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046: James Jean May 25, 2020

Show notes

If there was ever a Juxtapoz Hall of Fame, James Jean would be a first ballot inductee. Everything this magazine has stood for, whether it be reinventing the comic book form, learning the expertise of illustration, commercial design and projects to channeling all those skills and benchmarks into a fine art career, James Jean has carried the torch like few other artists of his time. He's massively popular, with museum shows now opening across Asia, famous clients and a one-of-a-kind ability to paint entire worlds onto a single canvas. His imagination and way of internalizing stories and narratives into lush, bright and bold paintings continues to marvel.
Yes, there are a ton of extraordinary compliments we could give the 3x cover artist. The Taiwanese-born, New Jersey-raised and now Los Angeles-based painter has a career arch that is so fascinating to listen to. From award-winning comic book artist, to a career altering collaboration with Prada to his latest Eternal Journey exhibition at the Lotte Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea that opened in 2019, Jean has rewritten his own artistic path in multiple ways since he left the comic world 2006. And he still finds time to throw in a movie poster every now and again.
Radio Juxtapoz caught up with James Jean in the midst of a pandemic and slight change in his schedule. Eternal Journey's opening in Beijing was pushed back, a new book slated for the summer delayed as well. But he himself was still busy in the studio, fresh with new commissions and what he calls a good pause for his to focus on the new works. In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk about his first forays into comic book covers, the bold move to leave it behind, advice from Takashi Murakami, how he always considered himself a painter and how his practice is a process of internalizing everything he sees (and hears) around him.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 046 was recorded via Skype from San Francisco/London/Los Angeles, May 22, 2020. Follow James Jean at @jamesjeanart

045: Chip Thomas May 13, 2020

Show notes

Blame (or credit) Covid-19, but it’s as if, more than ever, we are attracted, and thus connected, by a good story. Many of us have spent the last 10 or so weeks attached to the news, or reports from far away places told through IG stories, and even though we may feel cloistered in place, if we seek them, there are connections to be made. In a vast terrain that comprises the 3,000 miles traversing America, there seems to be worlds within a world, countries within a country, all with experiencing ranges of interaction or isolation ... and everything in between. For one physician living in the Navajo Nation in northeast Arizona, life has been an ongoing epic, but in a time of confusion and uncertainty, his life's work appears more in focus.
This week on the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak with Chip Thomas, doctor, activist, street artist, organizer and in so many ways a collective storyteller, who has spent the last 30+ years living and working in the Navajo Nation. From his early childhood years in North Carolina, attending a Quaker school in the Smoky Mountains, to medical school and eventual travels around the globe, Thomas's lifelong interest and participation in the arts has gone hand-in-hand with his work as a doctor. His practice now focuses on physical health, as he incorporates psychological health, utilizing public art as a prescription for positive mental outlook and participation with the community.

Through a career-spanning conversation, we talk about Thomas's early love of the graffiti and hip-hop scenes of NYC, a chance bike ride through Africa that inspired annual travel, discovering the potential of street art in South America and how collaborations with Icy & Sot, Monica Canilao and others have brought international art to the Four Corners region of the USA. We talk about how the coronavirus has ravaged the Navajo people and how his practice has expanded beyond his office walls. Throughout this podcast, Thomas's stories reaffirm our belief that, deep down, the implementation of the arts into daily lives creates an essential, healthy dialogue. And, simply, it creates a crucial connection to the place we live.
For more information about some of the organizations that Chip mentions in this podcast, visit www.kinlanimutualaid.org and navajohopisolidarity.org

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 045 was recorded via Skype from San Francisco/London/Navajo Nation, May 9, 2020. Follow Chip Thomas at @jetsonorama

044: Cleon Peterson Apr 30, 2020

Show notes

There is a controversy that will surround works based on violence and war. For Cleon Peterson, the story of his works are as old as time. The powerful abuse power create false narratives and press us a sense of authority that is often violent and sometimes subconscious. Cleon's work balances that explicitness with a sense of timelessness and historical overview. We don't know what eras these atrocities, but they still feel familiar.
But with his 2018 solo show, Blood & Soil, there was marked change in Cleon's approach: he began to find a literalness that was not in his previous paintings. Channeling the likes of Goya, Washington monuments and Donald Trump emerged. Where Cleon felt like his paintings worked best in metaphor, there was no longer a vagueness to be had. There was something real in front of him, a theater of war happening in America and the world that changed Cleon's work.
And yet throughout our Radio Juxtapoz conversation with the Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based painter, there was a personal uncertainty to create work that was without allegory. We talked at length about this shift, about how the epidemic has brought him back to the studio alone to begin to focus on new directions. We talked about his childhood connection to the amazing painter, Jacob Lawrence, and how Lawrence's narrative works inspired a young Cleon. And we address Cleon's relationship to street art, and how a controversy with a fellow artist in late 2019 has not been discussed until now. It's a lively and insightful conversation, one with one of contemporary art's most-talked about artists.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 044 was recorded via Skype from San Francisco/London/Los Angeles, April 28, 2020. Follow Cleon Peterson at @cleonpeterson

043: Zaria Forman Apr 19, 2020

Show notes

We have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about humanity, and in many ways it's a conversation about our relationship to the natural world around us. Climate change and the ways we traverse and use our Earth has been the most important issue our lifetimes, a real-time global event that we see in melting ice caps, rising seas, massive fires, droughts and extreme weather hitting every region of our world. For that reason alone, talking to an artist like NY-based Zaria Forman, whose life work is to "convey the urgency of climate change" and "recreate the wonder of the natural world" is vital. She has been on personal and scientific journeys to Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic and the Maldives to observe and create artwork, and has worked closely with the likes of National Geographic and NASA as an artist-in-residence to help create a visual language for climate change.
When COVID-19 took hold of the world, we wanted to talk to Forman about her lifelong relationship with painting natural landscapes. "Drawing" painstakingly with pastels over massive paper works, she focuses on the beauty as opposed to destruction, developing a relationship with the viewer that is about love and care of our resources. By appealing to our emotions through painting beautiful landscapes , Forman believes we can enact action of what is at stake for all of us.
And that is why we wanted to talk to Forman, on an April afternoon in the midst of shelter-in-place, as her own city of NY was so heavily impacted by the coronavirus. Her perspective and access to the far reaches of Earth are both wise and her temperament is positive. We talked about her career as an artist, how her mother's dedication as a nature photographer continues to drive Forman today and how her interactions with scientists and experts in the field has come to shape her understanding of climate change. Her works are stunning reminders of what we could lose in this fight, and yet she finds so much to be proud of from the even slight changes humanity as made in recent years.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 043 was recorded via Zoom from San Francisco/London/NY states, April 16, 2020. Follow Zaria Forman at @zarialynn

042: Craig Costello/KR Apr 10, 2020

Show notes

"You can't steal everything," Craig Costello says, as he recounts his years in both Queens and San Francisco in the 1980s and 1990s. In many ways, Costello is right. As a graffiti writer, photographer and all around innovator, Costello, also known as KR and, of course, now known as the man behind the KRINK brand of markers and inks for not only graffiti, but fine art practices as well, has been at the forefront of multiple ways of underground culture emerging into public consciousness. These moments and stories are captured in the new book, KRINK: Graffiti, Art, and Invention, and in many ways, the title says it all.

Radio Juxtapoz caught up with Costello from his home on Long Island in the midst of a pandemic, but a moment where all of us are being a bit nostalgic and mindful. Costello talked about the intricacies of NYC graffiti in the 1980s, the early rise of Mission School artists out of SFAI in San Francisco in the early 1990s and the slow evolution of his own practice that led to the now famous drip aesthetic he would go on to perfect in NYC back in the early 2000s. There is so much history in this talk; from subway cars to Barry McGee's innovative street work, a love of photography to early beginnings of ALIFE on the Lower East Side. ESPO, IRAK, Os Gemeos, KAWS, Revs + Cost... the stories, the materials, the style... it's all here.

Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 042 was recorded via Skype from San Francisco/London/NY, April 8, 2020. KRINK: Graffiti, Art, and Invention is published by Rizzoli, and available now.

041: Austin Lee Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

A few weeks ago, before the doors opened for the second day of the Armory Show, we tucked ourselves on a quiet mezzanine to complete our last in a series of three podcasts from the revered art fair. The mood in the city was beginning to take shape: the Coronavirus began to dominate every discussion, and yet in this early morning, we were able to sit down with NYC-based painter/sculpture artist, Austin Lee, long a friend of the magazine and celebrating a solo booth with Jeffrey Deitch in the pier down the hall from us.

We've known Austin for years: he's been featured in the magazine and also a major part of our Juxtapoz x Superflat exhibitions in Seattle and Vancouver with Takashi Murakami. His highly intricate-yet-appearing-lo-fi works have always astounded us. They feel so original and yet so playful, a tad sinister and loose. But we learn over the course of this conversation with Radio Juxtapoz, is that these works are time-consuming, polished and rely heavy on a special technique that Austin has been perfecting for years. These paintings and sculptures show what a generation of artists inspired by early digital technologies such as iPaint, Paintbrush or other applications of the late 1990s and early 2000s have come to create in a contemporary art context. What we love from this conversation is just how excited Austin has been, from his years at Yale to the present, with the use of technology and exploration in his practice.

Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 041 was recorded live in New York City at Pier 90, March 6, 2020. Thank you to The Armory Show for the support.

040: Esiri Erheriene-Essi Mar 23, 2020

Show notes

What a difference a week makes? Or in some cases, an hour makes. At the beginning of March, on a quiet Friday morning before the doors opened at Pier 90 for the Armory Show in NYC, we sat down with London-born, Amsterdam-based painter Esiri Erheriene-Essi. She had a new series of paintings in the Galerie Ron Mandos booth, her feature in Juxtapoz's Spring 2020 quarterly was just released and she was fresh off a stunning show at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Things were supposed to be well, a joyous moment in the emerging artists career. And yet, on the horizon, and we could feel it especially that morning, the Coronavirus was going to be an era-defining, global narrative that could alter the way we looked at history and the future.
In many ways, that made speaking with Esiri so vital. Her work is about a reexamination of a collective history, literally building a vast collection of archival and found photography to reimagine as a vibrant figurative painting. There is a beautiful observation in Esiri's bio: "She is interested a great deal by history – in particularly images, objects, and documents which we can return to, in order to examine both individual and shared memories and histories. She doesn’t look at history as something that refers only to the past, on the contrary, she sees history as a great and forcible power that we all unconsciously carry within us, are controlled by in many ways and are present in all that we do." Little did we know a few months ago, but work that felt so relevant and powerful is now even more essential.

Our 3-part series live from the Armory Show sees Radio Juxtapoz speaking with Esiri about growing up in London, what it was like to have Nigerian roots in such a diverse city, her move to Amsterdam, how she collects found photography and what being a mother has meant to her schedule as one of the most important emerging figurative painters in the world today.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 040 was recorded live in New York City at Pier 90, March 6, 2020. Thank you to The Armory Show for the support.

039: Ana Benaroya Mar 16, 2020

Show notes

Yes, these are complicated times. In a weird way, this Radio Juxtapoz podcast conversation marks a turning point in perhaps human history. A few weeks back, as coronavirus was just entering the American landscape and already taking hold in Europe and Asia, we went to a 72nd floor on the tip of Manhattan to the Anchor offices to record a podcast with Juxtapoz Spring 2020 cover artist, Ana Benaroya.
Perhaps it's fitting? Benaroya is part of a new generation of painters that is redefining the gallery space with figuration and narrative storytelling that is a breath of fresh air in contemporary art. Her influences include cartoons and zine culture, but she is also working under the inspiration of some of the giants of the art world: Nicole Eisenman, Tom of Finland, Keith Haring, Robert Colescott, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Henri Matisse, to name a few. But her aesthetic is her own, and her newest solo show at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica is a unique combination of a world she has created that combines music, history, fantasy, sexuality and play all in one show.
In this conversation, Radio Juxtapoz hosts Doug Gillen and Evan Pricco talk to Benaroya about her experiences between art school and grad school, what she had to relearn at Yale, about being a young gay artist in context with art history, her love of Celine Dion and how she wants to be part of the art historical lexicon.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 039 was recorded live in New York City at the Anchor offices, March 4, 2020. Thank you to Jessica Angeles at Anchor/Spotify for the support.

038: Mark Thomas Gibson Mar 07, 2020

Show notes

As part of our 3-part Radio Juxtapoz special at The Armory Show 2020, we sit down with Philadelphia-based fine artist and teacher, Mark Thomas Gibson.
We first became aware of Mark's biting and often slyly humorous looks at both contemporary life and American history through a comic book aesthetic, frame-by-frame stories in fine art form. Born in South Florida with a post-graduate degree at Yale (where he was also an instructor before moving to Philly to work at Temple), Gibson's work is so perfectly stated by M+B Gallery: Gibson's painting "stems from his multipartite viewpoint as an artist—as a black male, a professor, an American history buff and comic book aficionado."
On the occasion of our series at The Armory Show in NYC, Radio Juxtapoz sat down with Mark Thomas Gibson on an early morning before the fair doors opened to talk about his solo booth with M+B, the changing dynamics of not only his work but the overall landscape of contemporary art and how the comic book was his first love.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE.

Episode 038 was recorded live in New York City at Pier 90, March 5, 2020. Thank you to The Armory Show for the support.

037: Felipe Pantone Feb 17, 2020

Show notes

Graffiti, and Street Art for that matter, have been analyzed so much over the past few decades for both its content and social impact as both vandalism at times, and now, for the most part, as the seeds for urban development. Whether 6-story figurative murals or a tag caught on a rolldown, art made on the streets as many different roles to play and stories to tell. But when it comes to the work of Valencia, Spain-based artist, Felipe Pantone, there is something else happening. There is a combination of analyzing and intersecting our digital lives with the spaces we live in and around. From works in public that look like gigantic digital glitches to his paintings and interactive sculptures that almost align more with Op Art than they do with traditional street and graffiti art, Pantone is a bit of an enigma in the contemporary art world.

Fresh off this newest solo show, BIG TIME DATA, on view at RGR in Mexico City, Radio Juxtapoz co-host, Doug Gillen, made his way to Spain to catch with Pantone to break down the state of work and the ideas behind "big data." What Pantone shares with Radio Juxtapoz is the idea that more and more galleries and curators should invest more in artist's with concepts than an over emphasis on refined figuration. An artist with an experimental passion and now an internationally recognized star, we are excited to share this conversation with Felipe Pantone.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by Fifth Wall TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 037 was recorded live in Valencia, Spain, February 13, 2020.

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