The Conversation Art Podcast

14:59

Episode 391- OLD NEWS plus Lucien Smith mini-tribute

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/09/26

This episode is a mix of excerpts from OLD NEWS (Jeff Weiss's nightly email blast of art-related content) and a Lucien Smith obituary, including comments from readers of the obit more than the obituary itself. George Stoll, a comment from The Art Daddy, and passages from a long Atlantic article by Sebastian Smee exploring the career and influence of Norman Rockwell, particularly on the films of David Lynch, round out the episode. In BONUS footage for Patreon, there is more tribute to Lucien Smith

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54:54

Episode 390: a broken plate catapults a career:...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/09/06

Nyack, New York-based artist Rob Strati talks about: Living in Nyack, as far as its local arts community and proximity to NYC; his early artist years in San Francisco, including driving a cab for several years, and eventually getting into tech (starting as a web designer at Yahoo) as a day job, always to support the art even though it became a big part of his then-identity; how his 25 years working in research, marketing and technology all started when he was exposed to web design while staying with

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36:18

Episode 389: The Conversation presents: The Intrepid...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/08/08

"To Post, or Not to Post….That is the Question" In this pilot episode of The Intrepid Artist, the main question asked by a listener is whether sharing (or even having) one's social media plays an important role in grant and open call decisions. Arleene advocates for developing a thoughtful, engaging and empathetic feed, as opposed to one in which an artist is simply constantly sharing work. She wants a feed in which the artist shares who they really are, beyond the gallery setting; whether to use

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52:38

Episode 388: Lauren O'Neill-Butler on Artist...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/06/20

Hunter College professor and author of The War of Art, Lauren O'Neill-Butler talks about: Her 12 years at Artforum magazine, including its balance between advertising and hard-core art writing, and how her chapter on Fierce Pussy was written while at Artforum; the classes on Activism she's taught at Hunter College, which were not to get students to become activists but to make them aware of its history and context; how teaching activism and writing the book were both 'rage containers' but also ways

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50:44

Episode 387: Peter Hujar and Paul Thek's "Wonderful...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/05/23

Writer and Frieze editor-in-chief Andrew Durbin talks about: His book tour for "The Wonderful World That Almost Was," which has been hectic; how he became familiar with Peter Hujar's work initially, and why his and Paul Tek's legacies really took off after their deaths; Peter's persona and personality as someone who could be as charming and engaging as can be, but also someone who flew off the handle with a volatile anger at some in his life, and how he actually using photography to deal with some

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01:04:46

Episode 386- James Delbourgo on the 'Noble Madness'...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/04/25

James Delbourgo, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of A Noble Madness: the Dark Side of Collecting from Antiquity to Now, talks about: Why he's written about contemporary art so extensively, as a history academic who's very interested in the present, going to galleries and wondering who collectors are right now, raising a lot of questions about archetypes for what would become a big part of his book; how collectors can not only be defined as powerful, they can also be defined

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01:09:20

Epis. 385- Useful Art explodes what your sense of Art...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/03/28

John Byrne, author of "Useful Art- How Activist Artists Can Change the World," and professor of Useful Art at Liverpool John Moores University's School of Art and Design, talks about: The city of Liverpool and its art community, with about 20 total galleries, and how he fits into it; where he'll be book touring the book; a key framing in the book, being in a 'neo-liberal occupation' that we live under, which has a huge impact on the culture industries and means the financialization of essentially

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51:53

Epis. 384: Boston artist and lifelong art school...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/02/21

Boston-based photographer Jim Dow talks about: The Boston art community (which is often connected to the art school and universities) and why he's lived there the great majority of his life (he lives in the house he grew up in); he's a dedicated Mass-hole- there's an edge to people there and you have break that edge; how he navigates random passersby when he's photographing for long sessions with his wooden large-view camera (his exposures range from a second to 20 minutes), with people always

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51:00

Episode 383- Sarah Khan: Documenting the Immigrant...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2026/01/17

Hadley, Massachusetts and NYC artist Sarah K. Khan talks about: How it's a "little miracle" to have a studio (a former chick coop on a farm in the 5-college area of Mass.) after so many years working in kitchens and other spaces not dedicated to her work and where she can really spread out; her short films about the immigrant experience in New York via food trucks (particularly her Queens Migrant Kitchens series), and how she was originally motivated to work in this area in 2015 as a way to follow

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54:04

Episode 382: Robbie Conal,from the studio to the...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/12/13

Artist and legendary street artist Robbie Conal talks about: His family history, including his two activist-and-politically inclined parents, his background in fighting the power; moving up to Los Osos (in San Luis Obispo County) as a permanent residence (back after the 2008 crash), but keeping a small place in L.A.; what he misses about not being in the city (he's lived in NYC and SF as well as L.A.); his first big moment with public art, through postering, which was born out of caricature

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53:41

Episode 381- Arleene Correa Valencia: From rural...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/11/15

Napa, CA-based artist Arleene Correa Valencia talks about: Why she lives in Napa, CA, and the two distinct versions of the town, for the wealthy and for the poor ("you're either the owner of the vineyard, or you're working the vineyard," as she put it); how she's the first generation to not be working the vineyards, his dad having worked the vineyard for a period before transitioning to hand-painting etched wine bottles for a winery (which he had to ultimately leave for lack of being paid enough

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56:50

Epis. 380- London-based photographer and writer...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/10/11

London-based photographer and writer Michael Collins talks about: The flat where he’s lived for 35 years, which is getting ‘Wallace & Gromit’ crowded; how he keeps film in his deep freeze (aka freezer) as opposed to anything edible, and how he’s happy to shop for the day, while he points out that Brits see American refrigerators and are overwhelmed by how large they are; and by the way, we’re also bludgeoned by advertising here, compared with the UK and Europe; how he sees our social media

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44:53

Episode 379- artist Linnéa Gabriella Spransy –...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/09/13

Pasadena-based artist Linnéa Gabriella Spransy talks about: Growing up between Wisconsin and a commune in Oregon, the latter which she describes as a complete commitment more than an experiment (the town was Wildeville, Cape Junction being the closest city); how you radically live out the life of Christianity, including giving away all their stuff, and how her father played in a Christian glam rock band that toured the world; having a positive commune experience, yet winding up ‘inevitably becoming

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52:24

378: Artist Camilla Taylor- "My House Burned Down"

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/08/09

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

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51:38

Episode 377- “An artist walks into a bar…” Guy...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/07/04

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 his

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47:13

Merging art & life and leaving the city for the...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/06/07

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

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47:08

Marcie Begleiter on artist residencies, working with...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/05/10

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, and

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01:07:30

“The Murder Next Door,” Oakland-based graphic artist...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/04/12

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

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49:55

RealTime Arts’ Molly & Rusty on interactive...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/03/15

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 “People of

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01:12:13

Painting, photography, and hard but necessary...

The Conversation Art Podcast ·

2025/02/15

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

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