This week Duncan and Richard talk to Anthony Elms about WhiteWalls! Also the book review has made its glorious return. Terri and Joanna review “The American Painter Emma Dial” by Samantha Peale. Rejoice and be glad!

This week: Duncan leads a panel discussion on the the state of painting and current MCA exhibition Constellations: Paintings from the MCA Collection(which closes October 18th!) the panel consists of Artists Vera Klement and Wesley Kimler, Artletter.com's Paul Klein and exhibition curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm!

Stolen liberally from the MCA website:

This exhibition explores various approaches to painting and how it communicates ideas about life and art from the 1940s to the present. Arranged in a series of constellations, or groupings, the exhibition highlights for the first time the MCA Collection's particular strengths in this medium. Augmented by major works from important private collections to fill gaps in the MCA Collection and to provide examples of recent works made during the last few years, the exhibition includes work by approximately 75 of the most important artists of the last sixty years including Chuck Close, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Jasper Johns, Lari Pittman, Rudolf Stingel, Clare Rojas, Laura Owens, Josef Albers, Rene Magritte, Francis Bacon, Brice Marden, Caroll Dunham, Thomas Scheibitz, Jean Dubuffet, Sherrie Levine, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Sigmar Polke, Rebecca Morris, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy, among others. Featured Chicago artists include Angel Otero, Wesley Kimler, Kerry James Marshall, Judy Ledgerwood, Scott Reeder, Michelle Grabner, Marie Krane Bergman, and Vera Klement.

This exhibition explores questions about the current state and future of painting by creating a dialogue with works from the past. These conversations within each section stimulate ideas about painting that are not limited to chronology or specific art historical narratives, but follow lines of thought. Within the exhibition, the constellations aim to make connections through the various interests, positions, styles, and histories that artists address within their approach to painting. For example, Constellations explores approaches to the landscape and figure, so-called "bad" painting, appropriation and collage in painting, the critique of illusion in painting, form and color, and paintings that exist in-between representation and abstraction.

All of the works in this exhibition are united by the use of paint, a brush, and a support to emphasize the complex and varied manner in which artists use similar materials. This exhibition does not seek to redefine what can be considered a painting, but rather examines how it endures as a vibrant art form, more than 100 years after it was proclaimed "dead" at the advent of photography. Clearly there is no correct way, which is why painting continues to be a source of stimulating conversation and debate. From the perspective of the artist and viewer, painting is a subjective experience.

This exhibition is organized by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Pamela Alper Associate Curator.

This week: Duncan and guest interviewer (who really does most of the interviewing while Duncan slumbers) Anna Kunz talk to artist and educator Jay Wolke! This entertaining and at times wacky interview is not to be missed. As you listen to this you can think to yourself; "I wonder what general zaniness was in the 10 minutes Richard chopped out of this show for the purposes of brevity and flow", but you can rest comfortable that most of it consisted of Anna giving Duncan a hard time.

Do not miss the longest, most unfocused and rant laden outro/credits in the history of the show, where Richard and Duncan are interrupted by Buses, the El, a panhandler, and Richard's spontaneous rant about a cop on a Segway smoking a cigarette. This spawns a discussion about the ascendancy of "douchebag" in the contemporary lexicon.

Wow. That is a lot of quality show!

Lifted shamelessly for somewhere else:

Jay Wolke is professor and chair of the department of art and design at Columbia College Chicago, and the author of All Around the House: Photographs of American-Jewish Communal Life. Dominic A. Pacyga is a professor at Columbia College Chicago, and the author and editor of numerous books on Chicago's history, including Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago and Chicago, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

This week Tom and Amanda talk to artist Helidon Gjergji!

 

Sun, 1 November 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 218: Temporary Services This week for your listening pleasure Bad at Sports has dispatched Shannon Stratton and Duncan MacKenzie to Illinois' glorious Kankakee to meet up with the artists of Temporary Services. They query Brett Bloom, Salem Collo-Julin, and Marc Fischer about social practice and the group's decade long history. The new www.badatsports.com is here! Come check out our redesign! Sunday the 8th we all need to once again make a trek down to Hyde Park to pick up the Artists Run Chicago Digest. In it you will find contributions by Lori Waxman, Dan Gunn, and little ole Bad at Sports! What follows is from http://www.studiochicago.org/arc-release/ Artists Run Chicago Digest Release Sunday, November 8, 2:00 - 5:00pm Hyde Park Art Center 5020 S. Cornell Chicago, IL 60615 Join the Hyde Park Art Center, threewalls and The Green Lantern Press, as they celebrate the release of the Artists Run Chicago Digest. The A.R.C. Digest: Published by threewalls and The Green Lantern Press, The Artists Run Chicago Digest documents Chicago artist-run 'spaces' active between 1999 and 2009 offering a look at the various platforms that often act as extensions to studio practice. As the official catalog of Artists Run Chicago, an exhibition that featured 34 artist-run spaces from around the city from May 10-July 5, 2009 at the Hyde Park Art Center, The A.R.C. Digest acts as compliment to and extension of the exhibition, with interviews, essays, and an audio supplement presenting a 10-year time period in Chicago’s artist-run culture while providing history, reflection, critique and dialog about artist-run culture, its importance, difficulties, sustainability and necessity as well as its specificity to a community and generation. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_218-Temporary_Services.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 12:25 PM

Sat, 24 October 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 217: Kitty Scott and Jan Verwoert at the Banff Centre for the Arts This week Duncan and Christian check in from the Banff Centre for the Arts. They sit down with the Director of Visual Arts, Kitty Scott to discuss what the Banff Centre is and does. Then they hijack a moment of performance art to "guerrilla" style interview Jan Verwoert, a contributing editor to Frieze magazine, a regular writer for Afterall and Metropolis M, and the leader of their summer residency. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_217-The_Banff_Centre.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 12:59 PM

Sun, 18 October 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 216: WhiteWalls & The Return of the Book Review This week Duncan and Richard talk to Anthony Elms about WhiteWalls! Also the book review has made its glorious return. Terri and Joanna review “The American Painter Emma Dial” by Samantha Peale. Rejoice and be glad! Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_216-WhiteWallsBook_Review.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 12:01 AM

Sun, 11 October 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 215: Paul Urich This week Bad at Sports has it all: tattoos, surfing accidents, sexual deviants, motorcycle races, newborn babies, starring death in the eye, and a walk down the red carpet at the Emmy's. Brian and Patricia probe artist Paul Urich about the connections between his studio practice and the craft of tattooing. Paul Urich has had exhibtions at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Fecal Face Dot Gallery, and created a limited edition sneaker for Nike. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_215-Paul_Urich.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 12:01 AM

Sun, 4 October 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 214: Constellations: Paintings from the MCA Collection This week: Duncan leads a panel discussion on the the state of painting and current MCA exhibition Constellations: Paintings from the MCA Collection(which closes October 18th!) the panel consists of Artists Vera Klement and Wesley Kimler, Artletter.com's Paul Klein and exhibition curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm! Stolen liberally from the MCA website: This exhibition explores various approaches to painting and how it communicates ideas about life and art from the 1940s to the present. Arranged in a series of constellations, or groupings, the exhibition highlights for the first time the MCA Collection's particular strengths in this medium. Augmented by major works from important private collections to fill gaps in the MCA Collection and to provide examples of recent works made during the last few years, the exhibition includes work by approximately 75 of the most important artists of the last sixty years including Chuck Close, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Jasper Johns, Lari Pittman, Rudolf Stingel, Clare Rojas, Laura Owens, Josef Albers, Rene Magritte, Francis Bacon, Brice Marden, Caroll Dunham, Thomas Scheibitz, Jean Dubuffet, Sherrie Levine, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Sigmar Polke, Rebecca Morris, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy, among others. Featured Chicago artists include Angel Otero, Wesley Kimler, Kerry James Marshall, Judy Ledgerwood, Scott Reeder, Michelle Grabner, Marie Krane Bergman, and Vera Klement. This exhibition explores questions about the current state and future of painting by creating a dialogue with works from the past. These conversations within each section stimulate ideas about painting that are not limited to chronology or specific art historical narratives, but follow lines of thought. Within the exhibition, the constellations aim to make connections through the various interests, positions, styles, and histories that artists address within their approach to painting. For example, Constellations explores approaches to the landscape and figure, so-called "bad" painting, appropriation and collage in painting, the critique of illusion in painting, form and color, and paintings that exist in-between representation and abstraction. All of the works in this exhibition are united by the use of paint, a brush, and a support to emphasize the complex and varied manner in which artists use similar materials. This exhibition does not seek to redefine what can be considered a painting, but rather examines how it endures as a vibrant art form, more than 100 years after it was proclaimed "dead" at the advent of photography. Clearly there is no correct way, which is why painting continues to be a source of stimulating conversation and debate. From the perspective of the artist and viewer, painting is a subjective experience. This exhibition is organized by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Pamela Alper Associate Curator. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_214-Constellations_panel.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 2:50 PM

Sun, 27 September 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 213: Rob Davis and Michael Langlois This week we return to Chicago's magic love and check in with a few local heroes, Rob Davis and Michael Langlois. Fresh from shows in New York and Berlin, they have returned home to a run of great exhibitions starting with the Cultural Center in January and rolling up to the current 12 x 12 at the MCA. They join us to chat about painting, perspectives on art history, collaboration and show making in the contemporary context, while always draping one hand back to tradition. The outro has a guest commentator with a message for Joseph Mohan. After that there is a special surprise for those who hang about for end of the credits. Or maybe not. I thought it was funny. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_213-Davis_and_Langlois.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 1:59 AM

Sun, 20 September 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 212: Jay Wolke This week: Duncan and guest interviewer (who really does most of the interviewing while Duncan slumbers) Anna Kunz talk to artist and educator Jay Wolke! This entertaining and at times wacky interview is not to be missed. As you listen to this you can think to yourself; "I wonder what general zaniness was in the 10 minutes Richard chopped out of this show for the purposes of brevity and flow", but you can rest comfortable that most of it consisted of Anna giving Duncan a hard time. Do not miss the longest, most unfocused and rant laden outro/credits in the history of the show, where Richard and Duncan are interrupted by Buses, the El, a panhandler, and Richard's spontaneous rant about a cop on a Segway smoking a cigarette. This spawns a discussion about the ascendancy of "douchebag" in the contemporary lexicon. Wow. That is a lot of quality show! Lifted shamelessly for somewhere else: Jay Wolke is professor and chair of the department of art and design at Columbia College Chicago, and the author of All Around the House: Photographs of American-Jewish Communal Life. Dominic A. Pacyga is a professor at Columbia College Chicago, and the author and editor of numerous books on Chicago's history, including Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago and Chicago, both published by the University of Chicago Press. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_212-Jay_Wolke.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:50 AM

Sat, 12 September 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 211: Helidon Gjergji This week Tom and Amanda talk to artist Helidon Gjergji! Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_211-Helidon_Gjergji.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 12:43 PM

Sun, 6 September 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 210: Madeleine Grynsztejn  This week: Duncan and Richard talk to Madeleine Grynsztejn, the new Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago! Stolen liberally from the MCA website, with a bit of BAS embellishment:   Grynsztejn was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and London, England. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and received her BA in art history and French from Newcomb College of Tulane University, and her MA in art history from Columbia University. She is a former Helena Rubenstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and a 2007 graduate of the Getty Foundation’s Museum Leadership Institute. Grynsztejn has written, lectured, and taught extensively on contemporary art. She served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Galeria de Arte Nacional in Caracas, among other agencies. She acted as a juror for the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the Munich Kunstpreis in Germany, and the Tiffany Foundation Biennial Awards. She has also served on the advisory committees for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the American Center in Paris. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Her husband, Tom Shapiro, is a marketing consultant and a damn nice guy. Yes, Bad at Sports added the “damn nice guy” part, the MCA would never be so inappropriately casual in a blurb! How dare us. The nerve! It's true though, he really is nice. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_210-Madeleine_Grynsztejn.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:10 PM

Sun, 30 August 2009 Bad at Sports Episode 209: Mary Jane Jacob This week Duncan sneaks into The School of the Art Institute of Chicago to interview Mary Jane Jacob, Professor and Executive Director of Exhibitions.  Mary Jane Jacob's name is synonymous with the phrase "art as social practice" or the field of art that is now more widely known as "Relational Aesthetics."  Jacob was at the center of the nineties debate about what was and could be considered an art object/experience and was putting on festivals, exhibitions, and public art programming that expanded our art consciousness long before Bourriaud "sexy-ed" up the field with his now seminal book. Aside from being a former Chief Curator at the MCA Chicago and LA MoCA, Jacob was also the person behind "Culture in Action," Chicago's progressive, but widely debated 90's public arts program. She is the author/co-author of several books including, "Learning Mind: Experience into Art," "Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art," "Culture in Action: A Public Art Program of Sculpture Chicago," "Conversations at The Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art," and "On the Being of Being an Artist." She is the recipient of many grants, awards, fellowships and residencies, amongst the most notable are the Peter Norton Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Study Center Residency, and the Getty Residency Program. Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_209-Mary_Jane_Jacob.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:53 PM

1\clip_colorschememapping.xml">This week: Duncan and Richard talk to Madeleine Grynsztejn, the new Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago!

Stolen liberally from the MCA website, with a bit of BAS embellishment:

 

Grynsztejn was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and London, England. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and received her BA in art history and French from Newcomb College of Tulane University, and her MA in art history from Columbia University. She is a former Helena Rubenstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and a 2007 graduate of the Getty Foundation’s Museum Leadership Institute. Grynsztejn has written, lectured, and taught extensively on contemporary art. She served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Galeria de Arte Nacional in Caracas, among other agencies. She acted as a juror for the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the Munich

Kunstpreis in Germany, and the Tiffany Foundation Biennial Awards. She has also served on the advisory committees for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the American Center in Paris. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Her husband, Tom Shapiro, is a marketing consultant and a damn nice guy. Yes, Bad at Sports added the “damn nice guy” part, the MCA would never be so inappropriately casual in a blurb! How dare us. The nerve! It's true though, he really is nice.