art grind

In this episode of Art Grind, we talk to Lauren Redding - artist, writer, and one of the founders of H&R Studio. We discuss silverpoint, luck, and surviving as young artists in the 21st century

Wright Harvey, entrepreneur and founder of Sugarlift Gallery talks about truth, technology, and good gallery ethics. 

In this episode of Art Grind, the brilliant Hannah Faith Yata opens up about her upbringing as a Jehovah’s witness, the inspiration behind her vibrant, surreal paintings, and the reason hundreds of chipmunks congregate in her backyard. We also have a new temporary host for this episode: Sophia Kayafas who is a brilliant painter and musician. This episode is put together by our new editor Lucas Fauble

Our guest on this episode is Steve Shaheen, a well-known sculptor and stone carver. As painters, we had a lot of questions about the logistics involved in this particular strain of contemporary art-making: what happens when, during a process that is based on removal rather than addition or application, one makes a mistake? How does a sculptor store his works, which typically take up more 3-dimensional space than those of a painter? And how does carving massive blocks of marble that, if left unattended, could persist as they are for centuries to come, affect one's sense of permanence and legacy? Steve gracefully answers all of our novice questions about technique and logistics, weaving in humorous and instructive anecdotes about the hidden deformities of Michelangelo's sculptures and Rodin's incompetence with his own tools. We also get to hear the remarkable story of his leap of faith into a life as an artist at a vocational program in Italy as well as his efforts to erect a 9/11 memorial in his New Jersey hometown. Interview recorded, edited and written by Michael Gusev.

This installment of the Art Grind podcast features a painter who has been a longtime personal role model for several of the podcast's hosts. Even as he is a creator of absolutely monolithic paintings, Vincent Desiderio, a veteran lecturer at the New York Academy of Art and elsewhere, also manages to be an incredible speaker on the subject of art; laying out an ideological landscape that encapsulates why artists (including Desiderio himself) do what they do and how they do it. Both as a painter and an art theorist, Desiderio seems to inhabit a sort of isthmus, a place which he himself describes to be a liminal boundary which, once you push past it, "you experience something that is absolutely unforeseeable...and that is a total engagement with the process of painting.” In this episode of Art Grind, Vincent Desiderio maneuvers flawlessly between mini-lectures on semiotics in painting, the advance of postmodernity and the elusive avant garde, and the constant reassessment and summoning of drive involved in making one's life as a painter. In recounting his own ongoing battle with this last topic, Vincent enchants us with stories from his own art career, encounters with art critics and other villains, as well as personal crises including the day that a crucial moment of his career coincided with a medical emergency. Resounding through much of these stories and lectures is the concept of 'terror' and of 'opting to thrive' in the face of it -- an undercurrent which is reminiscent of Antonin Artaud's famous claim that "No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.” Written by Michael Gusev. Interview recorded and edited by Michael Gusev. 

We sit down with gallery director Frank Bernarducci, and discuss his new gallery, the state of the art world, and partying with Andy Warhol. Frank has been a groundbreaking curator and art dealer in NYC since the mid-1980s. In this episode, he tells us how his curatorial career began, what draws him to a work of art, and the do’s and don’t for emerging artists applying to his gallery.

In the past, the taxidermic animals, bones, and other natural materials employed in much of Joseph Grazi's art work have put him at odds with various animal rights activists, casting him in the role of a sort of curmudgeon of this corner of the art world. Verily, the artist would claim, his often controversial selection of materials might draw out negative reactions in some; however, it is precisely this moral panic that Joseph Grazi seems to want to beget in his audience -- demanding the answers to questions such as: What is it that we value about human and animal life? Why the uproar about poaching, but not about human trafficking in the same parts of the world? How do we place the living, the dead, and the animal, in our collectively constructed mental landscape? This installment of Art Grind has Joseph expounding on his upbringing in South Brooklyn, his intellectual clashes with animal rights essentialists, and the precise location of the absolute best pizza in all of New York (and therefore the world).

Having cut her teeth at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Hawaii-based artist Alessandra Maria has continued to produce ornate works of pencil and gold leaf on paper stained with coffee or walnut ink. The works evoke a sense of timelessness - at once medieval and modern, blending a Byzantine iconography with an urge to create her own new icons. We got a chance to talk to Alessandra about her beginnings as an artist in New York, her new life in Maui, and the drive behind her work -- challenging traditional representations of the feminine, learning from sacred traditions, and always studying up on theory. Drawing from various lines of inspiration as the spatiality of snow, Islamic geometry, and walking ten miles to look at a Klimt, Alessandra takes us through her journey as an artist and a person, starting with her religious roots in Seattle, through being a broke Brooklyn art student, up to her search for a small scrap of purpose in bringing her mental iconography to life. Audio edited by Michael Gusev 

What do you get when you cross images of sexual bondage with lush, botanical illustration and mythical/fairytale references of transformation? Give up? Well, artist Fay Ku has some answers for you, but first let’s take a look at where she’s coming from. Born in Taiwan, Ku came to the States at the young age of three. Ku studied Literature and the Visual Arts at Bennington College (1996) and earned an MS Art History and an MFA Studio Art from Pratt Institute (2006). Ku’s cleverly re-mastered and remixed fractured fairy tales have been the subject of twenty-one solo shows from Hong Kong to Hawaii and included in numerous group shows, most recently at Wave Hill’s Glyndor Gallery in Riverdale, The Bronx (Outcasts: Women in the Wilderness, 2017) alongside the works of Nancy Spero and at the cutting edge Lodge Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side (Latent Content Analysis, 2017). But back to the bondage, it’s not what you think, or what we think you think, or what we think you think the artist thinks, Ku has her own reasons for what she does. Curious? Then you’ll have to tune in because we’re not telling, Ku is, and about so much more. All shall be revealed, or some of it, or some of all of it, or all of some of it. You get the picture. 

The life of an artist is complex. You develop a skill, hone it and perfect it yet that is not the whole story. As John Wellington points out in our recent conversation, there are numerous artworks of the Madonnna and Child, endless versions on the same theme yet amongst all of these Bernini’s stands out. Is it simply skill? Or is it somehow a devotional fidelity to one’s own poetic vision? How does that same devotion translate when taken out of the context of religion? Is the ideation of beauty sullied by the representation of one’s own personal ideals? Verging on the obsessive (a necessary trait if one is to produce a body of work) Wellington’s totemic imaginary worlds have been the subject of solo and group exhibitions from New York City to Paris, France. They have been shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou and most recently at the now defunct but memorably dynamic Lodge Gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (Temple Tomb Fortress Ruin, 2017). We explore his youth, growing up in NYC in the late 60’s and early 70’s 

Dina Brodsky is conquering the art world bird by bird. A veteran cyclist, Brodsky has traveled the world on two wheels, keeping copious notes of her observations and experiences in her many notebooks, illustrated with her minute and carefully drafted pen and ink drawings and watercolor. These notations become food for fodder for her prolifically produced miniature landscape paintings and inform some of her larger pieces as well. Brodsky’s most recent exhibition The Secret Life of Trees at the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery (2016) brought together drawings of tree images sent to her from far and wide, each with their own story to tell. Brodsky talks to us about her own particular point of view on the art scene and recounts hilarious tales of her early artist vagabonding years. The list of characters could well populate a Fellini movie. Small in stature her will to forge on and champion the art she believes in is huge and her stories of failing forward are inspirational for any artist struggling in the daily art grind.

And in this corner, we have the heavyweight fighter of paint slinging… Marc Dennis. Dennis is a champion in the realm of hyperrealistic painting, duking it out every day in the studio apply a rigorous work ethic that produces mind bending detail and realism that goes beyond representation into the superreal. His floral still life paintings are a vivid homage to the Dutch still life painters of the 17th century and speak to the abundance of our era. His appropriation of master painter’s works are both reverential and yet totally accessible to the common man through a jocular sense of humor. It’s pastiche and parody all rolled into one. Marc expounds on the powers of observation and his rough and tumble journey that led him to become the meticulous and highly successful artist he is today. 

James Adelman brings us an enlightening revelation of his process, life, the universe and everything. Have a listen to Adelman as he unpacks his journey into meditation and gives us a view into his nocturnal perambulations. James is a graduate of the New York Academy of Art (2014) and also attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2010. His paintings and drawings have been shown at the Lodge Gallery on the Lower East Side and Flowers Gallery in the Chelsea district (both located in Manhattan), as well as the Abend Gallery in Denver, Colorado. Adelman has participated in a number of artist residencies, including the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild (funded by the Pollack-Krasner Foundation) and shares his views on the benefits of getting away from it all. You can travel with Adelman, virtually, just tune in, turn us on and get into the inner workings of this artist’s mind. * (This was our first interview and it was recorded on September 19th 2017.)

You’ve heard of the cat in the hat? Well, this man has no less tricks up his sleeve, not to mention hats, both figurative and actual. Well, maybe just one actual hat that he wears but Peter Drake is one artist that is definitely not standing still. In fact, he’s got so much going on that we were prompted to ask him if he had clones. With over 26 solo shows, including his most recent with Linda Warren Projects in Chicago Re-picture (November 11th, 2017 – January 13th, 2018), curatorial projects such as Piss and Vinegar: Two Generations of Provocateurs, Beautiful Beast, a contemporary representational sculpture exhibition, The Big Picture, and Now and Then: Drawings from the 19th Century to the Present, in partnership with the Dahesh Museum of Art, a public art commission sponsored by the MTA (Waiting for Toydot, 2015)—oh and did we mention that he is Dean of Academic Affairs for the New York Academy of Art? Drake discusses his relationship with his gallery, Linda Warren Projects, his friendships, and the thinking behind his uncanny, dystopian representations of popular culture of 70’s and the suburban myth. Listen to the end to hear the secret of his success. (This interview was recorded on 11/19/2017) Peter has a show with Bernarducci Gallery opening on March 1st so be sure to go check it out after listening to this interview. NEW PRECISIONISM PART 2 GROUP EXHIBITION Bernarducci Gallery *New Ground Flr Location 525 W. 25 March 1 - 31, 2018 Opens March 1 (6-8) http://www.bernarduccigallery.com