State Of The Art

Latest Episodes:

AI Art with Ben Vickers, CTO of Serpentine Galleries Aug 14, 2019

Show notes

We're diving into art and AI with Chief Technology Officer of Serpentine Galleries, Ben Vickers. In this episode, Ben shares his views on the introduction of AI into the world of art, to what degree AI in the arts is being employed today, its implications, and where he would like to see AI applied or integrated.

- About Ben Vickers -

CTO @SerpentineUK | Current Exhibitions: The Deep Listener

Publishing House @IgnotaBooks | Next Up: States of the Body Produced by Love

Initiator of @unMonastery

Trustee @AutoItaliaLive

Jury @Lumenprize, @ArtsAtCERN

Advisory Board @Transmediale, @SXSW and @BANNERREPEATER

Founding Member @Guild_is

Advisor to @ArtxN+@ZIEN, @Furtherfield

Advocate of @MethodKit and @Matera2019

Learn more at http://benvickers.net/

Celebrating 100 Episodes: A look back at our guest hosts... Aug 08, 2019

Show notes

At the end of 2018, the State of the Art team reflected on how State of the Art could become more inclusive given our own feelings around underrepresentation in the art world. To that end, in 2019 we introduced monthly themes and guest hosting in an effort to bring more voices and diverse art-related topics onto our platform.

Today we celebrate having aired 100 episodes! Coupled with this milestone achievement is a growth in our listenership alongside the success of our first round of guest hosts. Tune-in to hear soundbites of some of the most impactful quotes from our guest host episodes. Below, please find a list of our amazing 2019 guest host lineup and links to listen to the full interviews featured in this mini-episode.

We're immensely grateful to our first round of guest hosts:

Tre Borden, The Black Creative, February 2019 | Featured Episode (72): The Black Creative 02: Leila Weefur, Artist, Writer & Curator

Meg Zany, Sex Positive, March 2019 | Featured Episode (77): Sex Positive: The Art of Shaping Body Politics with Uncle Reezy, Artist

Dorothy Santos, Queerness, June 2019 | Featured Episode (93): Queerness with Guest Host Dorothy Santos & Artist, Designer, & Researcher, Yasheng She

Michelle Hartney, Art & Morality, July 2019 | Featured Episode (98):Art & Morality with Michelle Hartney & the Guerilla Girls

Art & Morality with Michelle Hartney & Decolonize This Place Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

Guest host, Michelle Hartney rounds out her month-long dive into Art & Morality with Decolonize This Place. Decolonize This Place is an action-oriented collective of activists who stage protests in cultural institutions to open conversations related to Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentrification. In this episode, Michelle and Marz Saffore, along with, Amy Weng members of Decolonize This Place, discuss the practice of "art washing," who defines what art is or isn't, issues of display, and the responsibility museum and institutions have to hold their board members accountable for actions which go against their values.

Notably, at the time of this recording, Michelle and Decolonize This Place members debated the position of Warren B. Kanders as, then, Vice-Chairman at the Whitney Museum. Kanders company, Safariland, produces tear-gas canisters and other supplies used by the military and law enforcement. Safariland canisters have been used against unarmed migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, Turkey’s Gezi Park, the Gaza Strip, Standing Rock in North Dakota, and, most recently, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Decolonize this Place has led the charge in protesting Kanders presence on the Museum's board hosting 9 weeks of art and action in the weeks leading up to the Whitney Biennial. Today, on July 25, 2019, Warren B. Kanders announced his resignation as Vice-Chairman at the Whitney.

- About Decolonize This Place -

Decolonize This Place is an action-oriented movement centering around Indigenous struggle, Black liberation, free Palestine, global wage workers and de-gentrification. Facilitated by MTL+ Collective. #decolonizethisplace

Learn more at https://www.decolonizethisplace.org/

Follow them @decolonizethisplace

Art & Morality with Michelle Hartney & The Delaware Art Museum Jul 18, 2019

Show notes

Guest host, Michelle Hartney discusses the decolonization of museums with Heather Campbell Coyle, Chief Curator and Curator of American Art at the Delaware Art Museum, and Amelia Wiggins, Assistant Director of Learning & Engagement at the Delaware Art Museum. Together, they break down what decolonizing museums means and entails. Heather and Amelia share and explain the Delaware Art Museum's reinstallation efforts as an empathetic museum and how this new approach reshape the acquisition process, language-use and presentation in the production of new exhibitions.

-About Heather Campbell Coyle-

Heather Campbell Coyle is Chief Curator and Curator of American Art at the Delaware Art Museum. She received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware. She lectures, publishes, and researches primarily on American painting, photography, and popular illustration from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is a specialist in the art of John Sloan and the Ashcan School, a strength of the Delaware Art Museum’s collection.

-About Amelia Wiggins-

Amelia Wiggins is Assistant Director of Learning & Engagement at the Delaware Art Museum, where she manages the guide corps, oversees gallery programs, and develops interpretation integrating community voices. She previously worked in family programs and museum education positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Franklin Institute, and The Stark Museum of Art. Ms. Wiggins has been honored with awards in excellence in label writing from the American Alliance of Museum and an award for excellence in programming from the Mountain-Plains Museum Association. She holds an MSEd in Leadership in Museum Education from Bank Street College and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Special thanks from the Delaware Art Museum to the following collaborators who have spearheaded the Museum's reinstallation project and its diversity and inclusion initiatives:

Stacey Mann and Janeen Bryant of Empathetic Museum, Stace Treat of Crystal Bridges Museum, Dan Rahimi of Penn Museum, Scott Wilcox of Yale Center for British Art, Judy Koke of Institute for Learning Innovation, Kathleen McLean of Independent Exhibitions, Museums as Sites for Social Action (MASS Action), Keonna Hendrick

And the following organizations whose leadership on these issues informed the Museum's work and thinking: Museums and Race, The Incluseum, Museums Are Not Neutral , Visitors of Color, Participatory Museum, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Art & Morality with Michelle Hartney & Art Historian, Catherine McCormack Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, guest host Michelle Hartney tackles gender and racism in the arts with art historian, Catherine McCormack. Catherine is an academic and writer who's done extensive research on women in the arts and the exclusionary practices of the art world. Together, Michelle and Catherine discuss the "male gaze," the use of female bodies versus male bodies in the arts and their divergent meanings, and the role of the #MeToo movement in the art world.

-About Catherine McCormack-

Catherine is a writer, art historian and independent curator based in London.

She's currently working on two book projects – the first is about patriarchy, feminism and art history after #MeToo and will be published by Icon Books in 2020. The second is a collection of fine art ceilings from around the world and is called The Art of Looking Up (White Lion 2019). She is also working on an exciting curatorial project about imaging motherhood. In May 2019 Catherine spoke at the Venice Biennale about exhibiting women artists and contemporary art.

Catherine's literary agent is Becky Thomas at Johnson and Alcock agency

When not writing, Catherine can be found teaching art history at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where she is the course director for the summer school on Women and Art. Catherine has a PhD in Art History from UCL where she worked as a Teaching Fellow. She has appeared on Sky News and BBC Breakfast talking about art.

Her writing has been published in The Independent, the Architectural Review, Stylist, Glass magazine, Label magazine, and in international academic journals and museum exhibition catalogues.

Learn more about Catherine at https://thisiscatherinemccormack.com/

Follow her @womeninthepicture

Art & Morality with Michelle Hartney & the Guerilla Girls Jul 03, 2019

Show notes

Michelle Hartney kicks off Art & Morality by speaking with a founding member of the feminist art collective, the Guerrilla Girls (GG) on sexism and racism in the arts--from the study of its history to representation in museum, institutions and galleries. Michelle asks GG founder, speaking under the pseudonym Frida Kahlo, about the emergence of the Guerrilla Girls in the 80s, the Westernization of the art world, and the arguments made against "over-contextualizing" art and the fear of censorship in the art world.

*Helpful Links*

Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, Netflix Special

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art

Guerrilla Girls, Three Ways to Write a Museum Wall Label When the Artist is a Sexual Predator, 2018

-About the Guerrilla Girls-

The Guerrilla Girls are feminist activist artists. Over 55 people have been members over the years, some for weeks, some for decades. Our anonymity keeps the focus on the issues, and away from who we might be. We wear gorilla masks in public and use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture. We undermine the idea of a mainstream narrative by revealing the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair. We believe in an intersectional feminism that fights discrimination and supports human rights for all people and all genders. We have done over 100 street projects, posters and stickers all over the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Mexico City, Istanbul, London, Bilbao, Rotterdam, and Shanghai, to name just a few. We also do projects and exhibitions at museums, attacking them for their bad behavior and discriminatory practices right on their own walls, including our 2015 stealth projection about income inequality and the super rich hijacking art on the façade of the Whitney Museum in New York. Our retrospectives in Bilbao and Madrid, Guerrilla Girls 1985-2015, and our US traveling exhibition, Guerrilla Girls: Not Ready To Make Nice, have attracted thousands. We could be anyone. We are everywhere. What’s next? More creative complaining!!

Learn more at https://www.guerrillagirls.com/

Introducing Guest Host, Michelle Hartney Jul 02, 2019

Show notes

We're excited to introduce our listeners to Michelle Hartney, Chicago-based artist and activist who will be leading this month's discussion on Art & Morality. In this episode, Andrew speaks with Michelle about her ongoing project, Correct Art History, which calls attention to the art world's tendency to sweep the reprehensible behavior of art icons and heroes under the rug. Together they address the issue of morality when it comes to viewing art, whether or not institutions have a responsibility to inform audiences on the good, the bad & the ugly of the artists on their walls, the role of the #MeToo Movement and its influence in the art world, and why censorship is not the answer to the controversy of art and morality. Michelle also touches upon additional topics she will be addressing during her month-long takeover and introduces a few of the guests she has lined up to join the discussion of Art & Morality.

-About Michelle Hartney-

Michelle Hartney is a Chicago based artist whose work addresses a broad range of topics, from women’s health issues, to the concept of heroes, love, and the cosmos. She works in a variety of materials, including fiber, wood, found objects, installation, community based interactive performance, and the internet. Her interest in using art to address social issues began during her graduate studies in art therapy at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was an Albert Schweitzer Fellow.

In 2015 she became the Chicago rally coordinator for the non-profit organization Improving Birth's nationwide Labor Day rallies, and created a performance and installation at Daley Plaza called Mother’s Right, a piece about the United States’ high rates of maternal mortality, postpartum PTSD, and obstetric abuse.

Hartney founded the Women's Health Collective in 2016, an organization dedicated to utilizing creative approaches to raise awareness about women's health issues by linking artists, designers, writers, musicians, technologists, healthcare providers, and activists to work collaboratively on socially engaged, community based projects. Their first project, Kimberly Said No, collaboration with five Chicago actors, included a public performance that addressed an obstetric assault that was captured on film.

Since the 2016 election, Hartney has temporarily shifted the focus of her work away from maternal healthcare issues. She has been focusing on creating work to support the resistance, with a focus on peace and love, in addition to highlighting the misogyny, racism, and hatred embedded in Trump’s rhetoric.

Hartney has two children and resides in Chicago.

Learn more about Michelle Hartney at https://www.michellehartney.com/

Follow her @MichelleHartneyArt

Reflections on Queerness with Ethan James Appleby & Dorothy Santos Jul 02, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, SOTA founder and former host, Ethan James Appleby, returns to speak with guest host, Dorothy Santos on her findings while focusing on queerness during the month of June. The two reflect on the diverse cultural interpretations & connotations around queerness that emerged during June's interviews, they revisit the idea of viewer's perception versus author's intent in relation to queer characters, and dive into what a queer space is. We also learn more about Dorothy, her current and future projects, and her love & disdain for the art world.

Helpful Links:

Untitled Art Fair, Live Panel Recording

Strange Magic Podcast is the "witchy woo woo" podcast referenced by Dorothy

Peperomioides is the name of Dorothy's favorite plant

Thank you Dorothy Santos for being our June 2019 guest host on State of the Art Podcast.

Guest hosting is a new project we're exploring on SOTA in 2019 as part of our initiative to be more inclusive, bring on diverse voices better suited to discuss certain topics, and to build community. If you are interested in guest hosting or have a theme suggestion, please comment on our Instagram @StateoftheArt.

Queerness with Guest Host Dorothy Santos & Artist, Lark VCR Jun 26, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, Dorothy Santos speaks with digital artist, Lark VCR , on queering the digital art spaces to address hypothetical realities that are very much within the realm of possibility within are increasingly tech-guided lives. Together they discuss a selection of Lark's projects which delve into topics surrounding surveillance and trauma; these include their heart rate bio feedback devices Babumpand Tattle-Tale Heart, as well as their collective-healing project, Traumagotchi.

-About Lark VCR-

Lark Alder aka. Virtually Conflicted Reality explores multiplicity of meaning and experience in an increasingly digitized world, nudging at the dissolving boundary between body and machine. Lark is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s MFA program, and has shown at Frameline, MIX NYC, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Schuwels Museum in Berlin, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and is currently teaching at the CADRE Digital Media Art Program at San Jose State University.

Learn more at https://larkvcr.com/

Follow her @LarkVCR

Queerness with Guest Host Dorothy Santos & Cartoonist, Breena Nuñez Jun 20, 2019

Show notes

Afro Guatemalan-Salvadoran cartoonist, Breena Nuñez joins Dorothy Santos in a discussion about comics, graphics novels, and queerness through a multicultural lens. Breena dives into the back story of some of her comics, her experiences growing up as Afrolatinx and how the seemingly unconnected threads of her childhood converged to weave her into the cartoonist she is today.

*Helpful Links*

Nagual - animal guardian

Comics mentioned in this episode:

Trinidad Escobar, http://www.trinidadescobar.com/

Avy Jetter, http://nuthingoodat4.com/

Julie Fiveash, https://jooliefiveash.tumblr.com/tagged/jooliecomix

-About Breena Nuñez-

Breena is an Afro Guatemalan-Salvadoran cartoonist based in Oakland, CA by way of San Bruno and South San Francisco. Breena also identifies as a non-binary womxn who uses She/Her/They/Them pronouns.

She is currently pursuing an MFA in Comics at California College of the Arts. Breena's drawings and writings focus on Afrolatinx diaspora, Central American experiences, queer people of color, and socially awkward animal people. Her comics are primarily self-published as zines, and are accessible at zine fests, small press expos and through her online Etsy shop.

Breena's work has been featured in online articles and interviews with CultureStrike, Fierce Mitú (one authored by Alán Pelaez Lopez and another by Stephanie Ginese), Taco Talk with Julio Salgado, Huffington Post, Prime Vice, Colorlines, The Beat, Remezcla, and The Baylies.

Learn more at https://www.breenache.com/

Follow her @breenache

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