(Originally recorded December 6, 2020) Artist Rick Jones joins us to discuss something everyone is talking about. The world was agog when a metal sculpture mimicking the appearance of classic minimalism appeared on public lands in the Utah Desert. We digress into all sorts of art nerd conversation.
(Originally recorded January 6, 2020) recorded Conceptual art giant John Baldessari died at age 78 just after the new decade dawned. This tribute to him was recorded as news of the passing broke.
(Originally recorded December 6, 2019) Perhaps symptomatic of art world excess or merely a poetic meditation on the absurdity of concept as a commodity, Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to a wall and priced it in six figures and brought the 2019 Art Basel Miami Beach fair to a standstill.
(Originally recorded November 27, 2019) Long before he painted the official portrait of President Barack Obama, artist Kehinde Wiley was making historic inroads into the mainstream art world. With this signature piece in his oeuvre, he got more recognition for a signature style that defines its very times. Does this make him the artist of …
(Originally recorded November 24, 2019) The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art saw its employees vote to unionize in November of 2019. It was a momentous shift in institutional consciousness in a time when museums are demanding a higher political consciousness of their audiences. How does that shoe feel on the other foot?
(Originally recorded November 12, 2019) Kerry James Marshall, long a prominent African-American artist, rocketed to superstardom in the “TEENS” decade. Were his pictorial accomplishments, exhibitions and record auction prices enough to crystallize him into art history acknowledging him as the artist of the decade?
(Originally recorded November 20, 2019) A legendary political and cultural dissident, artist Ai Wei Wei was too big for China to kill. Exiled outside of the People’s Republic, he spent the decade of the “The Teens” making art and standing as a beacon of hope against oppression. But is his art really that great and …
(Originally recorded November 15, 2019) In a decade that saw Street Art rise to become a dominant, mainstream phenomena, J.R. stood above the pack and made a poignant homage to regional everyday people manifest as heroic outdoor odes to the greatness in us all. Was this enough to make him the artist of the decade?
Albert Oehelen is an anomaly in art – infinitely talented as a draftsman he chooses to make purposefully bad paintings to reveal the very nature of painting itself. But is that enough to make him the artist of the decade?
(Originally recorded November 11, 2019) Nan Goldin has enjoyed career success few artists will ever know. But her importance as an artist was something she used to draw attention to the evil Sackler family and their complicity in America’s opioid epidemic. Is bravery outside of one’s art enough to make one the artist of the …