Bad at Sports

Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, and Brian Andrews are joined by painter Jenal Dolson for a conversation recorded live from the Door County Contemporary Art Fair in Wisconsin. Dolson discusses her vividly textured paintings, her installation practice, and the role of touch, memory, and sensory experience in shaping the visual language of her work.

The conversation ranges from tactile abstraction and flocked wallpaper to popcorn ceilings, raccoon vision, painting directly onto gallery walls, collaboration, titling artworks, and why artists continue making work in the first place.

Jenal Dolson

• https://jenaldolson.com/home.html

Andrew Rafacz Gallery

• https://andrewrafacz.com/

65GRAND

• https://65grand.com/

Good Naked Gallery

• https://www.goodnakedgallery.com/

Door County Contemporary

• https://doorcountycontemporary.com/

Deb Sokolow

• https://www.debsokolow.com/

Trish Tillman

• https://www.trishtillman.com/

Rebecca Morris

• https://www.byrebeccamorris.com/

Chris Cran

• http://chriscran.com/

Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller finally welcome painter, educator, and perennial instigator Tyson Reeder to Bad at Sports.

Recorded during Door County Contemporary Art Fair, the discussion wanders through the history of Milwaukee's DIY art scene, the legendary Dark Fair, artist-run culture, teaching, painting, collaboration, and the productive tension between sincerity and absurdity.

Reeder reflects on organizing exhibitions as artistic experiments rather than scholarly declarations, describing curating as "a speculative mindset" where the question is always what if?

The conversation also explores painting's unique solitude, collaborative work with his brother Scott Reeder, the role of humor in contemporary art, regional artistic identity, materiality after the pandemic, why artists still need to stand in front of paintings, and how drawing together can become an antidote to digital isolation.

Tyson Reeder https://canadanewyork.com/artists/tyson-reeder

Scott Reeder

https://canadanewyork.com/artists/scott-reeder

Canada Gallery https://canadanewyork.com/

Door County Contemporary Art Fair https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

Process Print Shop https://process-process.com/

Swiss Institute https://www.swissinstitute.net/

White Columns https://whitecolumns.org/

Threewalls https://three-walls.org/

Green Gallery http://www.thegreengallery.biz/

Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture https://www.skowheganart.org/

This week Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist Sophia Chai at the Door County Contemporary Art Fair to discuss photography that insists on becoming something else. Working between painting, sculpture, installation, and large-format analog photography, Chai creates images that challenge our assumptions about perspective, representation, and the mechanics of seeing itself.

The conversation moves from camera obscuras and four-by-five view cameras to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, cave painting, Korean language, immigration, and the colonial language embedded within photographic practice. Chai reflects on transforming her graduate studio into a walk-in camera obscura after September 11th, collaborating with architectural space rather than simply depicting it, and asks whether photography might become a practice of witnessing rather than capturing.

• Sophia Chai – https://www.sophiachai.com

• Hair + Nails – https://hairandnailsart.com/

• University of Illinois Chicago School of Art & Art History – https://artandarthistory.uic.edu/

• Kerry James Marshall – https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/kerry-james-marshall

• Judith Kirshner – https://stories.mcachicago.org/speaker/judith-kirshner/

• Plato – https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/

• Camera Obscura – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

• Plato's Allegory of the Cave – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

• Jeff Wall – https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/jeff-wall

• Barbara Kasten – https://barbarakasten.net/

• Johannes Vermeer – https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/johannes-vermeer

• Peter Jackson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson

• The Lord of the Rings – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)

Tanner MacArthur joins Bad at Sports live from Door County Contemporary for a conversation that begins with secret fry sauce recipes and somehow ends with the shape of Delaware as a sandwich-eating methodology.

MacArthur discusses his dual role as both artist and gallerist through his Milwaukee project space, Addendum, founded alongside James Stepanek as an extension of No Instructions Gallery. The conversation moves through contemporary painting, Midwestern DIY culture, artist-run spaces, collecting habits in the Midwest, labor history, and the strange but fertile ground between formal abstraction and dumpster diving.

Tanner speaks about his own assemblage-based painting practice, his evolution from hard-edge abstraction into sculptural wall works built from salvaged materials, and his desire to reconnect with painting's possibilities through color, surface, and material experimentation.

The discussion also highlights a growing generation of Milwaukee artists creating new spaces and opportunities outside traditional institutions, including apartment galleries, publishing projects, and experimental exhibition venues.

• Tanner MacArthur – https://www.tannermacarthur.com/

• Addendum Gallery – https://addendum.gallery/

• No Instructions Gallery – https://www.noinstructs.com/

• Martyna Alexander – https://www.instagram.com/martyna_alexander

• Meg White (artist) – https://www.meganwhite.work/

• Tony Conrad – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Conrad

• Lawrence University – https://www.lawrence.edu/

• University of Wisconsin–Madison – https://www.wisc.edu/

• University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts – https://uwm.edu/arts/

• Experimental Sculpture Room (ESR) – https://experimentalsculptureroom.com/

• Milwaukee Art Museum – https://mam.org/

• Gertrude Abercrombie – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Abercrombie

• Kim Sajet – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Sajet

• Door County Contemporary – https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

This episode on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, and Brian Andrews sit down with artist, organizer, and Door County Contemporary co-founder Shane Walsh at the close of another sunny and slightly delirious weekend in Door County.

The conversation ranges from the growth of the Door County Contemporary fair, the peculiar magic of creating a temporary art community in Wisconsin, and the challenge of building an audience for contemporary art outside major metropolitan centers. Along the way, Shane discusses his own abstract painting practice, the virtues of Detroit-style pizza, and why a successful art fair might really just be "arts summer camp."

Shane talks about the evolution of Door County Contemporary from its inaugural edition into a larger and more ambitious event, reflecting on how local partnerships, community engagement, and a relaxed atmosphere have helped make the fair feel distinct from the larger art-world circuit.

The crew also dives into Shane's own painting practice: lush, unhinged abstractions informed equally by modernist painting histories and the visual language of 1990s punk culture. The result is a conversation about painting, community, and finding ways to make art experiences feel meaningful, generous, and fun.

• Shane Walsh – https://shanewalshpaintings.com/home.html

• Door County Contemporary – https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

• Pen Art School of Door County – https://peninsulaschoolofart.org/

• OS Projects – https://www.osprojects.art/

• Willem de Kooning – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_de_Kooning

• Helen Frankenthaler – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Frankenthaler

• Johnny Carson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Carson

This week Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller head north to the Door County Contemporary Art Fair to sit down with artist, curator, writer, gallerist, and all-around art evangelist Shane McAdams.

Broadcasting from a gazebo in Door County, Wisconsin, the conversation ranges from the weather, custard, and pontoon boats to larger questions about why contemporary art struggles to reach broader publics, why the Midwest needs more artist-run infrastructure, and how we might create healthier cultural ecosystems.

McAdams makes the case for a bigger, messier, more porous art world—one where commercial galleries, nonprofits, academia, collectors, artists, and curious newcomers all coexist.

This is a conversation about building bridges: between Chicago and Minneapolis, between contemporary art and regional audiences, between artists and the merely art-curious. It is also a reminder that art remains one of the few places where genuine meaning-making and community formation can still occur.

Shane McAdams https://www.shanemcadams.com/

Door County Contemporary Art Fair https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

Real Tinsel Gallery https://www.realtinsel.com/

Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel https://www.saintkatearts.com/

Peninsula School of Art https://www.peninsulaschoolofart.org/

Claire Ashley https://clairehelenashley.com/

David Letterman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman

Marcel Duchamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp

Robert Ryman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ryman

James Audubon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon

Mark Glimcher / Pace Gallery https://www.pacegallery.com/

Peter Buggenhout https://www.axel-vervoordt.com/gallery/artists/peter-buggenhout

University of Chicago https://www.uchicago.edu/

University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art https://art.uga.edu/

Trainspotting https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/

Miami Art Week https://www.miamiartweek.org/

This week Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with artist and educator Rafael Salas for a wide-ranging conversation about rural Wisconsin, magical realism, county fairs, country music, identity, and the contested landscapes of contemporary America.

Salas discusses growing up in rural Wisconsin, returning to the Midwest after years in New York, and how his paintings inhabit a space between celebration and unease. The conversation moves from the influence of Wisconsin Death Trip to the political symbolism of county fairs, mixed-race identity, landscape painting traditions, and the challenge of making meaningful contemporary art from outside major art centers.

Name Drops and links:

• Rafael Salas – https://www.rafaelsalas.com/

• Door County Contemporary - https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

• Ripon College – https://www.ripon.edu/

• Museum of Wisconsin Art – https://wisconsinart.org/

• Newcity – https://www.newcity.com/

• Michael Lesy (Wisconsin Death Trip) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lesy

• Wisconsin Death Trip – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Death_Trip

• Charles Van Schaick – https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/record/image/W0128W2

• Mark Tansey – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Tansey

• Grant Wood – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Wood

• Cormac McCarthy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy

• Caspar David Friedrich – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich

• Johnny Cash – https://www.johnnycash.com/

• Dolly Parton – https://dollyparton.com/

• Willie Nelson – https://willienelson.com/

• Hank Williams – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Williams

• Woody Guthrie – https://www.woodyguthrie.org/

• Neil Young – https://neilyoungarchives.com/

• Marquette University – https://www.marquette.edu/

• John McCain – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

• Sarah Palin – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

• Barack Obama – https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

Recorded live at Door County Contemporary, Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller finally correct a seventeen-year oversight and sit down with Chicago gallerist Andrew Rafacz. From the Bucket Rider days in Pilsen to twenty-five years of building a gallery practice rooted in friendship, advocacy, and weird Midwestern generosity, Rafacz reflects on Chicago's changing art scene, the pressures of art fairs, the realities of representation, and why artists shouldn't mistake social media attention for support. Along the way: the Spray Show, shower beers, Cody Hudson, Pace Gallery's roster cuts, and the strange beauty of making things nobody asked for.

• Andrew Rafacz Gallery — https://andrewrafacz.com

• Cody Hudson — https://www.struggleinc.com/

• Michelle Grabner — michellegrabner.com

• Mark Bloch — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bloch_(artist)

• Shane McAdams — https://www.shanemcadams.com

• Cindy Sherman — https://www.moma.org/artists/5392

• Robert Rauschenberg — https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org

• Roger Brown — https://www.richardgraygallery.com/artists/estate-of-roger-brown

• Nancy Spero — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Spero

• Leon Golub — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Golub

• Christina Ramberg — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Ramberg

• Griffin Goodman — https://www.griffingoodman.com

• Door County Contemporary — https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com

• EXPO Chicago — https://www.expochicago.com

• One After 909 Gallery —https://oneafter909.org/

• Foxy Production — https://www.foxyproduction.com

• The Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.artic.edu

• Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — https://mcachicago.org

• Pace Gallery — https://www.pacegallery.com

• Gilles Deleuze — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze

This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with Milwaukee-based artist, curator, musician, and all-around multi-hyphenate Phoenix Brown. The conversation begins with Phoenix's drawings in the Portrait Society exhibition and quickly expands into vulnerability, symbolism, self-healing, lizards from Italy, Midwestern art communities, music, curatorial practice, and the challenges of balancing multiple creative lives.

Phoenix discusses how personal experiences become encoded into a visual language of recurring symbols—flowers, fire, rivers, and tailless lizards—while reflecting on trust, disclosure, and the ways artists reveal themselves through their work without always saying everything outright.

Phoenix also shares details about their work as curator at the Bronzeville Center for the Arts, efforts to build Milwaukee's first museum dedicated to artists of the African diaspora, and their band Home Going.

Links

• Phoenix Brown: https://phoenixbrown.format.com/

• Bronzeville Center for the Arts: https://bcamke.org/

• Portrait Society Gallery: https://www.portraitsocietygallery.com/

• Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD): https://www.miad.edu/

• Milwaukee Art Museum: https://mam.org/

• Cincinnati Art Museum: https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/

• Sculpture Milwaukee: https://www.sculpturemilwaukee.com/

• Martine Syms: https://www.martinesyms.com/

• CK Ledesma: https://bcamke.org/event/ck-ledesma-if-you-put-your-ear-to-it-you-can-hear-the-waves/

• Door County Contemporary https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

This week on Bad at Sports, Brian Andrews, Ryan Peter Miller, and Duncan MacKenzie sit down with Chicago artist Mindy Rose Schwartz to discuss Countersealed, her recent exhibition at M. LeBlanc Gallery.

The conversation explores a deeply immersive exhibition built around ceramic scorpions emerging from cracks in the gallery floor, glowing bronze aliens, reconstructed fur animals, monumental incense sculptures, woven memorial forms, and a contemporary incantation bowl based on ancient Mesopotamian protective magic. Schwartz discusses material experimentation, memory, ecology, astrology, political anxiety, and the possibility of making art that is simultaneously playful, hopeful, sentimental, and critical.

Name drops and links:

Mindy Rose Schwartz – https://www.mindyroseschwartz.com

M. Leblanc Gallery - https://mleblancchicago.com/

Louise Bourgeois – https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351/art-louise-bourgeois

Helen Mirra – https://hmirra.net/

Luba Krejci – https://browngrotta.com/artists/luba-krejci

Dr. Justin Sledge – https://www.esoterica.tv

King's Leap Gallery – https://www.kingsleapfinearts.com/