Humor and the Abject Podcast

One of my younger sisters, Quinn, is a first grade teacher in a Denver public school. With the March for Our Lives events happening in 800+ cities around the country this Saturday to protest our nation’s lack of action when it comes to protecting our schools from gun violence, I spoke with her over Skype to get a little first-person perspective. Quinn has been an educator for eight years, having worked in her current classroom for four. We talked about the active shooter emergency drills she has to lead six year-olds through, the gross way that the concept of guns in schools has been politicized, her reasons for marching on Saturday in Denver, and what it’s like to work in an industry where people, especially children, are regularly murdered en masse. It’s a little more serious than you’re probably used to here on Humor and the Abject, but it’s an important conversation. Thanks for giving Quinn a chance to have her voice heard.

Some of you will recognize Leo Fitzpatrick from Kids, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, Doomsdays, and The Wire. Others know him as a fixture in New York’s art world, having run the experimental project space Home Alone 2 Gallery in the Lower East Side with Nate Lowman and Hanna Liden for several years before settling into his current role at Marlborough in Chelsea. As part of the NADA New York Art Fair this year, Humor and the Abject hosted a live episode on-site and invited Leo out to discuss his unique history. We talked about skate videos, Alex Jones, working with artists from older generations including his decades-long friendship with Larry Clark, why the artist is always right, the time Roger Ebert said he wanted to punch him in the face, parenting, his early obsession with Uncle Floyd’s public access show in New Jersey, why he doesn’t watch his own movies, his diet of bad TV, his favorite acting role ever on Adult Swim that nobody saw, and then I get really upset that he’s never seen Drinking Out of Cups. The outro song is XTC’s “Making Plans for Nigel.” Special thanks to Andrea Merkx and Zack Tornaben from NADA.

Curator Kerry Doran has been researching and writing about internet-based art practices for years. She is currently the Director at Postmasters Gallery in New York. On episode 50 of the podcast, she stopped by to discuss the paradoxical techno-utopianism in early internet art, her recent article “Re: Contextualizing the Cyborg” for Open Space, whether or not digital tools can be emancipatory, running in Ridgewood, accidental audiences, the overspecialization of coding, skepticism versus cynicism, her transition to selling art and why it’s important for the artists she works with, writing about contemporary art history, and more. We’re sponsored this week by the ability to eat cheese in physical gallery spaces. The outro music is “Dark Steering” by Squarepusher. Read Kerry's latest piece for Open Space here: https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2018/02/re-contextualizing-the-cyborg/

What a treat we’ve got for you this week, screedlers. One of the funniest people that Brooklyn has to offer, Peter Smith, stopped by the kitchen to discuss their life and work. We chatted about their recent run at Carolines on Broadway, Alfred Hitchcock and horror, cabaret, big reveals, opening a glass tea house and eventually making Montana gay as fuck, the complicated character of Nancy Grace, their role on Turner Masters Memory Hospital, art history, their collaborations like The Bongo Hour with comedian and photographer Sandy Honig, the Keeping Up With the Katdashians musical, and much more. Catch the next Bongo Hour this Wednesday, March 7th at the Slipper Room in New York. You can purchase tickets here: http://ticketf.ly/2H3IFAg

On Sunday, I hopped the Long Island Rail Road bound for East Hampton to visit artist David Kennedy Cutler at “Off Season,” his ambitious exhibition-in-progress with Halsey McKay that’s broadcasting his efforts 24/7 via live stream. We smoked some beers, ate pizza at a place called Sam’s, toured around the space, and we recorded a bonus episode of the podcast right inside the installation. I also stayed the night and was sufficiently creeped out by the four convincing clones he’s made of himself to populate the show. On this episode, we talked about artifice, artistic labor, the socioeconomic issues that “Off Season” addresses, whether or not Joseph Beuys borrowed liberally from Charlie Chaplin’s “Gold Rush,” the complicated history of the Hamptons, his recent solo show “1:1” at Derek Eller last summer, the Uncanny Valley, and stumbling into horror by attempting approximation. Then, David gave me a little audio tour of the show. To see a live feed of what he’s describing, visit Halsey McKay’s website here: http://www.halseymckay.com/ And, if you’re curious, read my review of “1:1” at Derek Eller from this past summer: https://www.humorandtheabject.com/blog/2017/6/21/david-kennedy-cutler-1-to-1

You know her on Twitter as @lifecreep, but IRL she’s artist Andrea McGinty. Our friendship goes back several years, and a text-based interview I did with Andrea was one of the very first posts on the Humor and the Abject blog. She stopped by the kitchen this week to talk about material choices and comedy in her sculptures, why getting dunked on by teens is the most devastating of all dunks, the absolute joys of cooking at home in Queens and new dishes she’s been perfecting, her recent two-person exhibition with Ben Dowell at Holiday Forever in Jackson Hole, acting as an occasional curator, the history of sofas, how everyone walks in LA and New York is way too spread out, true crime podcasts, her celebrity cat Larry, the current show she’s in called “Home Edition” at Essex Flowers, and an upcoming pop-up show she’s doing with Museum Gallery at 45 Stewart Ave in Bushwick on March 10th. Also, I made her play a new game segment for the podcast called “Canonization or Erasure” and I personally think she did great. We’re sponsored this week by the nasty slaps of a bass guitar, Bank of Ages, and the humble, nourishing whir of a humidifier.

For the full episode, subscribe to Humor and the Abject on Drip: http://d.rip/humorandtheabject It’s another Drip subscriber-exclusive episode of Darcie, Sean, and Azikiwe talking a full hour of total shit. In this episode, we managed to cover a wide variety of topics included the ridiculous haunted house documentary “Haunters: The Art of the Scare,” long rides on Greyhound and the resulting bus butt, Azikiwe’s recent jaunt to Mexico City for the Material Art Fair, ancient astronaut theory, Fergie’s “Star Spangled Banner” performance, donating to Wikipedia while drunk, mail order mattresses, Sean’s unique relationship between the movie “The Cell” and getting cuckolded, street magic, not fucking to Thin Lizzy, whether or not daddy would like some sausages, how to talk at the urinal, Darcie not having to wait in line for the women’s room because she was at a Lighting Bolt show, and so much more. We’re sponsored this week by the San Diego Tribune, Leonardo DiCaprio, Spin Doctors mixtapes, and the hidden track from AFI’s “Black Sails in the Sunset” album.

One of Miami’s finest daughters, artist and filmmaker Jillian Mayer, currently has a solo exhibition called “Post Posture” up at Postmasters Gallery here in New York through March 31st. In the middle of her chaotic schedule in town this week, we managed to schedule some time to sit down and catch up. I’ve know Jillian for five years now and think the world of her as both an artist and a friend. We discussed her “Slumpies” sculptures currently on view, the Singularity, taking psychedelics at amusement parks, doomsday prepping and  whether the rich will survive the end times, her involvement with the nonprofit Borscht Corp film collective, speaking tangentially, making tech-based art that’s actually emotional, and a whole lot more. We’re sponsored this week by angry college art history professors who take to YouTube to whine that people don’t carve shit out of marble any longer, how your attitude influences the way your life might go if you’re a cowboy or a filmmaker, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Dunked Wings, sex as an innovation, and how gracefully the Futurist Manifesto has aged. The outro song is "Mega Mega Upload," a total fucking banger from Jillian's #Postmodem film.

You may know Midwest micro-celebrity Thomas J Gamble as the author of the INFINITE HESH comics for Humor and the Abject. Or, you may know him more casually online as Twee Jay, Erie’s absolute boy. Either way, he was in New York this past weekend for his show at Interstate Projects and I dragged him into the kitchen for a conversation. I love Thomas so much that it makes me want to get him really angry. Does that make sense? Well, despite my best efforts to rile him up, he maintained his thoughtfulness and cool the entire time. We talked about uncanny perceptions of time, his new paintings, Rust Belt ennui and being an artist outside of major art cities, Tom Brady vs Tom Hardy, good books, sinking ships, whether it’s “Leviathan” or “a leviathan,” the trappings of making political art, Daniel Day Lewis, Superman’s death, that rhythm between horrific political events and pop culture aesthetics, how punks and hippies are the same people with the same logos, his early exposure to radical leftist politics, Little Dicky Spencer and the alt-right’s impotent rage, and why Italians love saying “Cincinnati.” We’re sponsored this week by Blue Takeron and when Thomas J died in “My Girl” because he went back to find Vada’s mood ring in the forest and was subsequently murdered by a swarm of wild ass bees.

Artist Andrew Kuo, AKA earlboykins on Instagram and Twitter, drops by Humor and the Abject this week for a very special bonus episode. We talked about Kuo’s early exposure to Fort Thunder as a student at RISD, how wild and elegant color is, My Chemical Romance making good on their promises as a band, the lineage of emo, the best time of day to paint, getting into self-publishing, the new Obama portrait, anxiety and jokes, literally biting your tongue, how Peter Halley has made the same painting for decades and why that’s the one of the most audacious radical painting moves out there, Kuo’s band HEX MESSAGE, why Bart Simpson is still on every single thing in the zine tent at the New York Art Book Fair, Jeremy Lin and bootleg merch beef, Kuo’s two-person exhibition “It Gets Beta” with Scott Reeder in 2015, avoiding knuckleheads so you can enjoy watching sports, being the last generation who for some reason is still afraid of selling out, his own roundball podcast Cookies, and embracing the simulation. We received generous sponsorship this week from getting dunked on by Patrick Chewing.