Art Problems

Latest Episodes:

EP 124: Who will write your history if you don’t? Oct 30, 2026

Show notes

What are the lessons from the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s 84 page report, Creating Future Memory: Building the field of Artist Legacy Stewardship? This week, I sit down with Solana Chehtman to discuss the stakes of artist legacy. As Director of Artist Programs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, she has spent years connecting with archivists, curators, conservators, and artists’ families to learn what happens to an artist’s work once they’re gone. In this episode, we talk about why legacy planning belongs in a working artist’s practice, who should help carry the load, and what we lose when the market decides which artists get remembered. Chehtman’s case for starting now is practical: someone is always talking about your work, and the more you’ve documented, the more say you have in what they say.

About Solana Chehtman: Chehtman led Creating Future Memory, a 2025 convening that brought 145 legacy professionals together in Brooklyn, and co-authored the foundation’s report of the same name with Sharon Mizota. Before joining the foundation, she worked with artists at The High Line and The Shed.

Resources and Names

From the Joan Mitchell Foundation

Creating Future Memory: Building the Field of Artist Legacy Stewardship (free report): https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/creating-future-memory-report
Legacy Field Map: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/legacy-field-map
Creating Future Memory convening (May 2025, BRIC): https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/journal/creating-future-memory-convening-2025
Creating a Living Legacy (CALL): Legacy Planning Tools: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/legacy-planning-tools
Career Documentation for the Visual Artist (this episode’s assignment): https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/career-documentation-for-the-visual-artist
Estate Planning for Visual Artists: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/estate-planning-for-visual-artists
Estate Planning for Visual Artists: A Workbook for Attorneys & Executors: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/estate-planning-for-visual-artists-a-workbook-for-attorneys-executors
Artist Legacy Initiatives: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/artist-legacy-initiatives
Joan Mitchell Fellowship: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/joan-mitchell-fellowship
Joan Mitchell (biography): https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/joan-mitchell/biography

Report Authors

- Sharon Mizota, co-writer of the report: https://hyperallergic.com/author/sharon-mizota/

Solana Chehtman, Director of Artist Programs, Joan Mitchell Foundation: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/solana-chehtman

Foundation Staff and Board Mentioned

Christa Blatchford, Executive Director: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/christa-blatchford
Josh T Franco, Board Member; Executive Director, US Latinx Art Forum; Collector at Large, Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/josh-t-franco | https://uslaf.org
Shervone Neckles, artist and former Artist Programs Manager (CALL): https://shervoneneckles.com
Kay Takeda, former Deputy Director, Artist Programs, and co-editor of Career Documentation for the Visual Artist

Creating Future Memory Advisory Council

Lisa Darms, Hauser & Wirth Institute: https://hauserwirthinstitute.org
Ryan S. Flahive, Archivist, Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA): https://iaia.edu/archives
Josh T Franco (see above)
Tempestt Hazel, Sixty Inches From Center: https://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
Seitu Ken Jones, artist: https://seitujonesstudio.com
Shannon Brunette, Office of Cultural Work: https://officeofculturalwork.org
Chelsea Spengemann, Soft Network: https://www.softnetwork.art

People Mentioned

Daisy Murray Holman, Executive Director, Artists’ Legacy Foundation, and steward of the Estate of Elizabeth Murray: https://artistslegacyfoundation.org/about-us/
Elizabeth Murray: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Murray_(artist)
Teresita Fernández: https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/teresita-fernandez
Amalia Mesa-Bains: https://amaliamesabains.com
Luis Camnitzer: https://www.unitedstatesartists.org/fellow/luis-camnitzer/
Valerie J. Maynard: https://valeriejmaynardfoundation.org

Organizations and Resources

Artists’ Kids: https://www.artistskids.com
AFELL (Artist Foundations and Estate Leaders List): https://groups.google.com/g/AFELL/about
Aspen Institute Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/aefi
Valerie J. Maynard Foundation: https://valeriejmaynardfoundation.org
Baltimore Museum of Art: https://artbma.org
Smithsonian Archives of American Art Oral History Program: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/about-the-oral-history-program
Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel: https://chaucersbooks.com/book/9780316226172
Artist Relief: https://www.artistrelief.org
Coalition of Small Arts NYC (CoSA NYC): https://anthologyfilmarchives.org/support/about-cosa
Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund: https://www.legacy.mn.gov/arts-cultural-heritage-fund
United States Artists: https://www.unitedstatesartists.org
Artadia: https://artadia.org
Creative Capital: https://creative-capital.org
BRIC: https://www.bricartsmedia.org
The High Line: https://www.thehighline.org
The Shed: https://theshed.org

EP 123: “You Have to Have Fun.” Critic Andrew Russeth on Careers That Last Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

Andrew Russeth knows art. As Editor-in-Chief at Artnet News and a critic for nearly two decades, he sees more art than almost anyone in the art world. In this episode, he and Paddy Johnson dig into what keeps a career going over the long haul and why even artists with name recognition still have career gaps to fill. His most repeated advice may also be the most commonly dismissed: you have to have fun.

Andrew Russeth won the Rabkin Prize for visual arts journalism in 2019 and was previously executive editor of ARTnews.

Links and resources mentioned in the podcast

Free Info Session
How to Grow Your Career Beyond Your Region.
Saturday, October 17 at 1 PM Eastern

Additional Reading

Andrew Russeth, “Jordan Wolfson Is Opening a Major Show at Gagosian. He Does Not Want to Talk About It,” Artnet News, 2026
Jason Farago, After a Career Reshaping the Museum of Modern Art, its Influential Curator Steps Down, New York Times, 2026
Artnet News, “The Best Artworks We Saw in 2025,” Artnet News, 2025
Andrew Russeth, “Maverick Painter and Critic Walter Robinson, Who Helmed Artnet Magazine, Is Dead at 74,” Artnet News, 2025
Andrew Russeth, Massimiliano Gioni will Lead the New Museum, Artnet News, 2026
Andrew Russeth, “How Anicka Yi’s Science Experiments Are Expanding the Boundaries of Art,” W Magazine, 2018
Beeple and Jordan Wolfson, Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast, Episode 32
Rozalia Jovanovic, Say Hello to Jordan Wolfson’s Terrifying Animatronic Dancer at David Zwirner, 2014
Chris Wiley, The History of Zombie Formalism, Artnet News, 2018
Frank Benson, Wolfson, Animation, Masks, DisMagazine, 2012

Artists

Galleries, institutions and publications

Writers

Desserts

Chefs

Natasha Pickowicz

Other names mentioned

Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Richard Serra, Sadie Coles HQ, Richard Prince, Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Jasper Johns, Peter Halley, John Currin, Jordan Casteel, Amy Sherald, Pace, Esther Schipper, Jeffrey Deitch, Carlo McCormick, Charlie Finch, Jerry Saltz, Howard Halle, Bill Arning, Dave Hickey, Sarah Douglas, Jared Kushner, Will Heinrich, Magnolia Bakery

EP 122: NYC Art Fair Report: So-So to FOMO Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

What makes an art fair successful? Sales. Crowds. Fairs that give people a reason to come back. This fall, artist William Powhida, Netvvrk Director of Operations Penny Retica, and I walked New York's fair week to see which ones do that job. We went to the Spring Break in the old CBS News offices, Independent 20th Century, The Armory, and Printed Matter's New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. One of them left us with some serious FOMO.

Guest credits
Artist William Powhida
Netvvrk Director of Operations, Penny Retica
Artists/Projects Mentioned:
Spring Break
https://www.springbreakartshow.com/
Kara Sheffler & Joanna Herr, Tiki Bar
David Molesky, Prone to Bruise
Christopher Chan & Lindaluz Carillo, Soft Bruise
Kutay Tufekci, Roselynn Sadaghiani, & Richard Medina in Fool Me Can’t Get Fooled Again
Alice Herbert, HOUSE ARREST
Matthew Cronin, Catalina Tuca, & Joseph Wilcox, Afterimage, curated by Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen
Independent 20th Century
https://www.independenthq.com/
General Idea
David Hammons
Jenny Holzer
Armory
https://www.thearmoryshow.com/
Dorian Langberg
Michelle Grabner
Darvish Fakhr
Embajada Gallery
Katarina Riseing
Alba Triana
NY Art Book Fair
https://nyabf2026.printedmatterartbookfairs.org/
African Art Book Fair, The Pan African Library Will Not Be Colonized
Book Arts Solidarity Network, MAKEREADY
A, Lukas, Stop Hiding Behind Masks
Precious Okoyomon, The Pleasure Principle
Black Sheep, Riso Lantern

Additional Reading
Valentina Di Liscia, "Independent 20th Century, the Mise en Abyme of Art Fairs," Hyperallergic, 2026
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism, Verso, 2024
Activating the Transformative Potential of Commons in the Arts

Free class
If you want shows beyond your home city, join my free class, How to Get Shows Beyond Your Region, on October 14 at 7 PM EDT. Register here.

EP 121: A Tale of Two Emails Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

Mike Ryczek flew to New Orleans to see his work hanging in the kind of gallery he'd always aspired to. Dinner with the other artists went fine. Then came the gallery crawl the next day, and he froze: four galleries deep without talking to anyone, thirty minutes standing beside his own paintings waiting for someone to approach, and finally the Irish goodbye and some consolation fried chicken.

In this episode, the two of us talk about the moments an art career makes you feel like an imposter, and I share my own recent version of his story, because these feelings don't retire with experience. What changes is how you recover.

Mike is a painter in Dedham, Massachusetts who has held gallery representation for over a decade, won a $15,000 Mass Cultural Council grant, and still interrogates every achievement for the trick behind it. Our conversation stays close to what an art career feels like: from the whiplash of rejection and reward arriving back to back to the self-belief it takes to keep assigning yourself work few people see. There’s no strategy in this episode, just the facts of the profession.

Relevant Links:

Mike Ryczek
Creative Capital
Mass Cultural Council

EP 120: Jennifer Sharpe on Shifting Ground Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Have you ever struggled to figure out exactly where your art fits? Or maybe you’ve tried to write an artist statement only to find it one of the hardest tasks you’ve ever had to do. Today’s guest, Jennifer Sharpe, a multimedia artist and experimental filmmaker, has a way of making those problems vivid and infinitely relatable.

In this episode, we talk about how a continuously shifting cultural landscape affects artistic practice. Over the last twenty years, we’ve seen multiple online communities collapse and rebuild. Jennifer came away convinced that while platforms vanish and institutions wobble, the relationships you build are the only durable asset an artist has.

This conversation wanders in the best way. Racehorses, vagabonds, cave paintings, jobs, and a whole bunch of other ideas you wouldn’t think have anything to do with artists, but really do.

RELATED LINKS

Free Info Session, How to Get on a Museum’s Radar, Tuesday, July 21, 7:00 PM EST
Jennifer Sharpe

EP 119: 20 Rejections Later with Gin Stone Jul 17, 2026

Show notes

The art world tells artists that if you just keep going, eventually something will break for you. But persistence can also keep you stuck. If you don’t know something’s broken so you keep doing the same thing, you won’t grow.

That's what happened to Gin Stone. Gin is a Cape Cod artist who did what she was supposed to do. She kept going. And she stayed stuck because she didn't have the right help. In this episode, she talks about the gallery show that made her realize she had nothing to say about her own work, the overhaul that followed, and the grant she landed just last week for a sonification project built on 2,000 years of geological data.

RELEVANT LINKS:

Free Info Session, How to Get on a Museum’s Radar, Tuesday July 21, 7:00 PM EST
Gin Stone

EP 118: Patience Pays off with Peter Walsh Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

After years of producing social practice art, Peter Walsh wanted to get back in the studio. So he rented a space and started painting. But when he started reaching out to his old painting friends, he found most had moved on to other things. He needed community.

He joined Netvvrk, along with many of the artists in his Brooklyn studio building. Then he practiced patience: he went to other people’s shows, built relationships, and let the work lead. That led to his first solo show in New York.

In this episode, we talk about restarting a practice mid-career, the self-doubt that shows up even with a long CV, and why the artwork always has to come first. Peter lost a painting the day before we recorded. He painted over it and kept working. As he puts it, he's not done.
RELEVANT LINKS

Free Info Session, How to Get on a Museum’s Radar, Tuesday July 21, 7:00 PM EST
Peter Walsh

EP 117: Building an Art Career Without Art School Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

Guest: Mark Witzling, abstract painter

In this episode of Art Problems, I speak with Mark Witzling about his career path as a painter. Witzling continues our series on artists who are building careers regionally, and his story takes on a second challenge that artists ask me about all the time. Witzling doesn’t have an MFA or a BFA in art.

And he works full time on his art. Want to know how he got his studio paid for and work placed without institutional bona fides, while living in St Louis, MO? Tune into this episode and find out!

RELEVANT LINKS

How to Get on a Museum’s Radar, (Free info session) Tuesday July 21, 2026

Mark Witzling

Craft Alliance (St. Louis)

Southern Vermont Art Center — site of his solo show last year

EP 116: From Open Calls to Gallery Representation with Meg Lagodzki Jul 14, 2026

Show notes

Meg Lagodzki paints from a studio in the woods just outside Bloomington, Indiana, five hours from the nearest major art center. In this conversation, part of an ongoing series on artists building careers outside NYC and LA, she talks with Paddy about what it took to grow beyond her local market: the critique group that pushed her work in a new direction, the cold DM from a gallery that turned into a five-year relationship, and the shift from applying to open calls alone to finding opportunities through other artists.
Meg also talks candidly about what changed once she started applying to harder, more selective opportunities instead of easier ones, and why the collectives inside Netvvrk, the smaller groups built around a shared thread like medium or geography, became one of the most valuable parts of her membership.
Meg Lagodzki is a painter based in Bloomington, Indiana, and a member of Netvvrk's Woods and Forest Collective.
Relevant links:
Join the Free Live Webinar: How to Get on a Museum's Radar, July 21, 7:00 PM EST
Meg Lagodzki
https://www.meglagodzki.com/

Momentum Gallery
https://momentumgallery.com/

EP 115: Three Mistakes to Avoid when Applying for a Guggenheim Fellowship [Re-air] Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Paddy gives you the skinny on the Guggenheim Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards for mid-career artists. The talk contains tips and strategies you won't find on their website, including knowing when to apply and how often. You won't find this information anywhere else, so have a listen. Even if you're not planning to apply, this episode will give you strategies for ALL grant applications.
Relevant links:
https://www.gf.org/

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