Radio Juxtapoz

When you walked through the prestigious Armory Show a few weeks ago, April Bey's solo booth with Bahamas-based Tern Gallery, was the standout. The fair itself was quite strong, but there was something about walking into a universe, the April Bey universe, that was transcendental and hypnotic, immersive. Bey is political and poignant, with a sense of humor and harsh social critique that has been honed by both being a professor at Glendale College in California and practicing fine artist with solo and museum shows on the CV. The works are wide-ranging: installation, printmaking, photography, mixed-media, and the Atlantica series has become one of Bey's defining bodies of work.

Bey grewup in The Bahamas, and on this episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, Evan Pricco and Doug Gillen speak to Bey about youth, moving to the USA, being educated in the States versus a commonwealth, where their art comes from and how Bey's dad helped create the Atlantica world. There might be a Beyonce story, too.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 120 was recorded in September 2023 in Margate, NYC and Los Angeles. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠⁠

Shadi Al-Atallah's newest solo show, Fistfight, begins with an excerpt from The Epic of Gilgamesh and seems apt to start right here: “huge arms gripped huge arms, foreheads crashed like wild bulls, the two men staggered, they pitched against houses, the doorposts trembled, the outer walls shook, they careened through the streets, they grappled each other, limbs intertwined, each huge body straining to break free from the other’s embrace. Finally, Gilgamesh threw the wild man and with his right knee pinned him to the ground. His anger left him. He turned away. The contest was over.”

Having met Shadi a few times in London over the last few years, there is a balance between rage, humor, anger, a grip, a pulse and passion their works. The struggles seen inGilgamesh aren't unlike the struggles we see today, whether it be space, identity, movement or just plain confrontation. Shadi is working with the idea ofcontrolled violence, and I get the sense that they are aware of what the world around them is presenting, the conflicts both internal and external, and finds that through making art, the confronations themselves are just a bit more controlled, more theatric, more epic. As Guts Gallery notes, "ThroughoutFistfight, Al-Atallah explores the rigid distinction between the spaces where violence is permitted and the spaces in which it is not."

This interests me as a writer and observer of art, and has always interested me in terms of Shadi's brilliant works on canvas here (and in the past, works on paper). They are controlling historical events, historical sentiments, the past we bring with us into the future. In Fistfight, the conflict feels rather internal, and the feelings individual, and yet there is a universality that is ever so present.

On this episode of Radio Juxtapoz, Doug Gillen speaks with Shadi on the subject of Fistfight, their evolotion in the works and the move from the Middle East to London. —Evan Pricco

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The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 119 was recorded in September 2023 in London. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠⁠

"Everything in our universe has a dual manifestation," says Mexico City born Horacio Quiroz when you just take a gander at this bio. Well, here we go, you know this conversation is going to be a good one. As the artist opened his new solo show, Goddesses of Spoiled Lands, at Annka Kultys Gallery in London, duality of existence is definitely on the mind. In this insightful and revealing conversation, Radio Juxtapoz sat down with Quiroz to discuss the complexities of growing up queer in Mexico, how his work is a balance of almost supernatural explorations with the details of his homeland and the evolving relationship that humans have with nature. The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 118 was recorded in August 2023 in London. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠⁠ https://www.juxtapoz.com/radio-juxtapoz/ https://www.horacioquiroz.com/

When you name your solo show Say Cheese, there are a lot of puns that can come from it. Ana Barriga did just that for her solo show at Carl Kostyál in London. Say Cheese makes you smile, makes you focus your attention on something that may stand the test of time really, but also puts you into another realm of posing and posturing. And for the Madrid-based painter, she is ready for this moment.

"My work involves instinct and attitude," she says, and as her show was opening in the British capital last weekend, we caught the painter in a moment of both fun and introspection. Her works are like still-life memories done through cartoons done through art history and then almost tasty in their near life-like embodiments of time once lived. On this episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, Doug Gillen sits down with Barriga and captures a painter's painter at the height of her powers, in a moment where an international breakthrough is just beginning.

Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast. 
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 117 was recorded in August 2023 in London. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠⁠

We can call this a new season for Radio Juxtapoz, and Jon Key is the perfect guest. Situating himself between Brooklyn and Margate, UK, Key has a thread through his practice and his life, one that involves family (he is a twin), art, design and adventure. Though his work is focused on the relationships and heritage he is constantly discovering, he is weaving, both through painting and conceptual fashion design, a story about himself. As a Queer Black man originally from the rural town of Seale, Alabama, Key uses greens, blacks, violets and reds to visual speak of his 4 central themes: Southernness, Blackness, Queerness, and Family.

This is where we find Key, on rainy turned sunny day in Margate, at Tracey Emin's TKE Studios where he has a studio space, speaking about his 4 themes, his experiments with landscape painting and why he finds Margate such a special second home for his practice. Key is energetic and thoughtful, full of life and not afraid to let his work move through the centuries.

Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast  

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 116 was recorded in July 2023 in Margate, UK. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠⁠

When we have talked about British painter and muralist Lucy McLauchlan over the years, we have used descriptors like spontaneous and natural, organic and natural. She transformed almost room and building sized brushstrokes, often in black and white, as extensions of her being and adapting to the surfaces she paints on. She may have been part of the street art scene, but she was channeling environmentalism in the process.

Recently part of Mural Fest Kosovo, curated by Radio Juxtapoz's own Doug Gillen, he sat down with Lucy for a rare interview about her process and career, her work in Ferizaj, Kosovo and the future of her practice.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 115 was recorded in June 2023 in Kosovo during Mural Fest . Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠

When we have talked about British painter and muralist Lucy McLauchlan over the years, we have used descriptors like spontaneous and natural, organic and natural. She transformed almost room and building sized brushstrokes, often in black and white, as extensions of her being and adapting to the surfaces she paints on. She may have been part of the street art scene, but she was channeling environmentalism in the process.

Recently part of Mural Fest Kosovo, curated by Radio Juxtapoz's own Doug Gillen, he sat down with Lucy for a rare interview about her process and career, her work in Ferizaj, Kosovo and the future of her practice.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 115 was recorded in June 2023 in Kosovo during Mural Fest . Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠

We have spent years trying to get Martyn Reed on the Radio Juxtapoz podcast. The main reason being that the man behind perhaps the most famous, enduring and renowned street art festival in the world, Nuart, has changed the way we contextualize and think about the role of art in our everyday lives. Every year, whether in Stavanger, Norway until recently and now his 7th edition in Aberdeen, Scotland, Reed has themed his curation to certain topics, inviting not only artists to paint on city walls, but brought writers, academics, media members, organizers, city planners and just about anyone who thinks about art in a critical way to come to the festival and give their story. It's a family, and it continues to grow and mature.

On this very special edition of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, recorded live in Aberdeen, we finally got a chance to sit down with our good friend Reed and get the origin story of not only the festival, but his history in examining power structures and finding ways to infiltrate and nurture those places with prevailing and underground culture.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 114 was recorded in June 2023 in Aberdeen, Scotland during Nuart Aberdeen . Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠

It's rare we get an artist to come out of retirement for a Radio Juxtapoz podcast, but there we were in Aberdeen, Scotland this past weekend with the pioneering and legendary artist SWOON. She didn't retire per se; she retired from street art. The consuming nature of the art form she felt took her away from other creative outlets she wanted pursue, like installations, philanthropy, museum exhibitions, gallery work, collaboration and now, animation and film. But for Nuart Aberdeen, she got back in the game for a week for a series of wheat-pastes that felt so familiar, it was like seeing an old friend after years away. Perhaps it is the Caledonia in her name that got her inspired in Scotland?

SWOON isn't just a legend, she changed the way street art was looked at, how folk and craft elements could be applied to any medium. From the boats she floated down the Mississippi or into Venice, to her earliest days showing at Deitch, to philanthropic projects in New Orleans and Haiti and her Heliotrope Foundation, SWOON is about expansion. With her new and powerful work in animation and an upcoming film, it seemed like the perfect time to speak with one of the great artists of the Juxtapoz era.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 113 was recorded in June in Aberdeen, Scotland during Nuart Aberdeen . Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz

It's rare we get an artist to come out of retirement for a Radio Juxtapoz podcast, but there we were in Aberdeen, Scotland this past weekend with the pioneering and legendary artist SWOON. She didn't retire per se; she retired from street art. The consuming nature of the art form she felt took her away from other creative outlets she wanted pursue, like installations, philanthropy, museum exhibitions, gallery work, collaboration and now, animation and film. But for Nuart Aberdeen, she got back in the game for a week for a series of wheat-pastes that felt so familiar, it was like seeing an old friend after years away. Perhaps it is the Caledonia in her name that got her inspired in Scotland?

SWOON isn't just a legend, she changed the way street art was looked at, how folk and craft elements could be applied to any medium. From the boats she floated down the Mississippi or into Venice, to her earliest days showing at Deitch, to philanthropic projects in New Orleans and Haiti and her Heliotrope Foundation, SWOON is about expansion. With her new and powerful work in animation and an upcoming film, it seemed like the perfect time to speak with one of the great artists of the Juxtapoz era.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 113 was recorded in June in Aberdeen, Scotland during Nuart Aberdeen . Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz