Camilla Taylor , Los Angeles artist, and curator of “ My House Burned Down” (at Track16 Gallery ), talks about: Her childhood with complicated religious origins, between her Mormon LDS father and her mother who branched off to start her own organization (some might say ‘cult,’ per Camilla), and how art, for her and many artists, can often fit the functions that people are often looking for in religions (including being part of something bigger than themselves); how she’s really good at compartme...
Aug 09, 2025•52 min•Ep. 378
Brooklyn-based artist and sometimes New Yorker magazine cartoonist Guy Richards Smit returns to the podcast eight years after his first visit to talk about: His admitted high self-regard, paired with self-awareness, which we identify as being rare; our respective experiences and takes on artist blowhards; his history with cartooning, going back to his obsession with gag cartoons, going back to a New Yorker cartoon book he read at his grandparents’ house when he was a kid; how he started making h...
Jul 04, 2025•52 min•Ep. 377
In Episode 376, Alex and Theo Gribaudi-Plytas talk about: Their location in rural France, at the southern end of the Champagne region, where there are tons of vineyards, many of which they take friends from out of town to, and how even in their minimally populated area they see plenty of income inequality; how they met while living in London’s version of dorms for art students, even though they were going to art schools that weren’t at all near each other, and how they evolved from friends to ro...
Jun 07, 2025•47 min•Ep. 376
Marcie Begleiter, an artist based on the Central Coast of California, talks about: artist residencies, including the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology , where she recently did a 4-week residency, including collecting biological specimens/samples; how her time and relationship with the residency evolves over those four weeks, which has lead to artistic breakthroughs; how she likes deadlines, and can structure her residency experience with the clock ticking and puts extra focus on what she’s doing,...
May 10, 2025•47 min•Ep. 375
Oakland-based graphic artist Hugh D’Andrade, author of the graphic novel “The Murder Next Door,” talks about: His first graphic novel, The Murder Next Door, including what led him to finally making a graphic novel after being a big fan of them for a long time; studying fine art at the California College of Arts and Crafts back in the 1980s, and then going back to the same school, now called simply California College of the Arts, to get a masters in graphic novels; graphic novelists who have been...
Apr 12, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 374
In Episode 373, Molly Rice & Rusty Thelin , co-founders of RealTime Arts in Pittsburgh, talk about: The especially niche field of their work, which is the performance of live theater that aligns more with visual art and doesn’t really check any of the ‘theater’ boxes, and how they have interactive elements but don’t confront the audience the way a lot of performance art does (they describe a “lot of conventions around theater… that contemporary audiences have trouble with…”); their series “P...
Mar 15, 2025•50 min•Ep. 373
In Episode 372, the 1st half of the conversation with Amsterdam-based painter and photographer Claire Witteveen , she talks about: Her putting off painting initially in favor of photography, for reasons both practical and related to insecurity, partly based on her mom being an artist who juggled that and being a mother; how she can feel completely disconnected from her photography (mainly when it’s a commercial object), but at other times, especially taking portraits, she feels very connected to...
Feb 15, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 372
Gabrielle de la Puente , half of the art critic duo The White Pube , talks about: A few things people outside of the UK need to know about Liverpool, where she’s based; the origin story of the White Pube, when Gabrielle and Zarina were in art school together; the reputation of Central Saint Martins , the art school where they met, including where it was when they started school, which was already in a more gentrified, corporate atmosphere (they had to use key cards to get into the studios, for e...
Jan 26, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 371
After learning about the Lights Out Meta campaign, a boycott on all Meta platforms from January 19th thru January 26th, 2025, it sounded like a good idea, and after reading about it more extensively, I think it's a necessary one. Here are the articles I quote from in this one-off boycott episode: Meta's pivot to the right sparks boycotts and calls for a user exodus and- Lights Out Meta: R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe calls for Meta boycott to protest rise of US far-right and- Meta Boycott And TikTok Ban...
Jan 21, 2025•12 min
Founder of the SCOPE Art Show , Alexis Hubshman talks about everything from its size (approx. 300,000 sq ft of exhibition space), to the number of galleries exhibited (95 from 27 countries) to how he makes the fair run smoothly; his support of new and emerging galleries, giving many of them rent-free booths, subsidized by their corporate sponsor partnerships; how he sees the accessibility of the art at Scope as a form of open-source experience, emphasizing being welcoming to visitors; how and wh...
Jan 04, 2025•40 min•Ep. 370
In the latest OLD NEWS roundup with Emily Colucci of Filthy Dreams, we start by revisiting our prior, charged exchanged about Louis CK, in which Emily was admittedly a bit of an apologist for him, which alienated some listeners- in this case, while we don’t land on the same page, we do air out our respective perspectives, and Emily dubs herself a contrarian. This leads to a brief discussion of the culture of heterodoxy, which promotes viewing issues from multiple angles as opposed to just your t...
Dec 14, 2024•38 min•Ep. 369
In Episode 368, Tulsa Kinney , artist and now former founding editor of Artillery magazine, talks about: Why she sold the magazine after running it for 18 years, including burnout but also how impersonal she feels the art world has become since its more modest size when the magazine began; the lack of support she/the magazine received from many galleries, while receiving support from institutions like the LA Philharmonic; the dual role she’s had as an art magazine editor and as an artist, and se...
Nov 23, 2024•36 min
In our continued dissection of the OLD NEWS, Emily Colucci and I discuss: Indicted former art advisor Lisa Schiff and her upcoming bankruptcy auction, to be conducted by Phillips; how Paul McCarthy is slowly throwing out his immense artwork, WS (White Snow) , because he can’t store the work any longer, and how he failed to get any museums to buy the work, ultimately deciding to throw the work out piece by piece, which is, of course, logistically challenging (it takes up 4000 sq. ft of space and ...
Nov 02, 2024•36 min•Ep. 367
In the latest round of OLD NEWS with former guest Emily Colucci (creator of the art & culture website Filthy Dreams ), we cover: cancel culture through the lens of James Franco (who was part of our original recording back in 2016) and Louis C.K.; Cai Guo-Qiang’s botched fireworks performance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as part of PST Art’s ‘Science and Art’-themed mega-art event, including injured spectators; our own thoughts and feelings about fireworks, particularly of the neighbo...
Oct 05, 2024•43 min•Ep. 366
The Conversation is doing an Open Call for future guests of the show (thru Oct. 10th)- if you’re interested in being a guest, please submit here: "The Conversation Art Podcast" - Guest Open Call (jotform.com) Brooklyn artist, former hardcore-band singer, and recurring figure in Bianca Bosker’s ‘Get the Picture’), Liz Ainslie talks about: singing in the scream-core band Give Up while she was in college, including how she was able to maintain her vocal cords, and eventually crossing the divide in ...
Sep 14, 2024•59 min•Ep. 365
In this New OLD NEWS episode, Dr. Maiza Hixson and I talk about the profile of recent Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling in the New York Times-- We discuss Darling’s persona as portrayed in the article, his anti-capitalist leanings; what his future as an artist looks like, reading beyond what he says in the article towards his immediate future, having accepted an Oxford professorship; the public notoriety of the Turner Prize as compared with relative accolades in the U.S. (I claim that the Turner...
Aug 24, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 364
Writer, former art dealer, and author of All that Glitters- A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art , Orlando Whitfield talks about: His interest in street photography, and how philosophy and critical thinking led him to apply and then attend Goldsmith’s College; a quick update on his former friend, co-worker, collaborator and employer Inigo Philbrick, who in the book was sentenced to seven years in prison but has since been released, and how he sent a heckler to one of Orlando’s book reading...
Aug 03, 2024•46 min
In Episode 362, artist, curator and recent PhD (from U.C. Santa Barbara) Maiza Hixson co-hosts this episode’s OLD NEWS, featuring updates on: protests, including the case of #metoo being spray-painted onto Gustave Courbet’s painting ‘Origin de monde,’ and how the article had a correction stating that the image was of a vulva , rather than a vagina ; the sentencing of a woman who was involved in the vandalism of a Degas sculpture in Washington, D.C.; the vandalism on the façade of the home of Bro...
Jul 06, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 362
To listen to the complete episode with Adam Henry as well as all past Bonus episodes, please become a Patreon supporter of the podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod New York-based artist Adam Henry talks about: His recently ended show at Candice Madey gallery, and how he defines a ‘successful show’ (a mix of sales, critical dialogue generated, and future opportunities); the advantages of having a fellow artist as a partner, but how it’s also necessary to get alone time when yo...
Jun 09, 2024•48 min•Ep. 361
In the 2nd conversation with author, recovering art worker and academic Valerie Werder , she talks about: the travails of clothes shopping for her job in the blue-chip gallery, not only how fraught it was but how much it brought up class issues as she moved through the sartorial gauntlet, where her appearance as a frosty, inaccessible object was part of her role; the complicated variations of class when it comes to precarity and poverty, including a culture where those who are cultivating an aes...
May 11, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 360
Bianca Bosker , journalist and author of Get the Picture , talks about: The genesis of her deep dive into the art world - working with gallerists and artists, doing art fairs and galleries with collectors, and doing a stint as a security guard at the Guggenheim Museum – which largely came out of her need to learn whether she could learn to ‘see’ like an artist, as opposed to a ‘normie Philistine,’ as she was called by many (she was also, as a journalist, called “the enemy”); the elitism, opacity...
Apr 06, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 359
This episode features the 1st half of the full episode. To get the full version, please visit: Patreon.com/theconversationpod The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon Recovering art worker and author of the novel Thieves , Valerie Werder talks about: Her entrance into the art world via her demanding position at a fancy gallery in her attempt, as a newbie, to get access and proximity to the art world; her ability to conform and comp...
Feb 24, 2024•56 min•Ep. 358
Seattle-based artist and restorer Debra Broz talks about: Living in Seattle, where she moved to from Los Angeles a year and a half prior to our call; how Seattle is full of rule-followers who are also anarchists/anti-capitalists; how she found her Seattle studio, where it was important to have decent heat, especially for her sculptures; her reasons for leaving L.A. for Seattle, and some of the lifestyle differences between the two cities, and how welcoming Seattle has been to her as a new artist...
Jan 27, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 357
Chris Wiley - Artist, New Yorker photography critic, and contributing editor at Frieze - talks about: His fleeing upstate to the Catskills during the pandemic, and what his relative disconnect from the art world and the city has been like since the move (though he still keeps a small apt. in the city); the differences between English and American artists in terms of academia vs. the market; his epic two-part articles on Zombie Formalism, which covered not just the movement as a market phenomenon...
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 356
Michael Finkel discusses the remarkable story of Stéphane Breitwieser , the subject of his recent book, The Art Thief , including: The genesis of the book project, starting with a three-paragraph article, and eventually turning into a 10+ year-project; the style and methods of theft that Breitwieser and his partner, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, put to work; Michael’s favorite Breitwieser crimes; his widely oscillating perception of Breitwieser, from a selfish brat to ‘the best art professor I’ve e...
Oct 14, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 354
This special episode features return-guest-but-more-co-host Deb Klowden Mann to discuss the recent New Yorker profile of mega-dealer Larry Gagosian . Deb starts us off by updating us on her closing of her eponymous gallery due to multiple health issues, which made the work unsustainable. We follow that update with our discussion of the article, including: Our respective histories with Gagosian and/or his collectors mentioned in the article; how Gagosian’s decision to allow the profile may be bec...
Sep 02, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 351
Long Beach-based artist and former produce field worker Narsiso Martinez talks about: Growing up in a small town in Oaxaca, Mexico (Santa Cruz Papalutla), with several brothers and sisters, and a mom and dad who were often on the road for work; his resistance and questioning of working in the fields, something his family did when he was growing up as a way to have food on hand in tighter times; a very condensed version of his travails in crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S., which took ...
Aug 05, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 349
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 fairly 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 anthropologist mom’s encouragement which led to everything from keeping fish, turtles and iguanas in his childhood room to going scuba diving and spending ...
Jul 01, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 347
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 th...
Jun 04, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 345
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, and 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 would happen down the road? We re-visit Episode 99, from early 2015....
May 26, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 99
