The Conversation Art Podcast

Oakland-based curator and arts administrator Zoë Taleporos talks about: Her straddling independent curating and government-supported public art curating/administrating in her role working for the City of Berkeley; how her curating is more about bringing artists in, as artist outreach, but not cultural gatekeeping; why public art looks the way it does, and why the language of public art has remaine...

Amsterdam-based artist Tjebbe Beekman talks about: His show in New York at GRIMM gallery (which just opened when we spoke); his 9-year stint living in Berlin, before moving back to Amsterdam at the time his son was beginning school, and how he misses the big-city benefits of Berlin; the big turning point in his work and in his life, when in a span of less than a couple of years his mother died fol...

Joan Kee , University of Michigan art historian and current Ford Foundation Scholar in Residence at the Museum of Modern Art, talks about: Her residency at MoMA, where she has been looking into expanding their programming to include art that is more international/not from the U.S., but from the 'global majority;' her career trajectory, from art history in undergrad to law school and then corporate...

ICA San Diego director Andrew Utt talks about: Moving back to San Diego, where he grew up, after years away in the Bay Area and South America, and why he did; why San Diego's art community/culture isn't known as an art destination, and how he tries to address that deficiency; his route to becoming a curator, starting with his undergrad years at California College of the Arts, when he went to grad...

Cole Sternberg, artist and creator of the Free Republic of California , talks about: His painting process, which involves exposing his paintings to the elements, including in extreme form, starting with his (and his team's) 22-day-long journey from Japan to the West Coast on a container vessel, exposing his paintings to the wind and even skating them over the surface of the ocean; what went into p...

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...

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...

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 approach...

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...

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 no...

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...

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...

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 footprin...

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 Jame...

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, wh...

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...

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...

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...

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 e...

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 t...

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 d...

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 grandio...

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 con...

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...

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...