Cold Crit

Heyyyy, long time no see! Sorry for the unexpected absence. We decided to do this stupid thing where we got really busy and then moved across the country. But now we’re back with a new episode! Our entertainment correspondent Chris Scott (of Layers and Lairs) joins us to take a look at the 2023 art heist film “Inside”, starring Willem Dafoe, and only Willem Dafoe.

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Some of y'all are being really mean to Adrien Brody about his art! The Oscar-winning actor is getting absolutely roasted for his glittery Marilyn Monroe painting that sold for half a million at a Cannes charity auction, so we decided to learn more about Brody's decade-long art career. Follow us from his debut at a non-Lululemon-sponsored Art Basel Miami show to his present-day solo exhbition at NYC's Eden Gallery.

Join us on Patreon for access to bonus content, show notes, and a PDF Gallery Guide featuring all the art we discuss throughout the episode.

Find us online at coldcrit.art

Our theme music by Layers in Lairs

This episode is super late because we went on a spontaneous road trip across about half of the United States, which it turns out is a big country!But anyway, it’s time for another open studios! We report "LIVE" (two months ago) from EXPO — Chicago’s biggest art fair. Plus, we follow up on the aftermath of some art-related disasters, check in on Justin Sun after Trump’s crypto dinner, and more!

Support us on Patreon Find us online at www.untitledpod.artTheme music by Layers in Lairs

Links

Article | Kangxi Chinese Vases: Recovery from Disaster from The Fitzwilliam Museum

Web Page | Jesse Krimes: Corrections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Web Page | Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Web Page | Woven Histories Textiles and Modern Abstraction from MoMA

Article | Who Won a Seat at Trump’s Crypto Dinner? from The New York Times

Commercial | “Dining Alfiasco” :30 | What AI Was Meant to Be with Matthew McConaughey from Salesforce

Ah crap, Donald Trump is back in office and things aren't looking so great for the arts in the good ol' USA—that is, unless you're a figurative sculpture artist or your primary mode of inquiry is about the Declaration of Independence. In that case, this could be a golden age for your career and you should definitely come be a guest on the show!

This week we're focusing on the gutting of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), and how it might affect everything from your local children's museum to the fate of A Prairie Home Companion (which we’re not that torn up about, tbh).

There’s no gallery guide for this episode, but be sure to check out the beautiful rendering of the National Garden of American Heroes on the Patreon!

Our theme music by ⁠Layers in Lairs⁠

Find us online at coldcrit.art

Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ for access to exclusive episodes, show notes, and a PDF Gallery Guide featuring all of the art we discuss throughout the episode.

To hear the rest of this episode join us for free on our Patreon.

We've got a new segment! Welcome to Open Studios! In these research-light, subscriber-only episodes, we're covering updates, corrections/omissions, and things we've been researching/thinking/talking about, reading, and looking at.

Our theme music is by Layers in Lairs.

Okay, tell me if you've heard this one before. Two Chrises walk into an art gallery. One of them eats a banana right off the wall. The other says, "That's a $6.2 million banana!"

Oh you have? Well apparently not everyone has, since it's the punchline of Meta Ray-Ban's second Super Bowl commercial of 2025. Don't worry, we move on quickly from there. Life's too short to discuss that dumb banana art for another second on this podcast.

Instead, in this episode we talk about work lurking in the background by Damien Hirst, who holds records for both highest artist net worth and highest artistic body count. We also explore real-life instances of people destroying art, including the viral Ecce Homo "restoration" to a hapless student requiring 22 firefighters to surgically extract him from a vaginal cavern of a sculpture at a German university.

Join our Patreon for free! Get access to exclusive bonus episodes, show notes, and the PDF Gallery Guide for each episode.

Find us online at coldcrit.art

Theme music by Layers in Lairs

Super Bowl? More like superbly weird ad! Meta Ray-Ban's two-part commercial for 2025’s big game follows the Chrises (Hemsworth & Pratt) as they fumble through Kris’s (Jenner) private gallery. The AI glasses promise to give the wearer an art history education, but the gallery scene turns out to be little more than a backdrop for pratfalls (Pratt falls? Huh? Is that anything?) and an opportunity for three people with the same name to take selfies.

That’s why we’re picking up where Silicon Valley could never. We take a look at Urs Fischer's waxy/eggy/gooey meditations on impermanence and Carmen Herrera's iconic hard-edge paintings. Join us for the art history lesson the glasses couldn't provide, stay for our dissection of Silicon Valley's expensive display of cultural illiteracy.

Watch commercial #1: Art Prank Gone Wrong

Watch commercial #2: Hey Meta, Who Eats Art?

Join us on Patreon for access to exclusive episodes, show notes, and a PDF Gallery Guide featuring all the art we discuss throughout the episode.

Find us online at coldcrit.art

Theme music by Layers in Lairs

Final reminder! We’re changing our name! We will be Cold Crit starting with our next episode.

You begged for it, and now here it is! We’ve got Luigi Mangione part two! When Mangione got the perp walk treatment of Hannibal Lecter, we asked ourselves, “What do neo-classical paintings of the French Revolution, photos of arrests at BLM protests, and Abu Ghraib all have in common?” And then we decided to answer our own question with this episode! This week we’re looking at how arrest imagery shapes public narratives, especially once the internet gets involved.

Join us on Patreon for access to bonus content, show notes, and a PDF Gallery Guide featuring all the art we discuss throughout the episode.

Find us online at www.untitledpod.art

Theme music by Layers in Lairs

Important: We're changing our name! Expect our new name, Cold Crit, to replace our current name sometime in the coming weeks.

We’re back from our holiday break! You might remember when long, long ago in the year 2024 a healthcare CEO was shot in Manhattan. The alleged perpetrator, Luigi Mangione, didn't just become a viral sensation - he sparked an unprecedented collision of meme culture and religious symbolism. We’re looking at centuries of Catholic art history to examine how the internet transformed shocking events into questionable digital icons, complete with AI-generated halos and an alarming number of extra fingers.

Theme music by Layers in Lairs

Surprise! Didn’t expect to see us again this year, did you? We were lying about that whole "holiday break" thing. After episode 9 we couldn't resist following up on the weird and shady goings on of crypto billionaire Justin Sun from the past week.

This episode is audio-only this time, so if you’re on Spotify or YouTube don’t expect to see additional slide content!