Hyperallergic

Since 2009, Hyperallergic has published tens of thousands of articles about art. But who are the writers behind these posts? And what drives them to write about art of all things?

Many of the authors who have passed through our virtual hallways have gone on to do incredible things, including publishing books on topics that they first wrote about or more fully developed through articles in Hyperallergic. In 2022, we held an event called ?From Blog to Book? at Brooklyn?s pinkFrog cafe, where our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian asked three of our writers to tell us about the journeys that took them from 140-character tweets to 1,200-word posts to full manuscripts. 

Erin L. Thompson, who holds the title of America?s only art crime professor, is the author of dozens of articles that brought looted artifacts from around the world to light. Her adventures have brought her from the Confederate monument etched into the side of Stone Mountain, Georgia, which she wrote about in Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments (2022), to a rededication ceremony of a repatriated object in Nepal.

AX Mina, who wrote Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power (2019), describes how they first explored the topic of memes in Hyperallergic ? which they termed ?the street art of the social web? before ?meme? became the mainstream ? and their function as a tool to circumvent internet censorship in China. 

And Michelle Young, author of Secret Brooklyn: An Unusual Guide (2023), tells us about her trajectory from working in fashion to playing in the band Kittens Ablaze to discovering so many hidden gems while aimlessly wandering the city she calls home that she founded the brilliant website Untapped New York. It was only in her time off reading World War 2 nonfiction that she found a new trail, which led her to uncover the stories of stolen Nazi loot. 

They?ll reflect on finding focus by retreating to a mountaintop in China, unearthing the legacy of forgotten World War II heroes, and even seamlessly forging Picassos ? which, as you?ll hear in the show, is not nearly as hard as you?d think. 

The music in this episode is by Famous Cats and Cast Of Characters, courtesy of Soundstripe.

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We are thrilled to be back with a new episode of the Hyperallergic podcast. 

For our one hundredth episode, we spoke with legendary collage and mixed media artist Tommy Lannigan-Schmidt. His works, made from crinkly saran wrap and tin foil, emulate the gleam of precious metals and jewels in Catholic iconography. They reference his upbringing as a working class kid and altar boy in a Catholic community in Linden, New Jersey, where tin foil was an expensive luxury they could rarely afford. But they also hold memories of where he found himself as a teenager: the LBGTQ+ street life and art community of New York City, which led to his participation in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. 

Lanigan-Schmidt is as much a visual artist as he is a storyteller. We climbed up to his fourth floor walk-up in Hell's Kitchen, where, surrounded by teetering piles of books and artwork, he regaled us with tales about artists like Jack Smith and Andy Warhol, his decision to leave his hometown as a penniless teenager, his steadfast identity as a working class artist, his conversion to Russian Orthodox Christianity, what changed for gay artists in New York between the 1960s and today, and of course, his recollection of that historic night at the Stonewall.

We know you?ll enjoy this artist?s sparkling humor and singular vision as he shares reflections on his life and this critical moment in history.

We also talked with Ann Bausum, author of Stonewall, Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights, about the significance of the uprising. She also shared some of her own first-hand recollections of segregation in 1960s America. 

The music in this episode was written by Garen Gueyikian, with the exception of one track by Dr. Delight, courtesy of Soundstripe. 

A selection of Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt?s work will be on display at a show titled Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual at Saint Louis University?s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art until May 19, 2024. 

(00:00) - Intro (02:31) - Ann / Hrag (13:58) - Intro to Tommy (15:49) - Tommy / Hrag (01:30:05) - Outro
Related Links:Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt's 2012-2013 solo show at MoMA PS1, Tender Love Among the JunkLanigan-Schmidt's work at Pavel Zoubok Fine ArtGay and Proud, the 1970 film which documented a demonstration on Christopher Street on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, excerpted in this episode starting at 14:39Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights by Ann BausumWatch Flaming Creatures by Jack SmithDr. Wendy Schaller on Feast of St. Nicholas by Jan SteenAndy Warhol's portrait of Holly SolomonMario Banana, an Andy Warhol film with Mario Montez

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If you?ve been online, and especially on Twitter, then you probably know the name Eli Valley and his brushy drawings that use the grotesque and absurd to make larger points about life, culture, and politics. But it wasn?t until the Trump administration that the New York City-based cartoonist was propelled into the public spotlight. Valley was attacked by a wide range of politicians, particularly Republicans, including Meghan McCain, who called the comic he drew of her ?one of the most anti-Semitic things I have even seen.? McCain is not Jewish, and Valley is, not to mention that his father is a rabbi.

In this conversation, I asked Valley to tell us about how he got his start in comics, how he builds on the long history of satire and graphic humor in the Jewish American tradition, and how he copes with the public spotlight while he struggles to survive as a full-time artist. 

This podcast is accompanied by scholar Josh Lambert?s article, which explores the art historical roots of Valley?s art. Lambert writes, ?Valley comes naturally by his most pressing and recurrent theme: lies told and violence committed in the name of Jewish safety and security. His cartoon jeremiads can easily enough be fit into a long history of Jewish protest, from the Biblical prophets who excoriated the sinners of Israel to modern novelists who, like the criminally under-appreciated late-19th-century San Francisco writer Emma Wolf, wrote about Jews, as she put it, ?in the spirit of love ? the love that has the courage to point out a fault in its object.??

The music for this episode is ?A Mineral Love? by Bibio, courtesy Warp Records.

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Artists Tali Hinkis and Daniel Temkin have been at the leading edge of digitally informed contemporary art that explores the boundaries of programming, digital aesthetics, and the handmade. Their work is certainly unique, but they also share some commonalities around media-based art, glitch, and how their work in the gallery and online is circulated and experienced. I invited them to join me for a conversation to hear the thoughts of two intelligent artists who are fully engaged with the new wave of thinking around digital practices in the arts. Hinkis and Temkin are both participating in various ?Digital Combine? exhibitions curated by artist Claudia Hart, who coined the term based on artist Robert Rauschenberg?s earlier ?Combines? concept that intersects sculpture and painting. In this new incarnation, the digital and analogue are in dialogue.

I also invited both artists, who are of Jewish descent, to reflect on their cultural heritage and how it manifests and informs their larger bodies of work. This conversation is part of a continuing series we?ve been doing over the last year with the help of CANVAS, a foundation interested in fostering new Jewish creativity in the 21st century.

Hinkis and Temkin are both exhibiting together in Digital Combines at Bitforms gallery in San Francisco until January 11, 2023.

The music for this episode is ?Ultra (Yung Sherman Mix)? by Evian Christ, courtesy Warp Records.

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Last year, we published a dossier of statements by leading scholars supporting the fight of Tamara Lanier to reclaim the daguerreotypes of her ancestors from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Lanier, who lives in Norwich, Connecticut, had long heard stories through her family about an ancestor named Papa Renty, a learned man from Africa who was enslaved and brought to the United States under inhumane conditions. Those stories about Renty were important to her family and to the memory of their heritage that they kept alive. 

Then one day, Lanier discovered that there were photographs of her relative, and they were deposited at Harvard University because of a 19th-century racist academic named Louis Agassiz. Agassiz had commissioned them to "prove" his White Supremacist ideas about race and they lay in a trunk at the Peabody Museum until a researcher resurfaced them in the 1970s.

In this podcast, I speak to Lanier about the continuing fight to reclaim her family heritage by asking Harvard to accept her right to the ownership of the images. She discusses a fascinating visit to the home of descendants of the Taylor family, enslavers who claimed Lanier's ancestors as property, and some surprising discoveries she made along the way.

This is a must-hear episode, and I would highly recommend reading Valentina Di Liscia's excellent article, which was part of our special dossier, that summarizes the history of the court case and the larger fight to "Free Renty."

Lanier has also allowed us reproduce some of the photographs she took at the Taylor family home, which includes various items of furniture created by her ancestors when they were enslaved.

Related Links:

The Continuing Fight to #FreeRentyLegal Precedents or Reparations? Lawsuit Against Harvard May Decide Who Owns Images of Enslaved People

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Something incredible happened a few months ago. After Oklahoma lawyer Brett Chapman (Pawnee) started tweeting about the tomahawk of Ponca Chief Standing Bear, which is currently in Harvard University?s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the revered object may actually be going home.

His short messages asked why the tomahawk was in the care of that institution and not with one of the two federally recognized Ponca tribes. The questions raised eyebrows, and as Cassie Packard reported for Hyperallergic, the museum later posted a statement on its website explaining that the museum and the Ponca tribe are ?in active discussion about the homecoming of Chief Standing Bear?s pipe tomahawk belonging to the Ponca people.?

Chapman, who has Ponca heritage, joins me for this podcast to explain the history of the tomahawk and why the return of the heirloom is important.

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A painter who may be best known for her contribution to the Photorealism movement, Audrey Flack has been a working artist for roughly 70 years. Now at age 90, Flack reflects on the art world, from her days as part of the New York School of artists in the 1950s and 60s; her rise to fame as the only prominent female Photorealist; her embrace of sculpture and public art in the 1980s and 90s; and her return to painting only a few years ago. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Flack also shares her experiences in college with renowned modernist Joseph Albers; a strange and unnerving experience with renowned painter Jackson Pollock; how she coped raising children through all of this; and much more. We?re joined by artist Sharon Louden, who is a mutual friend of Flack and myself.

This is Flack's first-ever podcast, and I'm excited for you to hear the story of this incredible artist who continues to push us to see the world anew. I hope you enjoy this epic interview with the talented artist.

The music in this episode is Ultra (Yung Sherman Mix) by Evian Christ, courtesy of Warp Records.

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Tim Kang started his career as a software engineer for Deutsche Bank and invested a year of savings in Ethereum in early 2016, and let?s just say it?s paying off. The North Carolina native, who is known online as ?illestrater,? is now a digital art collector and purchased works by Murat Pak and Beeple before all the recent auction sales and press coverage propelled them into the spotlight. 

He?s founded other artist platforms, including CUE Music and Universe.XYZ, and his latest organization, Sevens Foundation, is offering ?Sevens Genesis Grants? for emerging and underrepresented artists to mint their first NFT. Kang calls himself a ?champion of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists? in the NFT space.

I spoke to him to learn more about his interest in NFTs and collecting digital assets and his thoughts on the future of the field. 

This is a continuation of a series of podcasts we?re publishing on the evolving terrain of NFTs and their impact on artists and the arts community.

The music for this episode is ?Autowave? by Kelly Moran from the album Ultraviolet, which is available from Warp Records.

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Diya Vij started her new job as Associate Curator of Creative Time just last fall, in the midst of the pandemic. She has since announced the first Creative Time Think Tank cohort, which includes La Tanya S. Autry, Caitlin Cherry, Sonia Guiñansaca, Namita Gupta Wiggers, and a number of other engaged voices of the art community. This new initiative invited people to submit proposals for an open call, drawing 200 individual or group applicants. The selected cohort will meet regularly for the next 10 months to reflect on the realities around us and imagine a way forward for the cultural sector.

Vij has built a reputation over the years for her work at the Queens Museum, High Line, and in the Commissioner?s Unit of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, where she created the Public Artists in Residence program. She joins me to discuss this unusual think tank and what the collective hopes to accomplish.

Music is Lorenzo Senni?s ?Move in Silence (Only Speak When It?s Time to Say Checkmate)? from Warp Records.

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Since 2001, Bitforms gallerist Steven Sacks has been exhibiting and selling digital art (though he hates that term) and building an audience and support network for artists working with new media.

After Sara Ludy, one of the artists Bitforms regularly exhibits, told Hyperallergic about her plans to negotiate new more equitable contracts for any NFT she sells, I decided to speak to Sacks to hear about his experience during this pandemic period when NFTs dominate many mainstream conversations about online and digital art. He talks to me about selling art, how things have evolved, and what he expects from this new wave of change. Galleries, Sacks suggests, will always be relevant.

This is the third podcast in a series of episodes and articles we will publish in the coming weeks on the topic of NFTs.

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Lindsay Howard is the head of community at the Foundation, one of the new platforms that have been part of the current wave of NFT art. She joined me in our Brooklyn studio to discuss the audience for crypto art and the collectors eager to fork over money for it. We also delve into what it could mean for an art scene facing the fact that the post-pandemic world may be very different for creators, sellers, collectors, journalists, scholars, and everyone else.

This is the second podcast in a series of episodes and articles we will publish in the coming weeks on the topic of NFTs.

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Contemporary artist Addie Wagenknecht is a veteran of the blockchain space ? as much of a seasoned pro as one can be in a field that?s only a decade old. She?s been observing the gold rush over NFTs in the last few weeks and agreed to join me on this episode to educate newbies about blockchains, NFTs, and all the issues they bring up. Are NFTs good for artists and the art community? The short answer is maybe. 

In addition to being an artist, Wagenknecht is Director of Technical Ecosystems at the Algorand Foundation, and she brings a much-needed pragmatism to the topic, as PR campaigns often make it seem like NFTs are going to change the world. 

This is the first in a series of episodes we will publish in the coming weeks on the topic of NFTs.  

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Photographer Scout Tufankjian was glued to her screens like Armenians around the world following news of developments in Artsakh. After the ceasefire was announced, she decided to rush to the region, which she's visited numerous times before, to document the handover of territories to Azerbaijani forces. It was an emotional trip but one she knew she wanted to make.

Best known for her photo book Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History Making Presidential Campaign, Tufankjian also created what was once the internet's most popular photo (it was of the Obamas). She stopped by our Brooklyn studio to share her insights and reflections from her experience in November and December. The podcast was recorded on January 19, 2021, the 14th anniversary of the assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

The music in this episode is by Mary Kouyoumdjian and is titled "This Should Feel Like Home" (2013), which was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Hotel Elefant.

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This week?s headlines were dominated by news that the Museum of Modern Art will not remove billionaire Leon Black from their board. Hyperallergic?s Jasmine Weber and Valentina Di Liscia join me to talk about it along with PEN America?s new handbook for persecuted artists, Mexico?s request that Christie?s auction house halt its sale of pre-Hispanic objects, the return of looted artifacts by the Museum of the Bible to Iraq and Egypt, and how some of the important quilters of Gee?s Bend now have Etsy shops.

The music for this episode is Darkstar?s ?Jam? courtesy of Warp Records. 

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Photo caption: Members of the 27N Movement had gathered to read a text by Martí, an important symbol of the nation's struggle for independence from Spain (photo by Reynier Leyva Novo, courtesy of 27N Movement)

Protesters outside of MoMA in February, 2017 (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

It?s been a non-stop news cycle since last November?s election, and Hyperallergic?s news team has been on it. Join us and listen to the team?s thoughts on the stories we've been reporting on.

For this episode, we gather to discuss the stories that we covered this week, including the Bernie memes; the Capitol insurrection; the charred Melania Trump sculpture in Slovenia; the rumors that Trump staffers were taking works home; the Ohio Arts Board member who was forced out after her social media posts were discovered; the damage to an ancient arch in Iraq; the closing of the disastrous Vessel in Manhattan; and the viral sink reviewer who hates the faucets at the Museum of Modern Art.

The music for this episode is Lorenzo Senni?s ?Canone Infinito? courtesy of Warp Records. 

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Born Leonard McGure, Futura made his reputation spray painting subway trains in New York City in the 1970s as ?Futura 2000? ? the number was dropped in 1999. He would go on to be part of the booming graffiti and street art movement in the 1980s, but was forced to depend on European venues and collectors after attention in the United States quickly dried up in the late 1980s, though he did go on to collaborate with various American fashion and music labels.

Now he?s back with his first solo New York exhibition in 32 years, which is taking place at Eric Firestone Gallery in Manhattan. In this conversation, he generously shares his insight into the mercurial art world, what motivates him to continue making work, and reflections on a scene that continues to change.

The music in this episode is Lara Sarkissian?s ?A House is a Being,? from the album Grief Into Rage: A Compilation for Beirut, which is raising funds for victims of the Beirut blast last August. I?m sending love to those who continue to grapple with that horrific event.

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Since she first emerged into the spotlight in the 1990s, artist Shahzia Sikander has forged her own path with artworks that meld traditional manuscript illumination and calligraphy techniques with visual innovations that seem to transform into an alchemical universe of awe, wonder, and intimacy. 

Her current exhibition at Sean Kelly gallery, her first in a decade, includes three animation works and continues to push ink, gouache, and mosaic to new heights in her art. There, she is also displaying her first bronze sculpture.

In this conversation, Sikander joins me in the Hyperallergic studio to talk about making art through the pandemic, what she wants her art to do, and her hopes for a new post-pandemic art world.

The music in this episode is ?Animal? by Radiochaser. 

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On Tuesday, June 23, 2015, Hyperallergic hosted our first-ever live reading event, which took place at Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe in Manhattan?s SoHo neighborhood. Hyperallergic Weekend Editors John Yau and Albert Mobilio read their poetry, writers Marisa Crawford (?Crying for Ana Mendieta at the Carl Andre Retrospective?) and Ryan Wong (?I Am Joe Scanlan?) read pieces that were among our favorites from that year, while two Hyperallergic veterans Allison Meier and Jillian Steinhauer (?Wading in Matthew Barney?s River of Shit?) read some of their own writing.

The event also included a wacky comments section, where Hyperallergic staff and contributors Tiernan Morgan, Jennifer Samet, and Elisa Wouk Almino read some of our zaniest comment threads that were percolating on the website at the time ? my favorite involves Shakespeare truthers. There?s even a short Q&A at the end with Hyperallergic Weekend Editor Thomas Micchelli.

I know you?ll get a kick out of this time capsule from what feels like a bygone age, back when Obama was still president and ?fake news? wasn?t the ubiquitous term it is today.

The music in this episode is titled ?A Boy and a Makeshift Toy.? It?s performed by violist Michael Hall, pianist Stephanie Titus, and composed by Mary Kouyoumdjian. The piece is inspired by the war photography of Chris Hondros, particularly a photo of Albanian refugees from Kosovo waiting at a train station.

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We can?t believe it?s been four years since the 2016 US Election, and here we are again. I?m joined this episode by the Hyperallergic news team ? news editor Jasmine Weber, and reporters Valentina Di Liscia and Hakim Bishara ? to discuss the stories we reported on over the last six months. These include a look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?s records on the arts; various mural and poster projects that have engaged local communities; the decision of some museums not to serve as polling places; and other news of note.

It?s election day, so we hope all those who can will vote.

The music featured in this episode is ?Wink Wink? by Teddi Gold.

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For months, media specialists, pundits, and analysts were warning us to brace for an onslaught of memes and other forms of propaganda that would flood our feeds this US election season. While there certainly have been a comparable amount of memes and videos as in 2016, the use of deepfakes ? a form of artificial intelligence to make images of fake events ? never quite materialized. Why?

In this wide-ranging conversation, I talk to artist and technologist An Xiao Mina about the absence of deepfakes and what this might tell us about the media ecosystem now and going forward.

This conversation is part of our Sunday Edition on Propaganda.

The music featured this episode is a new track by Command Dos titled "Proof."

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A few weeks ago, artist Sam Durant released a long essay about his work, "Scaffold," which reflects on the project that dominated art world headlines. Originally commissioned for documenta (13) ? the influential quinquennial exhibition in Kassel, Germany ? in 2012, it wasn't until "Scaffold" was installed in the Walker Art Center's sculpture park in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, that it was met with protests by the local Dakota community.

That event was a lightning rod for a national conversation about appropriation, racism, and the role of artists, museums, curators, and others in those conversation. I invited Durant to join me on the podcast to discuss the reason he wrote this so many years after the fact and what he thinks the lessons are.

The music featured in this episode is the track ?California Life? by Radiochaser.

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Last week, the New York Times reported that the National Gallery of Art's Philip Guston retrospective, expected to travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tate Modern in London, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, would be delayed by four years. The reasons are many, including the limited demographics of those who worked on an exhibition that is very much about race, as well as the current cultural climate. The decision has caused = reactions of indignation and anger in some art circles, causing others to be perplexed over what seems like an overreaction to the delay of an exhibition by a very well-known artist, who is frequently shown and exhibited in spaces the world over.

In this episode, the director of the National Gallery, Kaywin Feldman, shares her thoughts on the decision, why it was important, and what the National Gallery of Art will do now.

The music featured in this episode is the track ?California Life" by Radiochaser.

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I?ve been wanting to do a major interview with Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon for years. As the duo behind MTL+ Collective and organizers with Decolonize This Place, FTP, Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (GULF), and other groups through the years, they?ve played an active role in pressuring New York?s art community and institutions to deal with the issues that have long been overlooked. Though well known for organizing with a focus on worker, indigenous, Black, Palestinian, and migrant rights, both Husain and Dhillon are also artists.

In this wide-ranging, two-part conversation, I speak to Husain and Dhillon, who came to our studio back in May, before the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, about their lives, ideas, and what they think of an art community that is still grappling with notions of justice, freedom, and equality.

Part one is a shorter 34-minute interview to introduce you to the pair and their lives, while part two (81 minutes) offers a closer look at their work and the various challenges they?ve faced with the Guggenheim Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, while offering some insights into what?s next.

Instead of music for this episode, I?ve incorporated the sounds of various protests where I?ve encountered the pair, including the 2017 Anti-Columbus Day Tour at the American Museum of Natural History.

Subscribe to the Hyperallergic Podcast on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

I?ve been wanting to do a major interview with Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon for years. As the duo behind MTL+ Collective and organizers with Decolonize This Place, FTP, Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (GULF), and other groups through the years, they?ve played an active role in pressuring New York?s art community and institutions to deal with the issues that have long been overlooked. Though well known for organizing with a focus on worker, indigenous, Black, Palestinian, and migrant rights, both Husain and Dhillon are also artists.

In this wide-ranging, two-part conversation, I speak to Husain and Dhillon, who came to our studio back in May, before the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, about their lives, ideas, and what they think of an art community that is still grappling with notions of justice, freedom, and equality.

Part one is a shorter 34-minute interview to introduce you to the pair and their lives, while part two (81 minutes) offers a closer look at their work and the various challenges they?ve faced with the Guggenheim Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, while offering some insights into what?s next.

Instead of music for this episode, I?ve incorporated the sounds of various protests where I?ve encountered the pair, including the 2017 Anti-Columbus Day Tour at the American Museum of Natural History.

Subscribe to the Hyperallergic Podcast on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

The Taino civilization was decimated by Christopher Columbus and other European explorers during first contact, but the legacy of these people, who inhabited what is today called the Caribbean, continues to this day.

In a small exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled Arte del mar: Artistic Exchange in the Caribbean, Assistant Curator James Doyle showcases some of the rare wooden objects, along with the intricate gold pieces, fascinating stone stools, and other objects that have survived over the centuries. He explains what makes the artistic objects of the Taíno unique, why bats and other animals are common in the imagery, and what we know about a civilization that was drastically impacted by the devastation and genocide of European colonization.

Also, some good news: the run of the exhibition has been extended until June 27, 2021.

The music for this week?s episode is ?The Shady Road? by artist B. Wurtz. His debut album, Some Songs, will be released on October 16 by Hen House Studios. 

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Reporters Valentina Di Liscia and Hakim Bishara join me to discuss the Whitney Museum?s decision to cancel the exhibition Collective Actions: Artist Interventions In a Time of Change, which was scheduled to open on September 17. 

They both reported on the story this Tuesday, and now offer their own insights into the larger questions raised by this controversy, including how museums should collect, what role should artists have in the acquisition process, and if museums are getting better or worse at dealing with issues of racial and economic equity in their collections.

This episode will get you up to speed about the fast-moving story and what it tells us about the Whitney and other contemporary museums today.

A special thanks to Tyler James Bellinger for providing his track ?Champagne? for this week?s episode. You can visit Apple Music or YouTube, for more information.

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The recent news that the White House may ban the social media platform TikTok has people wondering, why? While Silicon Valley social giants, like Twitter and Facebook, have avoided similar threats, the question remains why TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company but has headquarters in the UK and the US, is causing so much condemnation.

I invite author, artist, and technologist An Xiao Mina to discuss her recent article "Break and TikTok for the Mass," and why the social platform continues to irk the powers that be. We also discuss the passing of poet Dinos Christianopoulos, whose line ?They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn?t Know We Were Seeds? has become a staple of protests the world over.

Thanks to YutaY for providing the music to this week?s episode. His new track ?Run? is available on Apple Music and Spotify, and you can follow him on Facebook.

Hyperallergic continues to be on top of the biggest stories in the art community during the pandemic. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date.

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Recently, Hyperallergic reported that the Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania will be removing a cranial collection from display in a basement classroom. The group of crania, which was donated by a 19th-century Philadelphia-born and UPenn-educated physician named Samuel George Morton, includes many skulls of enslaved Black people. The collection is a product of racist, pseudoscientific "race science" that Morton and his peers perpetuated. Members of the UPenn community actively denounced its display at the institution for many years prior to the museum?s recent decision.

Hyperallergic's news editor Jasmine Weber and reporter Hakim Bishara join me to discuss this story and what Police Free Penn, a group consisting of UPenn students and local activists, is demanding the museum abolish the collection.

The music this episode is an instrumental version of "Begin Again" by Kill the Alarm.

Hyperallergic continues to be on top of the biggest stories in the art community during the pandemic. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date.

Subscribe to Hyperallergic?s Podcast on iTunes, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Hyperallergic news editor Jasmine Weber and reporter Valentina Di Liscia joined me to parse the latest PPP loan news and discuss the list of beneficiaries.

Previously, we reported on galleries, museums, and nonprofits in New York and Los Angeles that received loans, and noted that the world?s most exclusive art galleries received millions of dollars of taxpayer money. In this conversation we offer some additional details and thoughts about the news.

We also discuss the evolving discussion around the blurring of faces in protest photographs, following a statement issued by ICP Center Blackness Now on the need for guidelines for protest photographers. Photographer Dawoud Bey offered his thoughts in the comments of the post we published, which has extended the conversation. We share our thoughts on the topic.

The music for this episode is ?The One? by The Wayves.

Hyperallergic is continuing to cover the biggest stories in the art community during the pandemic. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date.

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In his current position as art critic at the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight has been speaking truth to power for almost four decades. He charted the contemporary art waters in a city that has since become one of the world?s art hubs before most people ever noticed. He doesn?t shy away from controversy, as his recent columns about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art?s renovations suggest. This year he was awarded two special honors: the Rabkin Lifetime Achievement Award for Art Journalism and the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

In this episode, he shares stories about his years in LA, his work as a newspaper art critic, and even a very curious letter he received from actor Charleton Heston about artist Andrew Wyeth.

The music featured in this episode is the track ?Zuma" by Austin David.

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This week, I talk to Hyperallergic news editor Jasmine Weber, and reporters Hakim Bishara and Valentina di Liscia, to discuss some of the major stories they?ve been reporting on. Art?s role in upholding the status quo has been long diminished, but we?ve seen major developments to challenge this, including the removal of Confederate statues across the United States; the toppling of a Columbus statue in Minneapolis by members of the American Indian Movement; the decision by MCA Chicago to halt its contract with local police; celebrities advocating for justice for Breonna Taylor; and the vow by former Whitney Museum Vice Chair Warren Kanders to sell Safariland divisions that manufactures tear gas.

We also discuss our editorial decision to blur the faces of protesters, as well as two important essays we published on the origins of the word ?loot? and the meaning of journalistic ?objectivity.?

I also speak to scholar and photographer Artyom Tonoyan about what he saw during the May 29th protests in Minneapolis.

Hyperallergic continues to be on top of the biggest stories in the art community during the pandemic. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date.

Subscribe to Hyperallergic?s Podcast on iTunes, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

In this episode for Sunday Edition, we welcome Kyle Chayka to examine Silicon Valley?s taste for minimalist design. Is this just the latest development for a style that has a long history but only emerged into pop culture during the 1960s and ?70s when a contemporary art movement emerged to propel the taste for less into a global phenomenon?

Chayka's book, The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism (Bloomsbury, 2020), is a highly readable book that examines the historical precedents of minimalist design, its incarnation as contemporary art, and how it was co-opted by architecture, design, and fashion companies to represent a new, generic sense of luxury.

The music for this episode is Darkstar?s ?Timeaway,? which is taken from the new album News From Nowhere, courtesy of Warp Records (warp.net/artists/darkstar).

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The best news team in art gathers for another conversation about the biggest stories facing the arts community. News editor Jasmine Weber, and reporters Hakim Bishara and Valentina di Liscia, join me to reflect on acts of solidarity across the art world, the growing #CancelRent movement, the bizarre IRS complaint filed by an attorney against the Whitney Museum, museum layoffs, a coalition of artists calling to lift Gaza sanctions, how US cities are dealing with arts funding, Frieze New York going online, and much more.

Hyperallergic continues to be on top of the biggest stories in the art community during the pandemic and subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date.

A special thanks to Jowan Safadi for allowing us to use his track, ?Super White Man,? for this episode. You can follow Saladi on YouTube, Bandcamp, or Twitter.

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Few critics are like John Yau, who, for decades, has continued to engage with contemporary art with a voracious appetite, often focusing on figures ignored by the art market and mainstream institutions that chase after the next shiny thing. He has been part of the Hyperallergic Weekend editorial collective since it debuted in 2012.

John's writing about contemporary art cuts through hierarchies and academic jargon while revealing his love of art and innovative ideas. I asked him about his life, how he got into art writing, stories from his childhood, and other influences that help us understand a writer who continues to challenge both himself and readers to look at art with fresh and informed eyes. This special two-hour interview offers a window into the world of one of the country's most respected art critics and poets.

A special thanks to Vinson Valega for providing the music for this interview. You can learn more about his music at VinsonValega.com.

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News about new museum layoffs and other problems, art galleries closures, and the cancellation of the Indian Market in Santa Fe are all part of this week's episode with Hyperallergic?s news editor Jasmine Weber, LA Editor Elisa Wouk Almino, and Ellie Duke, our Southwest editor based in Santa Fe, NM.

We discuss the Museum of Contemporary Art's decision to furlough most of its staff and then lay off 97 part-time workers, the impact of canceling Santa Fe's Indian Market, and the launch of our series that looks at some of the Native American artists and artisans who won't be able to show at the August gathering. We also talk about images from the 1918 influenza pandemic, the complicated problems of museum endowments, and how museums the world over are slowly opening up, not to mention a few that have been forced to close again because of a new wave of infections. And on a lighter side, we discuss Alan Nakagawa's social distancing haiku project.

Then I reach out to writer Anthony Majalathni in Rome, who discusses his recent article about the history of disease, faith, and recovery in the Italian capital, and what life in Rome is like today. As a historian of Rome, Majalathni is a great source of information on the city's long history with disease.

And a very special thanks to Apollo Kings for letting us use their new song, "Trust Issues."

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This episode, in our ongoing series tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the art community, I talk to the Hyperallergic news team (Jasmine Weber, Valentina Di Liscia, and Hakim Bishara) about the latest Pandemic-related news, including why museums can't dip into their endowments as easily as we might like, the Guggenheim's decision to furlough 92 employees, why some union supporters are crying foul with the recent art world layoffs. We also discuss the impact of the cancellation of Indian Market in Santa Fe, an artist fundraiser for Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, how artists are helping to decorate hospitals, and even some memes.

A special thanks to Nathan Fox for letting us use his track ?I Can?t Hang.? To learn more, check out his Facebook page.

And a thank you to Gina Volpe for allowing us to use a short clip of her catchy song "Don't Touch Your Face," and for answering my questions about her inspiration.

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This week, we give you a two-part conversation about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the arts community. First, we start with our news team, editor Jasmine Weber, and reporters Valentina Di Liscia and Hakim Bishara, to get updates on the flurry of news this week. Then we talk to editors Seph Rodney, Jasmine Weber, and Dessane Lopez Cassell about the new boom in online offerings by museums, galleries, and art institutions, as we try to separate the wheat from the chaff.

During our news roundup we discuss various articles by the team, including the Museum of Modern Art's decision to terminate educator contracts, the Whitney Museum's decision to lay off 76 staff members, pandemic relief efforts by various foundations, the eerie visual parallels between today and the 1918 influence pandemic, and even a few lighter posts, including the Gerbil Museum that's captured the hearts of art lovers.

In the final segment, Seph Rodney elaborates on what he found as an art critic visiting the new wave of online galleries, while Jasmine Weber and Dessane Lopez Cassell discuss their thoughts on online spaces and which ones appear to be doing it better than others.

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A special thanks to YutaY for providing the music to this week's episode. His new track "Run" is available on Apple Music and Spotify, and you can follow him on Facebook.

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Cases of COVID-19 are on the rise across the US and much of the world,  so Hyperallergic's news team gathered together for week 3 of our special podcast series to discuss what's happening at art museums, art schools, and other hubs of the art community during the coronavirus pandemic.

I'm joined by Hyperallergic's news editor Jasmine Weber in Los Angeles, and reporters Valentina di Liscia in Miami and Hakim Bishara in Brooklyn to reflect on the week that was and what we anticipate ahead.

Thanks to Kicholas Nage for allowing us to use his new song "Rona" this episode. You can check it out on YouTube.

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Another week of unprecedented COVID-19 news dominates the headlines as the United States, and New York specifically, has slowly become one of the epicenters of a global pandemic.

The Hyperallergic news team, including news editor Jasmine Weber, and reporters Valentina di Liscia and Hakim Bishara, join me for our first-ever remote podcast to discuss a wide range of topics including how museums and art galleries are advocating for support, how the pandemic is impacting life in Rome, how Whitney Museum art handlers are doing their part, and even a look at some of the viral songs that have emerged from the crisis.

We will be producing a podcast weekly until the crisis is over, to document what we've been seeing, reading, and hearing about a virus that has forced inhabitants of some of the largest cities of the world to stay home. During this anxious time, as much of the world shelters in place to mediate the impact on local healthcare facilities, we work at keeping you informed about the daily realities of COVID-19 and its effect on arts communities.

For this episode, we gathered the songs that have emerged during the pandemic, including tracks by Tennessee Builds, Kathy Mak, JoJo, students of the Chino Valley Unified School District, and others.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed life all around the world, whether it is in San Francisco, where inhabitants are forced to stay indoors by a shelter in place order, or the whole country of Canada, which has just closed its border to the US and will not allow non-essential visitors into the country. Here in New York, Hyperallergic reporters have been talking to those impacted by the virus and how it is wreaking havoc for businesses, nonprofits, and arts institutions of all types. In this podcast, I'm joined by two Hyperallergic reporters, Hakim Bishara and Valentina di Liscia, to discuss what we're seeing, hearing, and experiencing regarding COVID-19's impact on the art scene.

A special thanks to Eric Drass of Shardcore for the music to this week?s episode. Based on COVID-19 DNA sequence from the NIH, the complete two-hour track on Soundcloud and you can learn more about the artist at the Shardcore website.

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Ariella Azoulay's new book Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (Verso, 2019) is an important read on the topic of museums, colonialism, and their clear relationship. In this conversation, Azoulay, who is Professor of Modern Culture & Media and Comparative Literature at Brown University, joins us at Hyperallergic HQ to explain what we need to unlearn, and how artists, collectors, critics, and other arts professionals play a role in the continuing dispossession of colonial subjects, most often people of color, around the world. This conversation is essential for anyone interested in the future of arts institutions and their role in social change. 

A special thanks to Dried Spider for the music to this week?s episode. (driedspider.bandcamp.com)

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Taxes may be one of the most unpopular topics in art circles, but we all have to deal with them. So in this episode I speak to Hannah Cole from Sunlight Tax, who is an artist and tax professional, about the challenges of artist taxes ? her specialty ? and what people should watch out for if they don?t want to be audited. Lots of useful insight.

A special thanks to Mark Pritchard and Warp Records for providing the music for this episode.

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It?s the holidays and you can?t get away from them. Some classic films have come to represent the season in the popular imagination, and we all have our favorites. I invited film editor Dan Schindel to talk about this unique genre of cinema, while discussing our favorite films about Christmas and more. I also invited a number of Hyperallergic staff to share their favorites.

I have a feeling this episode will get you into the holiday mood.

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A special thanks to Patrick Thomas for providing the music to this episode and getting us into the holiday spirit. You can find Christmas with Patrick Thomas on iTunes, and follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

This and more in the current episode of Hyperallergic?s Art Movements podcast.

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Artist Zoë Buckman is a feminist, which permeates her work and life, and her art explores the world of contemporary art with a particular sensitivity toward issues of sexual violence, abuse, and gender identity, among other things.

In this episode, she sat down with Hyperallergic editor and critic Seph Rodney to discuss her last exhibition at Fort Gansevoort, which was reviewed by Weekend contributor Nicole Miller. Buckman also expanded on her perspective of art that struggles with difficult issues in a thoughtful way.

A special thanks to Twig Twig for the music to this week?s episode. You can listen to that and more at twigtwig.bandcamp.com and other streaming services.

 This and more in the current episode of our weekly Art Movements podcast.

Hyperallergic Reviews editor Dessane Lopez Cassell and Documentary associate editor Dan Schindel join me to discuss our favorite films from 2019.

We discuss Parasite, The Farewell, America, High Life, Midnight Traveler, the new frontiers of documentary, including Syrmor, The Giverny Document, and more. We also discuss the recent boom in superhero movies, how they dominate conversation about film, Martin Scorsese?s problems with the genre, and what it tells us about movies today. We also talk about Schindel's newly published essay, "What Is a Documentary These Days?"

 

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A special thanks to Kill the Alarm for providing the music for this episode. The track you?re hearing is ?Chemicals? from the album Sleeping Giant.

This and more in the current episode of our weekly Art Movements podcast.

Subscribe to Hyperallergic?s Art Movements on iTunes, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) was founded by women over a century ago, and it continues to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. Its current president, Rosanne Somerson, who is also an accomplished furniture designer, stopped by to talk about the institution and how it has pivoted to stay on top of the field, while serving an increasingly diverse student body.

We also discuss the RISD Museum and its recent attempt to repatriate an item in its collection, the financial realities that face students, and how arts education can help us solve some of the challenges of today.

A special thanks to musician Sophie Hintze for allowing us to use her unreleased song ?Coffee in the Rain.? You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

This and more in the current episode of our weekly Art Movements podcast.

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Joan Kee is the rare combination of art historian and lawyer, and she's shared her skills in her new book, Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America, which examines the legal issues major contemporary artists (from Tehching Hsieh to Felix Gonzales-Torres) have confronted in the past 60 years.

Kee's research shows that since the 1960s, as artist projects have become more expansive and expensive, the world of lawyers and laws is becoming a bigger part of the equation. From discussions of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "Running Fence" land art project (they actually had offers to place the project elsewhere, which would've been a lot easier) to Gordon Matta-Clark's Fake Estates micro-real estate project (there is no evidence the artist did or did not want to present this as an artwork), Kee's research demonstrates that the history of art has increasingly been intertwined with its legal realities.

A special thanks to Brooklyn-based musician SunSon for providing the music to this episode, and you can check out his website sunson.band. You can also follow him on Facebook or Instagram.

This and more in the current episode of our weekly Art Movements podcast.

Subscribe to Hyperallergic?s Art Movements on iTunes, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Born in 1923 in Pennsylvania to Lebanese parents, Helen Khal would go on to become an important presence in the modern art world of Lebanon as a prominent art critic and artist. A new exhibition at Beirut?s Sursock Museum tells the history of that period through her friendships and relationships with a coterie of artists and writers who would become some of the most important artist voices in the region.

Commissioned by Ashkal Alwan for the Sursock Museum's biennial Home Works gathering of lectures, performances, exhibitions and events ? most of which, with the exception of the exhibitions, has been indefinitely postponed because of the recent nationwide protests in Lebanon. The exhibition is titled At the still point of the turning world, there is the dance and includes work by Chafic Abboud, Yvette Achkar, Etel Adnan, Huguette Caland, Simone Fattal, Farid Haddad, Helen Khal, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Aref Rayess, and Dorothy Salhab-Kazemi.

Curators Carla Chammas and Rachel Dedman spoke to me about this incredible art historical show that combines paintings, ceramics, furniture, letters, publications, videos, and other primary source materials from the "Golden Era" from before the infamous Lebanese Civil War. We?ve included an assortment of images in this post to give you a flavor of the exhibition, and we?ve included the items the curators selected as personal favorites, which they also discuss on the podcast.

For this episode we?ve used the sounds from the recent streets protests in downtown Beirut, which were sparked by decades of growing corruption and new taxes that were proposed and since rescinded.

This and more in the current episode of our weekly Art Movements podcast.

From nine weeks of protests to an exhibition that was more ethnically and racially diverse than previous years, this year?s Whitney Biennial has a lot to unpack.

I asked our associate news editor Jasmine Weber, editor and critic Seph Rodney, and reporter Hakim Bishara to join me to reflect on months of controversy and offer their opinions on the exhibition itself. We discuss favorite works, what may have been accomplished, and duds. You?ll want to hear this.

A special thanks to Wanderraven, who provided the music to this week?s episode. The song is called ?Here Into The Dark?. Listen to more at wanderraven.com.

Last week, Hyperallergic published a five-part series, titled The Danger Epidemic in Art Handling, on the realities facing art handlers in the United States. The story generated a lot of debate and shocked many who were never forced to think about the conditions workers are forced to endure when assembling and transporting art of all types.

This conversation with Hyperallergic Senior Writer Zachary Small and Associate News Editor Jasmine Weber explores the contours of the topic, the difficulties of reporting on contentious art world issues, and how investigative reporting is crucial for change. We also discuss the Sotheby's lockout of art handlers, which we covered extensively in 2011 and 2012.

A special thanks to Peter Gabriel's Real World Records for allowing us to play a special live track by world music legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The label is celebrating its 30th anniversary of Peter Gabriel?s Real World Records and they marked the occasion by announcing the release of a previously unheard recording by the legendary qawwali singer. The recording includes Khan?s performance at WOMAD Festival in 1985, which was the first time the singer had performed in front of a mainly non-Asian audience. As a longtime fan of Khan's genius, I'm honored to include his music in this episode.

This and more in the current episode of Hyperallergic?s Art Movements podcast.

Subscribe to Hyperallergic?s Art Movements on iTunes, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.