Arranging Tangerines presented by Lydian Stater

This week, we speak with Wieteke Heldens about her NFT works in our current exhibition, including discussions about the importance of titles in artwork, the positive consequences of painting while smoking, the impetus for filming the creation of a painting, how chronic illness has shaped her practice, dealing with the guilt of not being in the studio, and the difficulty of making green paintings.

WietekeHeldens graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in 2007. Heldens’ work has been shown internationally, including the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark, South Korea, Japan, and the United States. She has also worked as an artist-in-residence in Chongqing, China and Turin, Italy. In 2013 Heldens won the Royal Award for Modern Painting in the Netherlands. She is a recipient of a Stipendium for Established Artists of the Mondriaan Fund.

Links:
Chronic Stillness: Wieteke Heldends and Alisa Yang at Lydian Stater

In this episode, we have a heartfelt conversation with Kenny Schachter in his art-filled home about the challenges of selling NFTs, how the NFT market compares to the traditional art world, stumbling into art after earning a lawdegree, how NFTs revitalized his art practice, the ethics of curating oneself into your own shows, teaching art as a learning tool, the lack of transparency in the traditional art market and the importance of art and humor in his life.

Kenny Schachter is a digital artist. He had a retrospective of his art at Joel Mesler’s Rental Gallery in New York in the summer of 2018, curated an exhibit at Simon Lee Gallery in London, fall 2018 and a one person show at Kantor Gallery, LA, February 2019. He recently had a solo exhibition at Nagel-Draxler Gallery in Cologne and participated in a two-person show with Eva Beresin at Galerie Charim in Vienna.

In the second part of our discussion with Ben Sloat, we talk more with Ben about his practice including his experience growing up in NYC, photography as a cultural reflection, using hybridity to open “things” up, the Chinese economic boom of the 90s, how historical context can lead to contemporary behavior, using seductive aesthetics to draw in the public, and the importance of learning from one’s artwork.

Ben Sloat often uses elements of the vernacular in his works; generating hybrid social meanings and reflecting the artist's multiracial Taiwanese-American background. Working across mediums, the projects frequently find themselves considering the capacity of iconography, image, or light based material, in a wide and inclusive definition of the "photographic". Cultural vocabulary is commonly used as a medium in the work, oscillating between an intimately personal voice and a larger societal one.

Links:
Pulse Density by Ben Sloat

Ben Sloat: The Pearls That Were His Eyes

MFA in Visual Arts at Lesley University

Philip Guston: Mysteries of the working process

In this episode, we spend some time trying to convince artist and educator Ben Sloat that NFTs have any degree of merit through discussions around cheap money and exotic financial instruments, the question of who is actually being empowered by crypto-art, the parallels and non-parallels of the traditional art world, the importance of free cultural content, the (in)accessibility of video art, and the power of viewing art in person.

Ben Sloat often uses elements of the vernacular in his works; generating hybrid social meanings and reflecting the artist's multiracial Taiwanese-American background. Working across mediums, the projects frequently find themselves considering the capacity of iconography, image, or light based material, in a wide and inclusive definition of the "photographic". Cultural vocabulary is commonly used as a medium in the work, oscillating between an intimately personal voice and a larger societal one.

In this episode, we speak with Marcos Castro more about his history and practice including his experience working collectively in Mexico City, providing space for artists and people to gather, create, and share, the limits of mastering a skill like drawing, using the concept of La raza cósmica (The Cosmic Race) to discuss those left out of Mexico’s history, painting beyond the canvas, and making work with the wonder of children in mind.

Mexican-born artist Marcos Castro works across a wide range of different media, connecting with the idea of art as a sacred sphere. Primarily based on his drawing skills as a key to his creative process, he also makes painted ceramics, installations, paintings, and murals. The challenge in his ouvres to capture symbolic elements in myths, local stories and in national history or natural environments in order to exploit their potential to generate new identities from old images. “Ruins” are a leitmotif across his work. The essence of this approach is to show subjects in new and revelatory ways, and in doing so to heighten their physical and emotional resonance. This is why Castro is so interested in the power of rituals and mural as they produce a space for commonality and utopia for art experience.

Links:
TLPS: A Group NFT Exhibition at Lydian Stater

This week, we talk with Marcos Castro about his experience minting his first ever NFTs, the abstract nature of digital ownership, the revolutionary potential of blockchain technology, the domestication of graffiti art and its connection to the crypto-art scene, and the potential of collective models of making.

Mexican-born artist Marcos Castro works across a wide range of different media, connecting with the idea of art as a sacred sphere. Primarily based on his drawing skills as a key to his creative process, he also makes painted ceramics, installations, paintings, and murals. The challenge in his ouvres to capture symbolic elements in myths, local stories and in national history or natural environments in order to exploit their potential to generate new identities from old images. “Ruins” are a leitmotif across his work. The essence of this approach is to show subjects in new and revelatory ways, and in doing so to heighten their physical and emotional resonance. This is why Castro is so interested in the power of rituals and mural as they produce a space for commonality and utopia for art experience.

Links:
TLPS: A Group NFT Exhibition at Lydian Stater

In the second part of our conversation with Corinne Jones, we take a deeper look into her practice including the dichotomy of her family background, how painting is the sun, the importance of color and equiluminance in her work, the mysterious richness of The Lost Sea as a conceptual lens, the ethos of punk rock and the underground throughout the years, using quasi-public space as a site for making, and the philosophical legacy of the Allegory of the Cave.

Corinne Jones lives and works in New York City. The Long Delayed Echo, 2011 - present, is the umbrella title for her interrelated series of work that includes paintings, interventions, video and writing. Her most recent work, Counterpart Sevens, 2017, are seven-sided diptychs comprised of subtle equiluminant color installed crosswise from each other. Corinne Jones has exhibited solo shows in New York City, NY and Memphis, TN and has participated in various group shows including galleries and museums in Miami, FL, London, UK, and Warsaw, Poland. She earned a BFA from School of Visual Arts in 1996 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2007. Jones has taught at Columbia University and is currently teaching at The Cooper Union.

Links:
The Fall The Show Exhibition at Lydian Stater

Camera Obscura of Ideology

Corinne Jones discusses her NFT artwork “Montage for the Analog Sunset” in our recent exhibition “The Fall The Show,” using environmental markers in the video editing process, how a failure of documentation can turn into an artwork, what the definition of surveillance might be, and the amorphous and ephemeral nature of blockchain-based art. Corinne Jones lives and works in New York City. The Long Delayed Echo, 2011 - present, is the umbrella title for her interrelated series of work that includes paintings, interventions, video and writing. Her most recent work, Counterpart Sevens, 2017, are seven-sided diptychs comprised of subtle equiluminant color installed crosswise from each other. Corinne Jones has exhibited solo shows in New York City, NY and Memphis, TN and has participated in various group shows including galleries and museums in Miami, FL, London, UK, and Warsaw, Poland. She earned a BFA from School of Visual Arts in 1996 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2007. Jones has taught at Columbia University and is currently teaching at The Cooper Union.

Links:
The Fall The Show Exhibition at Lydian Stater

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

In the second half of our conversation with Jeffrey Michael Austin, we discuss their first ever artwork, how language factors into their practice, the persistent validity of creating art objects, the way art can bring a person into the present, the magic of mirrors, and using fun as a Trojan horse.

Jeffrey Michael Austin (b. 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist and musician based in Chicago. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions at Chicago Art Department, Heaven Gallery Chicago, Bert Green Fine Art (Chicago) and The Luminary (St. Louis, MO). Austin also composes, performs and produces all musical scores for Growing Concerns Poetry Collective, whose performance venues include The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Steppenwolf Theatre, NPR Tiny Desk Tour and the Smart Museum of Art. Austin studied at Columbia College Chicago and the Burren College of Art in Ireland before receiving their BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014.

Links:

TLPS: A Group NFT Exhibition at Lydian Stater

Outro Music: Careful by Daisy Days

In this episode, we talk to Jeffrey Michael Austin about taking things day by day, the importance of spending time with Mother Nature, their NFT work “Everything Must Go (Help Wanted),” the idea of ownership, and the possibility of "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society."

Jeffrey Michael Austin (b. 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist and musician based in Chicago. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions at Chicago Art Department, Heaven Gallery Chicago, Bert Green Fine Art (Chicago) and The Luminary (St. Louis, MO). Austin also composes, performs and produces all musical scores for Growing Concerns Poetry Collective, whose performance venues include The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Steppenwolf Theatre, NPR Tiny Desk Tour and the Smart Museum of Art. Austin studied at Columbia College Chicago and the Burren College of Art in Ireland before receiving their BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014.

Links:

TLPS: A Group NFT Exhibition at Lydian Stater