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080: A Vault by Vans Special Dec 22, 2021

Show notes

In conjunction with our recent visit with Vault by Vans, the Radio Juxtapoz podcast sat down with Stephen Mills and Jake Mednik for an in-depth conversation about collaborations with artists, brands, designers, and other creatives as well as how Vault has taken some of the most iconic silhouettes in footwear and re-imagined them for a whole new generation of the sneaker-driven fashion generation.The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 080 was recorded in November, 2021 in Los Angeles, London and NYC. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

079: Nigel Howlett Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

"I’m interested in transhumanism and our evolution as a species which is where the futuristic suit and robotic gloves come from," says London-based painter Nigel Howlett when we interviewed him this past Fall. So much did his approach to art making interest us, we decided to sit down with him for an episode of our Radio Juxtapoz podcast.
London as an art capital seems to be evolving, with much of the artists changing addresses and a slew of younger galleries entering the diverse mix. Not only do we speak to Howlett about his work and that evolution, we speak with Ochuko Ojiri from the former Ramp Gallery and now curating his namesake space in Shoreditch, OJIRI gallery. Between Howlett and Ojiri, we learn about a unique time in London, where our preconceived ideas of the city.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 079 was recorded in early December 2021 in London. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

078: Peter Saul & Anna Park Dec 10, 2021

Show notes

When you have been a magazine for 28 years, you see generations ebb and flow and meld and combine and all of the above. Peter Saul, a pop artist who has been actively showing for nearly 70 years and is one of the most influential figurative painters in America, has seen trends and tastes change so much that he is a barometer for which we look at how figurative art is appreciated.

Anna Park is part of a new generation pf painters who are pushing figurative works in an original way, a blend of abstraction and contemporary life. Her rise from New York Academy of Art to international exhibitions has been refreshing and unique, her charcoal works depicting chaos, a vantage point at the edge of debauchery.

Peter and Anna are kindred spirits, even though their subject matter is often different. There is an absurdity grounded in reality in each of their works. So to say Peter is passing a torch seems apt, and Anna is taking it and changing the way we look at American painting. The occasion that Saul was speaking with Park and Juxtapoz was his honoring at the New York Academy of Art’s Artists for Artists gala on December 14th, for his immense contribution to painting and the Academy itself. In this episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, Saul and Park talk about their affinity for figures, the climate for which they first began to show their artwork and why NYAA is such a fertile ground for art.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 078 was recorded on December 6, 2021 in Los Angeles and NYC. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

077: Geoff McFetridge Nov 22, 2021

Show notes

Geoff McFetridge has rules, and he himself only knows how to break them. Or follow them, really. Over the course of multiple decades, the Canadian-born, LA-based painter, designer and overall creative has established an aesthetic that is, as he says, "the opposite of an idea." The funny thing is that, within that saying, there is basically the universe. He is the universal artist, and he is telling stories better than ever.

The following is our podcast conversation with Geoff that took place this summer with Juxtapoz editor-in-chief, Evan Pricco, for an interview that was to be in our Fall Quarterly and in conjunction with his upcoming release with Vault by Vans. We get a unique story about how Geoff approaches a collaboration, how his painting career took off over the last decade and the special personal stories he tells in his commercial work and his quiet ubiquitous body of fine artwork.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 077 was recorded in August, 2021 in Los Angeles and London. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

075: Ken Harman Oct 18, 2021

Show notes

Longevity in the art world is something we take for granted, whether it's Juxtapoz at 28 years old or printmakers who perfect their craft for decades. It was refreshing to speak with Spoke Art Gallery and Hashimoto Contemporary's Ken Harman on his 10-year anniversary as a gallery owner, just as he opened a gallery in his third city in America. Now with spaces in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, with a roster of artists that stretches across the world, it's been a busy decade for Harman and his team, and the pandemic only expanded what his gallery reputation means to his collector and artist roster.
We sat down with Ken to talk about that relationship with his artists, the growth of company, and how his roots with the Obama art era in 2008 to his Bad Dads-Wes Anderson inspired shows as Spoke Art allowed his to grow as Hashimoto Contemporary. Now that Los Angeles has opened this Fall, Harman told us about the complexities and excitement of running 3 spaces as well as how much his gallery team has empowered the direction of the gallery. With shows recently with Jillian Evelyn, Pat Perry, Joel Daniel Phillips and more, Ken has his finger on the pulse.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 075 was recorded via Skype in Margate, England and NYC in early October, 2021. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

073: Umar Rashid Jun 02, 2021

Show notes

We often talk about artists as storytellers, moving from painting to painting like authors of their own universe. If you have met or seen the works of Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based Umar Rashid, formerly known in art circles as Frohawk Two Feathers, it's almost a disservice to call him a storyteller. And trust me, I accidentally have. Yet, he is such a profound thinker of history, creating alternate storylines to what might have appeared as minor changes in the historical lineage for which he works. Through writing, painting, drawing, sculpture, Rashid expands and contracts history into somewhat of an accordion of time and space.
In this conversation on the Radio Juxtapoz podcast... we go everywhere with Umar. Born to playwrights and parents of the theater stage in Chicago, Rashid was born to look at how we treat metaphors and allegories into our daily lives. Performance is a word that may not come up in this podcast, but we look at the performance of history, where Rashid sees moments to engulf himself in and make entire years of his life dedicated to them.
We speak about his artwork (and yes, his recent successes and participation in the MADE IN LA, but we delve deeper into the ways in which he thinks and approaches making art. But we also get to the heart of the matter of history: what happens when we begin to look at humanity as both flawed and romantic? Or beautiful and horribly brutal? What happens when, in the face of strive, we poke fun at power? And what happens that in moments of pure joy we look at the darkness of our past?
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 073 was recorded via Skype in Manchester, England, San Francisco and Los Angeles on May 27, 2021. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

072: When Does Street Art Become Cultural Appropriation? May 11, 2021

Show notes

It's hard not to find a bit of pop-cultural appropriation in the roots of street art. There has always been artists who take from Disney, Hollywood, politics, and remix it into stencil art, wheat-pastes and murals. But there has been a trend over the last decade, as Big Muralism has become the trend, where we have begun to toe the line toward cultural appropriation in ways that have become insensitive and uneducated. Predominantly, we see this in depictions of Asian woman and culture, where Geishas pop-up in far away cities without context and often over-sexualized by a male artist.
In this short report from Radio Juxtapoz, Doug Gillen speaks with artists Hueman and Sheena Liam about this conversation about depictions of Asian culture in street art, their own experiences and how nuanced conversations are not being had or understood for a better and broader dialogue.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 072 was recorded via Skype in London, Penang and Oakland in early May, 2021. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

071: BEEPLE Apr 20, 2021

Show notes

There's probably a good chance that you heard the news that BEEPLE, the graphic artist born as Mike Winkelmann, had just sold the third most expensive piece of artwork for a living artist and thought to yourself, "WTF is a BEEPLE?" Or if you were me you said just a plain "WTF?" Sure, you probably knew a little bit about NFTs (Winkelmann had only just started working with NFTs in October 2020), but the fact that someone had paid $69,346,250 on March 11, 2021 for his work Everydays: the First 5000 Days, the massive JPEG collage of images from his Everydays series, kind of felt like either a game-changer, an insane hedge, a turning point, a blip, a hero moment, an insider moment, a gross use of money or a smart investment of someone who saw a landmark moment in digital art.
Whatever it was, you had a reaction. Many were mad. Many in the establishment almost cried out that it was the end of art as we know it. To be honest, it all felt a little silly. Everyone ran to NFTs for some of that million dollar energy, and some of it worked, some didn't. Winkelmann himself was new to the platform of selling his images this way, but had already accumulated a massive audience for this Everydays series, creating a digital work and posting it everyday since 2007. Regardless of what the market did, of what his impact on NFTs has been just in a few short months, Winkelmann just makes art everyday. It's kind of his thing.

On this episode of Radio Juxtapoz, we talked to BEEPLE about just that: making art everyday. We of course talk about the landmark auction and his thoughts on NFTs and his quite interesting advice to everyone joining the medium. We talk about the sudden criticism, what the media seems to have surmized about him from this sale, and what it means to have an audience before the wider public knew BEEPLE. He gives his insights about how artists will help make NFTs more environmentally friendly just through their desire and awareness that it needs to change. But like any disrupter of the art market and art consciousness, we just wanted to talk to BEEPLE about his craft, practice, humor and where he thinks this is all going.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 071 was recorded via Skype in London, San Francisco and Charleston on April 16, 2021. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

069: Chidinma Nnoli Mar 29, 2021

Show notes

In a new work by Lagos, Nigeria-based painter, Chidinma Nnoli, a woman stands and looks through to the viewer, or maybe she's even looking at a mirror and back to herself. The arches look familiar, a cross is in her hands, the gaze strong and knowing. The work is called did you sin today (pink walls), and in a slight moment, you could see the figure maybe smiling, as if, yes, I have sinned and it's our little secret. In each of Nnoli's newest works for her debut solo show, To Wander Untamed, on view with Rele Gallery in Lagos at the time of this conversation, there is a coming of age story engrained in the figures. Nnoli said that with these works, “I just want to escape the conditioning." A powerful sentiment that is both so universal and so personal.
In the newest episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak to Nnoli about that escape, from Catholicism, art historical narratives, to the complicated history of power and authority in Nigeria. We speak about what it is to be a feminist in Nigeria in the 21st century, how the potential of social hierarchical evolutions are seen in her work and her own love of both traditional painting and contemporary abstraction. As the works themselves carry a powerful sense of mystery, Nnoli opens up about her own personal histories and how, at the young age of 22, her work is resonating on an international level that shows what feels like a personal escape is also one of the most universal feelings one can capture.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 069 was recorded via Skype in London, San Francisco and Lagos on March 25, 2021. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE

068: Melissa Koby Mar 21, 2021

Show notes

They may be faceless, but they are definitely not nameless. The works that painter, illustrator, designer and digital artist Melissa Koby has been shared, seen and loved without you maybe even knowing she was the artist behind the work. The Jamaican-born, Tampa, Florida-based artist has created an aesthetic so universal and so universally hers, she has created a collective spirit that she notes is a "safe space" in her bio, but feels almost like an international space of power and community. In a time of collective unease, with so many conversations coming to the forefront and at times, being had in such public manner, there is a something fascinated about speaking to an artist that is about creating in a time of social chaos, and being one of the synonymous with having people think outside of themselves.
But of course, things haven't been all that smooth. Working with these bodies, she has had to emphasize and re-emphasize to clients the importance of her content and position POC in her works in that universal spirit. On the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, this isn't a conversation we have had over the past few years; how does an artist confront expectations in commercial while simultaneously owning her unique aesthetic. In this conversation, we learn a lot about those times when Koby's had to fight back on commercial work, how she is trying not to pigeonhole herself as a self-proclaimed "moody" artist and how to navigate the fast-paced and nonstop 21st century media ebbs and flows.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 068 was recorded by Doug Gillen via Skype in London and Florida on March 17, 2021. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE.

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