Hyperallergic Reviews editor Dessane Lopez Cassell and Documentary associate editor Dan Schindel join me to discuss our favorite films from 2019. We discuss Parasite , The Farewell , America , High Life , Midnight Traveler , the new frontiers of documentary, including Syrmor , The Giverny Document , and more. We also discuss the recent boom in superhero movies, how they dominate conversation about film, Martin Scorsese’s problems with the genre , and what it tells us about movies today. We also ...
Nov 27, 2019•46 min•Ep. 44
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) was founded by women over a century ago, and it continues to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. Its current president, Rosanne Somerson , who is also an accomplished furniture designer, stopped by to talk about the institution and how it has pivoted to stay on top of the field, while serving an increasingly diverse student body. We also discuss the RISD Museum and its recent attempt to repatriate an item in its collection, the financi...
Nov 20, 2019•49 min•Ep. 43
Joan Kee is the rare combination of art historian and lawyer, and she's shared her skills in her new book, Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America , which examines the legal issues major contemporary artists (from Tehching Hsieh to Felix Gonzales-Torres) have confronted in the past 60 years. Kee's research shows that since the 1960s, as artist projects have become more expansive and expensive, the world of lawyers and laws is becoming a bigger part of the equation. From discussi...
Nov 11, 2019•58 min•Ep. 42
Born in 1923 in Pennsylvania to Lebanese parents, Helen Khal would go on to become an important presence in the modern art world of Lebanon as a prominent art critic and artist. A new exhibition at Beirut’s Sursock Museum tells the history of that period through her friendships and relationships with a coterie of artists and writers who would become some of the most important artist voices in the region. Commissioned by Ashkal Alwan for the Sursock Museum's biennial Home Works gathering of lectu...
Nov 04, 2019•59 min•Ep. 41
From nine weeks of protests to an exhibition that was more ethnically and racially diverse than previous years, this year’s Whitney Biennial has a lot to unpack. I asked our associate news editor Jasmine Weber, editor and critic Seph Rodney, and reporter Hakim Bishara to join me to reflect on months of controversy and offer their opinions on the exhibition itself. We discuss favorite works, what may have been accomplished, and duds. You’ll want to hear this. A special thanks to Wanderraven, who ...
Oct 07, 2019•40 min•Ep. 40
Last week, Hyperallergic published a five-part series, titled The Danger Epidemic in Art Handling , on the realities facing art handlers in the United States. The story generated a lot of debate and shocked many who were never forced to think about the conditions workers are forced to endure when assembling and transporting art of all types. This conversation with Hyperallergic Senior Writer Zachary Small and Associate News Editor Jasmine Weber explores the contours of the topic, the difficultie...
Sep 12, 2019•31 min•Ep. 39
On the first floor of the Gardiner Museum , in the Art of the Americas gallery, there is a large Maya plate dating to the 6th to 7th centuries CE. It features a large deity in the center of the orange and black earthenware object with a band of glyphs around the edge of the dish. This object is well-known to Maya specialists, not only for the mastery of the design, but because of the inscription that not only mentions the name and location of the donor but also explains that it was a plate used ...
Sep 03, 2019•40 min•Ep. 38
Joseph Pierce wants you to question everything, but especially queerness. The Cherokee citizen and Stony Brook University assistant professor believes the moment has come for queer academia to seriously question the roots of their discipline, and ask how the field can expand to include more voices outside the Euro-American canon of Judith Butlers and Jack Halberstams. "When we think about queerness," Pierce explains, "it's seen as a universal theory that can be applied everywhere. But often what...
Aug 09, 2019•28 min•Ep. 37
There's a curious collection of 18th-century porcelain figurines displayed on the second floor of the Gardiner Museum. Set amidst an impressive display of European ceramic table wear and figurines, this small assortment of Harlequin sculptures don dark masks that stand out for contemporary audiences. One of the colorful sculptures is by Wenzel Neu and hails from the Kloster-Veilsdorf Porcelain Factory in Germany, c. 1764–65, and beside it is a sign that asks, "Is Harlequin in blackface?" In this...
Aug 07, 2019•32 min•Ep. 36
Canadian artist Shary Boyle is known for her incredible ability to transform clay and ceramic into feats of delicate wonder, using the human body and the history of the material to delve into the undercurrents and meanings often overlooked by contemporary viewers. In the second in a four-part podcast series produced by Hyperallergic in conjunction with the Gardiner Museum 's Community Arts Space: What we long for initiative, she reminds us: "Let us not let the art world homogenize us when we all...
Jul 23, 2019•41 min•Ep. 35
Most of our earliest experiences of art are forged at museums. In this episode artist Kent Monkman recounts his own youth visiting institutions that didn’t reflect the lived reality around him and his Cree community in Winnipeg. Since those formative years, Monkman has become an important voice in contemporary art who challenges the histories told inside the hallowed halls of museums, pushing them to reflect the complexity of the world around them. He is an artist who teaches us to imagine the w...
Jul 09, 2019•32 min•Ep. 34
During this special Pride Month, I knew we'd all need the wisdom of artist Nayland Blake, who is a leader in the field of queer representation and art, but that is one of his many talents as an artist, activist, educator, and innovator. This episode, I talk to Blake to learn about their experiences growing up biracial and queer in New York, going to school in Southern California, their formative years in San Francisco, and their return to New York. They also school me on kink. A special thanks t...
Jun 17, 2019•57 min•Ep. 33
Morehshin Allahyari has been capturing the imagination of art lovers the world over since her Material Speculation: ISIS series from 2015-16 propelled her into the spotlight. For that project, she recreated objects destroyed by the ISIS terrorist organization in Iraq. For that ambitious endeavor, she used the few images she could collect of the artifacts themselves and then 3D printed them in a beautiful translucent material that revealed a USB — filled with the related data — buried deep inside...
Jun 11, 2019•48 min•Ep. 32
What is June, really? It's a time for the LGBTQ community to come together and reflect on the ongoing fight for equality, even as we honor the hard-won achievements by queer activists past and present. It's also an opportunity to reflect on the rich creativity and diversity of our friends and chosen families. That's why Hyperallergic is putting a special spotlight on the queer arts community this month. Writers, philosophers, activists, illustrators, painters, sculptors, poets, filmmakers, perfo...
Jun 10, 2019•22 min•Ep. 31
Paola Antonelli is the Museum of Modern Art’s Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture & Design, as well as the institution’s Director of R&D. She’s also — like me — a fan of the beloved arts organization Eyebeam . This month, Eyebeam celebrates its 20th anniversary, and Antonelli will be the keynote speaker at the celebration. I sat down with this leading curator to discuss the world of design, tech, and what organizations like Eyebeam are doing to change the landscape. A specia...
Jun 09, 2019•41 min•Ep. 30
Last year, editor Elisa Wouk Almino relocated from Hyperallergic’s New York-based office to Los Angeles to help expand coverage along the West Coast. In this podcast, she chats with Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian about her initial impressions of the city, where artists have been increasingly flocking to. We then speak with Catherine G. Wagley, a veteran Los Angeles art critic and reporter who has contributed nuanced op-eds and reported stories to the site. She shares her thoughts on why Los Ange...
May 31, 2019•33 min•Ep. 29
When news that Michael Rakowitz withdrew from the 2019 Whitney Biennial was published by the New York Times on February 25, people wondered why the Iraqi-American artist decided to sit out the biannual art event. Later, in April, when the Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything opened at the Jewish Museum, many people noticed that Rakowitz's work about the renowned Canadian crooner’s relationship with Zionism and Israel — which appeared in the original exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de ...
May 17, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 28
The business of artists's estates is becoming a big business, but the realities facing artists today aren't always as glamorous as some might think. For every multi-millionaire dollar Robert Rauschenberg estate, there are thousands of lesser-known talents whose families have to confront the tough decisions about what to do with hundreds of artworks and archives. To sort out the realities facing artists and their loved ones, I invited two experts in the field who deal extensively with artist esta...
Apr 17, 2019•44 min•Ep. 27
A business and financial literacy conference, the Art World Conference is gathering together 50 speakers for panel discussions, conversations, and in-depth workshops addressing many of the challenges faced by visual artists and arts professionals who work closely with artists. The multi-day event is the brainchild of Dexter Wimberly and Heather Bhandari, two veterans of the art field who bring decades of expertise to the table. I invited Dexter and Heather to the studio to talk about the changin...
Apr 15, 2019•37 min•Ep. 26
What if artists were invited into institutions of higher learning to lead conversations about safety, community, and change? Artist Shaun Leonardo was invited to be the visiting fellow at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and he's been organizing a series of events that are trying to break down the barriers between various aspects of the Pratt community. I invited him, along with Jane South, who is the chair of the Fine Arts Department within the School of Art at Pratt Institute, to discuss the c...
Mar 31, 2019•36 min•Ep. 25
In Canada, an incredible new program allows doctors to prescribe museum visits to their patients. Hyperallergic's Zachary Small visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to talk with Stephen Legari, the first full-time art therapist on staff at a North American museum (he sees 1,200 patients a year), about his work in the city's encyclopedic museum and what role art can plan in healing. It's a fascinating story that might also point to new possibilities for art museums eager to play important rol...
Mar 22, 2019•30 min•Ep. 24
He launched into the screens of the internet savvy almost a decade ago, as a lively and unconventional Twitter commentator about the Arab Spring, but Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is now known as one of the most passionate champions of Middle Eastern art. Founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, Al Qassemi joins us to talk about the state of Middle Eastern art and discusses some of his favorite artists from a region that still isn't well represented in the world's modern art museums. One thing you can d...
Mar 07, 2019•40 min•Ep. 23
In 2002, artist Lisa Ross found herself in China. She decided to venture to the far western regions of the country, which she heard were home to a predominantly Uyghur population. She would return numerous times after that to document many aspect of a community that was about to change forever. Her photos are haunting, since they represent a world that is no longer there, as the Chinese authorities are imposing strict assimilationist policies on the local populations. It is believed that over a ...
Feb 28, 2019•52 min•Ep. 22
It was a snowy week in Brooklyn, so some of us decided to gather in the podcast studio to talk about the world of art, giving you a small window into the conversations that happen in our office every day. Hyperallergic editor and critic Seph Rodney and news editor Jasmine Weber join me to talk about what they’re excited about right now: Burger King’s Warhol commercial for the Superbowl, Venice’s new tourism tax , the new Museum of Modern Art expansion , the Museum of the Bible CEO’s ridiculous r...
Feb 15, 2019•33 min•Ep. 21
There are many illuminating moment’s in Hal Foster’s Conversations about Sculpture (Yale University Press, 2018) with Richard Serra, including the discussion of the infamous “ Tilted Arc ” sculpture, Serra's formative years as he battled with Minimalism and Conceptual Art, his idea’s around site-specific art, and the role of text and image in his oeuvre. This podcast begins with Serra’s own voice from a SFMOMA clip that asks the question, “Why Make Art?” and continues with a little adventure to ...
Jan 24, 2019•28 min•Ep. 20
Memes are the street art of the social web, and they are becoming more central to the political and cultural conversations we have. In her new book, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, An Xiao Mina helps us understand how memes influenced the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, Black Lives Matter in the United States, and Women’s Marches around the world. She explores how memes can help people express public dissent in environments where that ca...
Jan 10, 2019•44 min•Ep. 19
Last year, we invited artist, writer, and Queens College professor Chloë Bass to talk with curator, art historian, and museum veteran Lowery Stokes Sims to have a conversation of their choosing. It took me a year to publish this podcast, but I’m happy to say their words are more relevant today than ever, as the two art world figures discuss the imagined publics of contemporary art, public and private education, and the challenges of empathy and identity in art. Bass is no stranger to Hyperallerg...
Dec 07, 2018•52 min•Ep. 18
It’s rare for an artist to have two concurrent solo shows in the same city, but Didier William accomplished that with his Curtains, Stages, and Shadows, Act 1 & Act 2 . The two-part exhibition explores the formal and narrative possibilities of painting. In his review of Act 1, critic Seph Rodney focuses on the figures that can appear as elusive as they are powerful, writing: These are all figures ready to enact real violence with the cutlasses, and they are also figures who are depicted as s...
Nov 30, 2018•29 min•Ep. 17
Sir Sargent, as he’s known on social media, represents a new wave of art writers and critics focused on Black contemporary art and its evolving role in an international African diasporic consciousness. He was born in Chicago as Antwaun Sargent, and has called New York home since 2011. When he first arrived in New York City, he was a kindergarten teacher, but he soon discovered his interest in telling the stories of Black artists and sharing his insights on into a contemporary art world often per...
Nov 15, 2018•47 min•Ep. 16
Tyler Green may be best known as the journalist and art writer behind the Modern Art Notes podcast, but for the last six years, he’s also been working on a major book about a photographer who helped establish the sublime visual record of the American West for viewers around the world. In his new book, Carleton Watkins: Making the West American , Green writes a very readable story about a figure who blended art and science, helped establish photography as an art, and whose images helped galvanize...
Nov 09, 2018•46 min•Ep. 15
