addressed to politicians, and what that said/says about Art and Ecotopia, i.e. art and climate change; his experiences with the groups ‘Extinction Rebellion’ and its splinter group, ‘Extinction Resilience,” and his continuing involvement with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), among other causes.

Sep 3, 2022

Val Zavala, former anchor/reporter for the long-running KCET (L.A. PBS station) series SoCal Connected and Life & Times talks about:

The ‘Extinction Circle’ group that she was part of for a couple years, meeting once a month to discuss likely human extinction (before the pandemic led the group to slowly disband; meantime she continues to be an active member of her local ‘Death Café’); how approaching humanity’s future is akin to Elisabeth Kubler Ross’ five stages of grief; the oil industry’s campaign of disinformation and its effect on the climate crisis; a profoundly thoughtful Buddhist take on our (humankind’s) fate; relating extinction to former guest Fernando Dominguez Rubio’s study of the preservation of artworks in the museum, and what Val thinks of the lengths museums go to maintain artworks’ longevity; the concept of EA, or Effective Altruism, in relation to human longevity; “Seeding” the future, which is to say leaving a better foundation for future civilizations; and her “New 10 Commandments for Future Generations.”

Aug 20, 2022

New York-based art appraiser David Shapiro talks about:

What he does as an appraiser, whether in-person inspections or putting together reports using photographs at the computer; his involvement with the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection appraisal, which was connected to the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the country; how appraisers value a work of art, from auction records to gallery sales (to the extent that can be verified) to the market as a whole, including trends; turning down offers to appraise works that have no apparent market value; his own career as an artist prior to becoming an appraiser, which included having success selling his work before he was even out of high school; how, when he returned to making art after grad school in art history he had less success, learning about “the fickleness and vicissitudes of the art world,” as he put it; and how he appraises emerging art, including within a market with a lot of movement in values, both up and down.

Aug 6, 2022

New Jersey-based painter and immersive art museum ‘host’ Kate Sharkey talks about:

Transitioning from being a preparator (at MoMA) to getting a job as a ‘host’ at the immersive art museum ARTECHOUSE, where she also does AV/tech work w/the projectors; what her job as host entails, including interacting with and managing guests’ experiences (some who do something called ‘candyflipping')whether or not immersive art experiences are actually ‘art,’ and which immersive art shows have worked best at ARTECHOUSE, particularly a work by Julius Hosthuis; and we talk about whether immersive art exhibits qualify as ‘art’ or ‘entertainment,’ and what other forms of entertainment they’re competing with.

Jul 23, 2022

Maria Brito, art advisor, entrepreneur and author of How Creativity Rules the World talks about:

Giving up on her teenage ambitions to become a singer because of the restrictive culture she grew up in; how from there she wound up being a corporate lawyer as a financially stable option that she thought made the most sense; how she made her way into the world of art advising as a disrupter, seeing that there was a clear lack of passion among many of the advisors and consultants she was encountering; the reasons behind the popularity of figurative painting (of course it has to do with collectors); getting a hold of a Banksy painting for a new client; her approach to becoming an art advisor, including her ambition to demystify the art world; the success of her business coinciding with the democratization of the market via social media (i.e. Instagram); and why she focuses so much on prices and values in describing artists in her book, partly as a way to challenge the stereotype of the ‘starving artist’ that so many non-art people hold on to.

Jul 9, 2022

Vista, CA-based artist Dave Kinsey talks about:

The gallery BLK/MRKT, that grew out of a design studio he co-ran, and launched as a gallery early in the 2000s in Culver City; his coming from a design and skate and graffiti background, and how he and his artist cohort were all generally making post-design, post-skate kind of work, and how they transitioned from street and/or skate and/or graffiti artists to more ‘fine’ art, working across genres; his love and appreciate of KAWS’s work, an artist whom he almost worked with, were it not for a disagreement with his partner; how he bought a property in Three Rivers (near Sequoia National Park), where a pipe broke which led to flooding and the ground turning into a ‘milkshake,’ and forced him, circuitously, into figuring out how to be a full-time artist; his commercial collaborations with big brands (Nike, etc.) and growing his own work in a more personal way; how and why he left advertising and design, and developing a financially sustainable art career; and how he has collected other artist’s work to support their careers as much as his being a fan.

Jun 27, 2022

In this OLD NEWS-oriented episode of the show, I talk about:

Immersive art exhibits, which are booming, much to my chagrin; a follow-up on the art world’s ‘ponzi-like scheme' involving a new participant, “Rich-Kid art,” effects on the art market in both the UK and the U.S. through new laws and regulations, a union formed at Pasadena’s Art Center, reconciling NFT’s with their environmental footprint (and their financial decline), and a painting of a polar bear in the Royal Academy’s Open Call.

Jun 11, 2022

In the 2nd part of our conversation, James and I talk about: working as an assistant for various artists, including making large-scale paintings for other artists, and wanting to be credited for his work, with a title such as “lead painter,” something that officially acknowledges his contributions; and meanwhile, how important the process of the making is to his own work; the things that keep James up at night, from the climate crisis to worldwide political bifurcation…basically, “human tragedy is running deep…;”  further connecting collectors to his work through his artist talk at his recent show; a story he accidentally left out from his talk, that has to do with searching for enlightenment; buying a piece of land in the canyons of Malibu, which became an education in native plants and paying attention to the landscape (his wife is now a landscape designer emphasizing native plants); and how the person he’d like to emulate is not an artist but rather a zen master or the like, someone who lives as fully as possible.

May 28, 2022

Altadena (in L.A. County)-based artist James Griffith talks about:

Discovering the town of Altadena, where they first bought a house, and then a studio building, formerly Altadena’s fire house, back in 1999, and fixing them both up from tear-down conditions; being connected to nature while also being in the city, and not ever buying into owning a cell/mobile phone (although he does use an iPod, which he can text with); having renters in both the converted garage at their home, and in a section of their studio building, providing he and his wife with more freedom to make their art without needing ‘the monthly nut;’ working with tar as his primary medium, which he’s done for well over a decade and gotten a lot of mileage from one 5-gallon bucket of the stuff; and his and his wife’s decorative/faux finish painting business, which his wife launched in the 80s, and allowed them to buy their fixer upper house and studio building.

May 14, 2022

San Francisco-based artist Sarah Thibault talks about:

How she’s the last artist in S.F., or at least so it seems; a ghost encounter she experienced in Edinburgh (Scotland), as well as her engaging in Tarot cards and other new-age spiritual pursuits, largely as a byproduct of the pandemic; her experiences going to a range of artist residencies, from remote ones with just a couple fellow residents in Portugal, to a more professionalized one at Plop in London; the Minnesota Street Project, a subsidized artist studio and gallery complex in SF where Sarah has a long-term lease at ‘below-market rate,’ and the barriers for entry there; her transition from working in executive assistant jobs to becoming a recruiter; and we talk about my concerns about Sarah’s giving me a tarot reading (and spoiler: we eventually do one in a bonus episode to come).

Apr 30, 2022

Freelance art writer (often for the New York Times) and past guest royalty Andrew Russeth talks about:

Why he moved to Seoul, South Korea, where he’s expanded his freelance writing opportunities; a book on Chris Burden’s unrealized sculpture projects, which he wrote about for the New York Times- the book includes a one-stop pneumatic subway under the Gagosian gallery; artists using assistants, and the optics that go along with the various levels of production that certain artists employ, for us as viewers of their work; the art scene(s) and community in greater Seoul, which has a metropolitan population of 25 million, nearly half that of the whole country of South Korea; the vast artist-run gallery scene in Seoul; how some of the trends in Korean contemporary art overlap with international contemporary art, including airbrushed figuration, humor, and meme culture; and last but not least, Andrew holds forth on South Korea’s incredible food and drink culture (including Bibimbap and soju), which has been heaven for him.

Apr 16, 2022

with Fernando Domínguez Rubio, author of Still Life: Ecologies of the Modern Imagination at the Art Museum, he talks about: Storage- how much it takes to maintain it; how museum curators put the longevity of artworks in the context of geological time, when thinking about ‘eternity,’ and how exhibition rooms in museums are effectively ICUs for the art- conditions must be monitored and controlled carefully, because humans, just by their organic natures, are an immediate threat to artworks’ longevity; how exhibition rooms in museums are highly mediated spaces by exhibition designers to control viewers’ experiences; the complex logistics and mimeographic labor that goes into the maintenance of artworks within the museum- where and whether they get loaned, get exhibited, etc.; Fernando’s own experience of violence when he first encountered contemporary art, because, as is the case for most individuals, he didn’t have the grammar for reading the exhibition room; how his working class background, and change in classes as an adult, has informed his focus on the invisible labor at the museum, as opposed to its ‘celebrities;’ and how exhibition spaces have been “conquered for a suspension of common sense.” 

Apr 2, 2022

In part 2 with Fernando Domínguez Rubio, a professor of communications at UCSD and author of Still Life: Ecologies of the Modern Imagination at the Art Museum, he talks about:

The astonishing resources that go into some museum artworks, starting with David Lamelas’s conceptual installation “Office,” which MoMA bought and decided to reproduce, but were reproducing an installation that no longer existed, and yet they did everything they could to be true to the original piece, based only off photographs; the ‘modern aesthetic regime of art,’ and how art that once rebelled against museums and museum inclusion – was anti-institution – is now embracing as many angles of commodification as it (via the artist) can; the savvy machinations of the artist Tino Seghal; and, as part of our discussion of art words and conservation-based artist interviews, we play out a MoMA interview with the artist James Rosenquist, which raises one of Rubio’s big questions: “what is a museum-- is it not a necessary absurdity?” 

Mar 19, 2022

In the first of several parts with Fernando Domínguez Rubio, a professor of communications at UCSD and author of Still Life: Ecologies of the Modern Imagination at the Art Museum, he talks about:

How he got started with the massive eight-year project of this book, beginning with his post-doctoral thesis interviewing numerous people who work at the Museum of Modern Art; how he gained entry into the museum (hint: via the Conservation dept.); the hidden labor that’s done at the museum, as part of something he calls “mimeographic labor,” a process to make objects of ‘the same;’ how most art in the world is in storage – it isn’t seen art – which is definitively the case for museums; how much invisible labor goes into what visitors see in a museum, and to what extent that labor, spread around various parts of the museum and its numerous artworks, is sustainable.

Mar 7, 2022

In this guest-less episode, we ( that is to say 'I') talk about: a new OPEN CALL for future guests of this podcast; the opening reception and the show 'It's My House!,' a group show in Ojai that I'm in; and numerous recent excerpts from Jeff Weiss's OLD NEWS, including stories about the Sacklers' name being taken off institutions, the Waste Museum in Nigeria, the indictment of the (former) sales director for Superblue, and the recently passed auteur Nick Zedd, among other recent art news. It's all capped with a very short story about the Pearlfish, which can be seen here: https://tinyurl.com/yatcyrdq

Feb 19, 2022

In Part 2 with writer Gabrielle Selz, author of Light on Fire: The Art and Life of Sam Francis, we talk about Sam Francis as he:

Settles into his compound at West Channel Road in Santa Monica, and became the big-man-on-campus of the young (1960s) L.A. art scene; his relative absence as a father, his kids being left to run wild or spend time with Sam’s assistants; Sam’s self-empowered and grandiose painting process which included his mantra, “I am an Original” as he began to paint; the profound impact that his fifth (and final) wife, Margaret, had on Sam’s life, because of the way she corralled Sam off from the large and freely flowing group of friends who came in and out of the house(s), as well as how she enabled Sam’s adherence to bogus alternative medicine when he was suffering from cancer; the Dream Machines of his studios in the works, including many compounds simultaneously in development in northern California towards the end of his life; the resolution of his complicated Estate, including a contested will by his last wife; and where one might find Sam Francis paintings these days.

Feb 5, 2022

about: the important first phase of Sam’s long art career, in Paris, where he started working on a big painting from his bed in a tiny hotel room he shared with his girlfriend Muriel; how he was a shrewd businessman and cocky self-promoter, a sort of Orson Welles of the art world; how his first patron, Franz Meyer Sr., told Sam he would buy anything he made, thus freeing Sam and bolstering his confidence and security; how Sam wasn’t tied to place (he was constantly traveling and living in different countries), nor to style; and how lucrative Sam’s career was, including having bank accounts (including Swiss) all over the world, and his philosophy that money flowed through you, and that you should spend it.

Jan 22, 2022

In part 2 of 2 with Los Angeles-based painter Sydney Croskery, she talks about:

connecting with a gallerist -- who has come to represent her – on Instagram, synchronistically; the benefits and travails of her day job as a server, which can be very intense, and could make for a whole other episode; her “Failure CV,” which accompanies the traditional CV on her website, and how in addition to being self-deprecating, has also been empowering; and as a final grab bag topic, Sydney wonders why there are a number of artists who want their work to have no meaning whatsoever (if you know of an example of such work, please reach out and let me know; Sydney didn’t want to call anyone out).

Jan 8, 2022

In part 1 of 2 with Los Angeles-based painter Sydney Croskery, she talks about:

transitioning from representation to abstraction during pandemic lockdown; transitional imagery which included using buffering Instagram screen shots as a source for her painting; making it OK when things are ‘wrong’ in the painting, part of a mandate of being nice to herself; her ambivalent relationship with abstract painting and being an abstract painter, and how she’s navigating that conflict; and her effectiveness telling stories and connecting with artists and other art world folks on Instagram.

Dec 25, 2021

In part 2 of 2 with multi-hyphenate and Artist Decoded host Yoshino, he talks about:

Working through an art-like writing phase, in which he does a mix of automatic writing and poetry, as a counterpoint to his existential crises; NohWave, the gallery in Little Tokyo that he ran with fellow multi-hyphenate Justin Hopkins, and how he saw it as a way of giving back to the community by creating community, citing Sir Isaac Newton’s “I see further because I stand on the shoulder of giants…;” letting go of a competitive mindset as an artist, podcaster and even gallerist- his approach to running NohWave was experimental, thanks largely to a sweet deal given by their landlord; why he stopped doing commercial cinematography; and how for now he’s able to work on his art, his podcast and related projects thanks to a little cryptocurrency investment and a lower cost of living in Joshua Tree.

Dec 13, 2021

In the 1st of two episodes, visual artist, writer, entrepreneur and host of the Artist Decoded podcast, Yoshino talks about: how he shortened his name to the iconic ‘Yoshino,’ thanks to an existential crisis involving leaving the commercial and fashion photography world for the fine art world; doing Brazilian Ju jitsu, Muay Thai, and boxing on a professional level; how he identifies himself, and what being an ‘artist’ means in his case, how as an artist you want to be fluid, which runs counter to capitalist realities; growing up Christian, and his current spiritual place (a spiritually open-minded individual who doesn't have any answers (!)); his move to Joshua Tree, partially due to the spiritual wokeness of LA, and his desire to process information outside of the noisy machinations of Los Angeles.

Nov 26, 2021

Antonio Murado, a New York City-based painter originally from Spain, talks about:

His background in Spain, including several years in the Madrid art scene, before moving to NYC, which he began with a Spanish grant; the commissions that he’s done- how they function as competitions, and then if he gets one, a collaboration with the client, rather than the sort of top-down dynamic that came across in his depiction in Hannah Wohl’s ‘Bound by Creativity;’ the importance of the art agent in setting up a commission; how competing for a commission is like an actor casting for a role; how the sales of his work rise and fall, not only by year but by month, which means there’s no stability;  and his time in the studio (around 65-70 hours/week)- how he spends his days there, and how he takes an old-school craftsman approach, from sizing canvas with rabbit-skin glue to building his own stretchers.

Nov 13, 2021

In the final episode with Hannah Wohl (Bound by Creativity), we talk about: her experiences with mega-collector couple Sherry and Joel Mallin, who have an impressive collection and are known as being philanthropic in their approach to helping artists, including having some of them live in their homes; a purchase the Mallins made that entailed their flying from New York to London just so they could see the (six-figure) work they were considering in person before committing fully to the purchase, and how people’s reactions to this anecdote are something of a Rorschach test for where they’re coming from; the issues of inequality that being around collectors inevitably brings up; her brief history of being a (modest) art collector herself; and finally, in comparing contemporary art with the arts at large (the culinary arts, musicians, actors, etc.), she describes the ‘radical uncertainty’ that goes along with it, how the artists and the art world make decisions within this uncertainty, and the narratives that artists bound themselves within.

Oct 30, 2021

In my penultimate conversation with sociologist Hannah Wohl (author of Bound by Creativity) she talks about: the cynicism of sociologists, particularly when theorizing about art (and in relation to the sculptor St. Clair Cemin in particular); the emergence of the artist Ginny Casey, through her show at Half Gallery; how she describes her own contemporary art sensibility (like most of us: with difficulty), including her appreciation of Wong Ping’s show at the New Museum, and in turn demonstrates the challenges of talking, and writing about art, even for a sociologist who’s written a book about contemporary art; and she begins recounting her experience ‘playing’ a gallery assistant at an art fair (as an unpaid volunteer) for the purpose of her sociological research).

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