Epis: 347- Alexis Rockman on ‘owning’ natural history

Connecticut- and New York City-based artist Alexis Rockman talks about:

His semi-exodus from Manhattan, where he’s lived his whole life, to a rural part of Connecticut called Warren; leaving his Tribeca studio of 33 years and building a new one on the property of their house in Warren; his early love and interest in animals through his archeologist mom’s encouragement which led to everything from keeping fish, turtles and iguanas in his childhood room to going scuba diving and spending a lot of time in Australia, where his stepfather was from, encountering wombats, quolls, and large flightless birds; his appreciation of science fiction movies of the late 60s and early 70s, and how the ideas in those movies were an influence on his apocalyptic paintings; the origins of his painting ‘Manifest Destiny,’ which is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; his recent work, which is in conversation with historic painters – Courbet, Clyfford Still, Peder Balke – and the joy of painting in addition to addressing climate change; how he jumped for joy for ‘owning’ natural history, as a painter, when he first established his artistic vision at the start of his career in the mid-1980s; working as a vision artist for films, including Life of Pi and the remake of the Little Mermaid; and how he feels about his relative ‘fame,’ and the ebbs and flows of success.

If you would like to access Bonus Episodes of the show (releasing once a month, two weeks after this one), please consider supporting The Conversation on Patreon here:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

Epis: 345- House-hunting with a Billionaire; Hungarian artist and architect Andi Schmied and Hungarian billionaire Gabriela

Hungarian billionaire Gabriela and artist and architect Andi Schmied talk about:

Andi’s residencies, across Asia and Europe, as well as the Triangle Arts residency in DUMBO, Brooklyn, where she first connected with her fellow Hungarian, the billionaire Gabriela; some of the developments around the world that led her to the realization that there’s a glut of useless, ultra-wealthy housing that’s not actually being used, particularly a complex of villas about 100 miles outside of Beijing, where the groundskeepers wound up squatting in the empty units; doing a residency in New York in 2016, when she encountered Gabriela for the first time, who would become her key collaborator for what would her project ‘Private Views;’ the world of ultra-high end real estate, including the dynamics of a real estate agent showing a penthouse apartment of a very tall building to a client, and how Gabriela navigated these experiences; the questions the real estate agents showing these penthouses and other very expensive apartments asked, and what that revealed about the world of the ultra-wealthy; the various ways super-tall buildings in Manhattan are impacting everything from income inequality to changing the flora and fauna in Central Park from the long shadows they cast.

If you would like to access Bonus Episodes of the show (releasing once a month, two weeks after this one), please consider supporting The Conversation on Patreon here:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

Art Advisor Lisa Schiff- a re-re-release of Episode 99 from 2015

Art Advisor Lisa Schiff has been in the news over the last two weeks, because of lawsuits being filed against her by clients who weren’t given the artworks they paid for. Schiff has subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

How did this happen? Was there any indication, from the warm and thoughtful conversation I had with her in late 2014, that anything like this might unfold down the road? 

We re-visit Episode 99, from early 2015.

If you would like to access Bonus Episodes of the show (releasing once a month), please consider supporting The Conversation on Patreon here:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

Epis: 343- Flora, Public Art and loving New York even if NY doesn’t love you back: Brooklyn-based artist Nancy Blum

Brooklyn-based artist Nancy Blum talks about:

Her relationship with Judaism, both growing up and as an adult, where her exploration of healing and self-soothing from generational trauma, which ultimately connects with her art; her alternative interpretation of the word ‘therapeutic,’ in relation to art-making, how it can be something deeply personal that artists are trying to share; the use of flowers in her work, which was radical when she started using them 20 years ago, and how their use has risen since the pandemic; her experience making it work as an artist in New York City, where she’s settled after many years living and working as a nomad; how artists can now have successful, legitimate careers anywhere in the U.S., and why she’s chosen to live in NY because it meets her needs and she loves it, even if it doesn’t love her; bringing a Buddhist approach to the way she thinks about her work can career, and how important it is for artists to have the tools to deal with discouragement so that they keep going; questioning what defines success for an artist, and how the distorted perceived norms of success and what we should be or have become vehicles of defeat and low self-esteem for artists; how meaningful it’s been for her to make the public art mosaic for the 28th Street Subway station, and how she wants her public works to do the work- healing, bringing joy to people, etc. – for her; her earliest public projects, which got her into making public art; and why university art teaching was unsustainable as part of her career path.

If you would like to access Bonus Episodes of the show (releasing once a month, two weeks after this one), please consider supporting The Conversation on Patreon here:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

BONUS Epis. 342: Stefanie Kogler-Heimburger, assistant to the curator at Kunstmuseum Reutlingen and veteran museum professional

[this episode is available for Patreon subscribers to the podcast. To become a Patreon supporter, please visit: The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

In this inaugural guest Bonus/subscriber-only episode, museum professional and long-time Conversation listener Stefanie Kogler-Heimburger talks about:

Her pronounced accent in English which sounds not at all like her native German; her podcast consumption, including a German podcast about gin, in addition to art podcasts; her fellow German, and 2-time past guest Lee Wagstaff, from whom she bought a print early in the pandemic; what Stuttgart, where she lives, is like as far as its art spaces and community, including its central museum; her job at the Kunstmuseum Reutlingen as the assistant to the curator, which is part-time and very accommodating as a career in terms of being able to work from home and being paid for maternity leave (she had a year off); but also, the challenges of the museum curating hierarchy, in terms of advancement, and existing in the job as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a necessity in a world that is chronically underfunded, and how one gets treated with that ‘nice to have’ status; the work she does as assistant to the curator, including a lot of PR & marketing work; working on one of her favorite shows at the museum, with Italian artist Gianni Caravaggio; and we share our own thoughts and feelings about the whole ‘separating the artist from the art’ phenomenon, vis-à-vis Tom Sachs et al; and the douchy-ness of the art world, from the hierarchies to the artists and curators who behave like douches, and whether we’re turning a corner as far as there being too much tolerance on the part of workers, and too much douchery on the part of those in positions of power.

If you would like to access this, and other Bonus episode of The Conversation, please become a supporter of the podcast on Patreon:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

Epis. 341: ‘Class Issues’- artists and class with Berlin artist Norbert Witzgall

Berlin-based artist and co-curator of the exhibition ‘Class Issues: Art Production in and out of Precarity,’ Norbert Witzgall talks about:

The term/phenomenon of “Hope Labor,” which drives the economy of fine art and is based on the presumption that your hard work will pay off when you ‘make it;’ how Berlin has become prohibitively expensive for artists, which among other things has led to artists creating platforms such as the Ministry for Empathy to help artists in need; mental health in connection with artists’ labor conditions; the challenge for migrants in getting German grants, largely because of accessibility and knowledge; the intersectionality of exclusion, which is essentially how access includes less frequently acknowledged statuses such as class background and housing in addition to race and gender; art’s struggle to represent the society at large, using the example that there are no Germans of Turkish descent who are recognized in the art world; homeless artists, in particular a German collective, ‘Anonymous,’ included in ‘Class Issues;’ the poverty of some artists in old age; the transparency they used in ‘Class Issues,’ including production costs for the artworks, the family background of the artist, and what an artist’s pension is/will be; his at one time 11 simultaneous freelance jobs, which meant a big ‘class journey,’ or class switching, between gigs; his decision to re-train as a fine arts school teacher, which he started but then left at 19, coming back this time because he has the life experience to bring with him; and the hope that we can decrease the amount of ‘hope labor’ being put out by many, many artists.

If you would like to access Bonus Episodes of the show (releasing once a month, two weeks after this one), please consider supporting The Conversation on Patreon here:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

The Conversation MIDWAY- between epis. 340 and 341: on the art services industry, including Irving Blum, Daniel Weinberg, Ed Keinholz, Nan Goldin, and Tom Sachs

In this Conversation MIDWAY – between epis. 340 and 341 – I talk about the bonus episode for Patreons, featuring Blum-Weinberg-Keinholz-Rottweiler, as well as talk about the art services industry via the Worst Job Posting Ever Created, the Nan Goldin documentary, and Tom Sachs, among other related topics.

If you would like to access Episode 340A, which features four great stories from Art Can Kill, you can support The Conversation on Patreon here:

The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon

                                

                 

                                                               

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