Loading...

PODCAST

The NewCrits Podcast

with Ajay Kurian

This is what critical care for the arts sounds like. Meaningful conversations on creative practice and the conditions shaping artistic life today. Tune in on the second Thursday of every month for SPENT with Ajay Kurian, our series on creative burnout and breakthrough, and on the fourth Thursday for The Forum, our recorded artist talks. Subscribe today at newcrits.substack.com or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also join our community for transcripts and archival access via the Substack app

arts visual arts

All Episodes

74:11

The/Forum 25 | Alex Da Corte

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/09/22

Ajay Kurian sits down with artist Alex Da Corte, whose recreations, personas and total immersion into figures from Marcel Duchamp to Eminem have made him one of the most distinct and prolific voices working today. So much so that he has been tasked with co-curating the Whitney Museum’s survey on Roy Lichtenstein with Meg Olni, opening on October 11th, 2026.The conversation begins with the sandwich as a transgressive object — central enough to his practice that the title of one show, As Is Wet

en

71:34

SPENT Episode Six | Vijay Masharani

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/09/10

Ajay Kurian sits down with artist Vijay Masharani for a conversation that begins with a confession about hating the highway and expands into an exploration of cliché, mortality, and what it means to keep making work from inside an unresolved illness.Masharani, who showed in this year's MoMA PS1 Greater New York, talks about his approach to video and drawing — work that hits hard and fast, straight down the middle, refusing easy resolution — and traces how his practice shifted after being diagnosed

en

58:46

The Forum 24 | Ed Solomon

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/09/02

Screenwriter Ed Solomon discusses The Christophers and reflects on his career and creative process. Solomon discusses mentorship, writing intuitively, working with actors, navigating criticism, and finding a way through creative blocks.Hosted by Ajay Kurian00:00 — Welcome to The Forum00:18 — Garry Shandling02:34 — Writing The Christophers04:05 — Trusting the writing process06:37 — When success gets in the way08:37 — Letting the project evolve10:08 — The four stages of competence12:24 — Letting

en

51:21

Episode Title: The Forum 23 | Inside The Studio Panel

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/08/26

Three artists reflect on their experiences working as assistants to established artists. Ian Cheng, Darren Bader, and Jamian Juliano-Villani discuss apprenticeship, authorship, studio culture, and the lessons—both practical and personal—they carried into their own practices.00:00 — Introduction02:36 — Becoming Assistants04:10 — The Studio as Education07:37 — Learning the Craft09:13 — Building the Impossible10:54 — Authorship14:54 — Power & Studio Culture18:37 — Learning Through Failure22:50 — Good &

en

108:13

SPENT: Episode Five | Marc Spiegler

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/08/04

For nearly a decade, Marc Spiegler served as the Global Director of Art Basel, helping shape one of the world’s most influential institutions in contemporary art. Earlier this year, his New York Times opinion piece on the challenges facing commercial galleries sparked widespread conversation about the future of the art market and the pressures confronting artists, dealers, and collectors alike.In this episode, Marc reflects on his path from journalism to Art Basel, the evolution of the global art

en

61:44

The Forum 22 | Baseera Khan

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/07/30

Baseera Khan joins Ajay Kurian for a conversation that begins with a Garfield drawing contest and expands into an exploration of storytelling, identity, and the politics of material.Khan reflects on finding her artistic voice through tracing comics, navigating graduate school as a search for self rather than an entry into the art world, and developing works that blend performance, sculpture, painting, and sound. Together, they discuss Braid Rage, acoustic blankets, museums, language, surveillance,

en

71:59

SPENT Episode Four | Erin Jane Nelson

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/07/16

Erin Jane Nelson joins Ajay Kurian to talk about the gap between artistic success and creative fulfillment. They discuss the reality of making a living as an artist, navigating burnout, and why reaching long-awaited career milestones can leave you questioning what comes next.The conversation explores Nelson's evolving practice—from clay pinhole cameras and photography to spirituality, caregiving, and family history—as well as the emotional and financial realities that shape life in the studio. Along

en

57:56

The Forum 21 | Lucas Blalock

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/06/29

Lucas Blalock’s photographs often look like they’re interrupting themselves.Objects bend out of place. Edits remain visible. Corrections become part of the image instead of disappearing behind it. Rather than using photography to create the illusion of clarity, Lucas uses it to expose the decisions, accidents, and contradictions that make images possible in the first place.In this NewCrits conversation, Lucas sits down with Ajay Kurian for a discussion about photography, discomfort, and what happens

en

56:49

SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney Mallet

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/06/18

SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney MalletWhitney Mallet has spent years moving through magazines, galleries, performances, readings, and the shifting ecosystems that surround contemporary culture - not as an observer standing outside of it, but as someone committed to paying attention.In this conversation, Whitney sits down with Ajay Kurian to talk about criticism, instinct, and what it means to build a practice around curiosity. They discuss magazines as art projects, the lag between cultural change

en

77:53

SPENT: Episode Two | Walter Price

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/06/18

SPENT: Episode Two | Walter PriceWalter Price’s paintings may present as loose, instinctive, and immediate, but behind them is a practice built on discipline, repetition, and consistency. In this conversation, Walter sits down with Ajay Kurian to talk about building a life around making work and what it means to remain committed to the process. Together they discuss ambition, routine, competition, and the challenge of continuing to evolve without becoming attached to outcomes.Walter reflects on

en

73:10

SPENT: Episode One | Yaya Bey

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/06/18

SPENT: Episode One | Yaya BeyYaya Bey has built one of the most singular voices in contemporary music not by chasing consensus, but by trusting her own sense of practice. Across albums that move through R&B, house, soul, poetry, and memory, their work resists easy categorization - and she’s increasingly uninterested in trying to make it legible to people who insist on misunderstanding it.In this conversation, recorded ahead of the release of her new album Fidelity, Yaya sits down with Ajay Kurian

en

62:23

The Forum 20 | Kamrooz Aram: Painting on the Edge of...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/05/06

He works through form, perception, and the politics of display — Kamrooz Aram on ornament, abstraction, and the unstable ground of how we see.Kamrooz Aram moves between painting, sculpture, and collage, using material, structure, and exhibition design to question how images are read and how histories are constructed. His work often begins in the studio, through process and formal decision-making, and expands outward into larger systems of meaning: how value is assigned, how objects are categorized,

en

38:47

The Forum 19 | Rachel Rose: Psychic States,...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/04/10

She works through feeling, perception, and narrative — Rachel Rose on interior weather, unstable perspectives, and art as a way to process what cannot be easily named.Rachel Rose moves between film, installation, and painting, using sound, light, and narrative structure to explore how experience is shaped from the inside out. Her work often begins with an emotional register and expands into systems of history, perception, and embodiment. In her recent film The Last Day, she turns inward, tracing the

en

59:44

The Forum 18 | Reginald Sylvester II: Discipline as...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/03/05

Reginald Sylvester II approaches painting as a structure of discipline. What begins in daily rituals—routine, repetition, and care—extends into a larger philosophy about belief, responsibility, and endurance. Practice, for him, is not separate from life. It is shaped by it.Fatherhood, spiritual inquiry, and the demands of time become part of the architecture of the studio. Rather than protecting art from those pressures, Sylvester allows them to recalibrate how the work unfolds. The result is a

en

53:32

The Terms Of Autonomy: NewCrits Talk with Ebony L....

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2026/01/09

NewCrits Talk with Ebony L. Haynes: The Terms of AutonomyWhen David Zwirner approached Ebony L. Haynes, the conversation didn’t begin with vision statements or prestige. It began with reality: exhaustion, uncertainty, and the question of whether staying in the art world was even possible. What followed was not an acceptance but a recalibration. If she was going to continue, it had to be on terms that reflected how she actually works—through care, risk, and sustained presence. That recalibration

en

53:39

Inside the Machinery of Ruin: NewCrits Talk with...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2025/12/17

He built a career on dark stages, scorched metal, and fragile narratives. Banks Violette looks back at the neo-goth label, the toll of self-destruction, and what it means to walk away from the art world and return on his own terms.Working between sculpture, installation, and sound, Violette treats subcultures, violence, and fandom as unstable stories rather than fixed identities. From Slayer panic and satanic scare headlines to burned stages and Jägermeister firepieces, his work tracks how trauma

en

54:04

On Tender Assembly and the Politics of Display:...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2025/11/07

He builds with fabric, scaffolding, and light — Eric N. Mack on tenderness as structure and the unseen labor that makes art visible.Eric N. Mack works between painting, installation, and fashion, reimagining how material, care, and collaboration shape contemporary image-making. His large-scale assemblages drape and lean, collapsing distinctions between surface and structure, styling and architecture, autonomy and support. His practice reveals how beauty, fragility, and display coexist within shared

en

62:15

Saints, Stained Glass, and the Work of Belief:...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2025/10/10

He builds worlds from devotion, labor, and light. Raúl de Nieves on myth, death, and the joy of transformation.Raúl de Nieves is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, performance, stained glass, and music. His work merges ancestral craft with queer exuberance, creating ecstatic spaces where life, death, and rebirth coexist. Known for his intricate beaded sculptures and radiant installations, de Nieves transforms discarded materials into devotional objects that question

en

60:55

Tracing Absence and the Lives We Inherit: NewCrits...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2025/08/01

She builds archives, conjures futures, and questions everything. Tamika Abaka-Wood on ritual, refusal, and the joy of cultural strategy.Tamika Abaka-Wood is a cultural anthropologist, conceptual strategist, and artist whose practice moves between community building, archival work, and spiritual inquiry. She's the creator of Dial-An-Ancestor, an ongoing project that collects voice notes as offerings to the past, present, and future. Her work resists categorization, merging care and critique, and

en

81:09

Codes, Color, and Mapping the Invisible: NewCrits...

The NewCrits Podcast ·

2025/07/04

She paints memory, sensation, and the space between languages. Candida Alvarez on intuition, inheritance, and color as a vessel for care.Candida Alvarez is a painter whose work explores personal and cultural memory through abstraction, vivid color, and layered visual language. She draws from Caribbean diasporic experience, family history, and city life to build complex surfaces that hold both clarity and mystery. Her work has been shown at the Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, and the Chicago Cultural

en

29 results

Similar Podcasts

Stage Whisper

Andrew Cortes and Hope Bird

Podcast Patapoe

0d0a

Choice Classic Radio Detectives | Old Time Radio

Choice Classic Radio

Wild West Tales - Old Time Radio Westerns

theaterofthemind-otr.com

Voice of the Arts

WQED Multimedia