Explain Me

The Uncanny Valley of Art World ChatGPT

Even when the A.I. chatbot ChatGPT gets everything wrong, it still sounds right. And that's some uncanny valley right there.  In this episode of Art Problems, I talk about ChatGPT and the larger A.I. field, some of the ethical issues involved,...

Defining Contemporary Kitsch: Part 2 of The New York Art Fairs

What does contemporary kitsch look like? In this episode, Paddy and William use a discussion of the art fairs and New York gallery scene to lead a defining of the term. From its generic definition of objects described to be...

What The New York Art Fairs Tell Us About Art

Art media does a great job at looking forward to art events, yet rarely looks back to reflect on what these happenings say about the cultural moment. In this episode of Explain Me, co-hosts Paddy Johnson and William Powhida do...

Whitney Biennial Report: Care and Caution

We're baaaaack! After a four month break William and Paddy return with some big news about the podcast and an in depth conversation on The Whitney Biennial. We do the full dive here: What are the themes? How is it...

Flux Factory Buys Building, Retains Soul

How many times have we seen artist-centered communities lose their grass roots identity when they buy property? High profile organizations that have shed their founders vision as they gained visibility such as the New Museum and Meow Wolf serve as...

What Does a Return to the Art World Mean?

In this episode artist Chloe Bass’s tweet pointing to the hypocrisy of the art world leads to a discussion of labor, the New York art fairs, and unions.  We discuss: Max Lankin’s observations for ArtForum on the Armory Fair about how the...

Explain Me with Laura Raicovich: Art and Museums in An Age of Protest

This week hosts William Powhida and Paddy Johnson sit down with curator, writer, and former museum director Laura Raicovich to discuss her new book Culture Strike: Art and Museums in An Age of Protest. We do a deep dive with...

The NFT Explain Me with Marina Galperina and Amy Whitaker

On this episode of Explain Me we do a deep dive on Non-Fungible Tokens, NFTs, pronounced Nifty, by also N-F-T. Joined by guests Marina Galperina, features editor of Gizmodo, and former curator and writer on digital art, and Amy Whitaker,...

Explain Me With Art Critic Ben Davis: The Year That Wasn't, Part Two

Immersive Van Gogh In this episode of Explain Me, we continue our conversation with Artnet's National Critic Ben Davis as we take stock of 2020.  In this episode:  We discuss the biases of algorithm sorting Ben Davis coins the term cultural inflation, a...

Explain Me with Art Critic Ben Davis: The Year That Wasn't, Part One

"Immersive Van Gogh" In this episode of Explain Me, we take stock of the year in art with Artnet's National Critic Ben Davis. What happened in the art world in 2020?  We ask this knowing that we obviously have not seen...

Explain Me with Andy Adams of FlakPhoto: From Idyllic Photos to The Surveillance State

Image via: Andy Adams instagram.  In this episode of Explain Me we talk to Andy Adams (FlakPhoto on instagram), a culture producer and long time digital director. Andy is the founder of FlakPhoto Projects, an international community of photographers that operates...

Zombie Figuration Isn't a Thing: A Critical Autopsy with Antwaun Sargent

In this episode of Explain Me, critic and curator Antwaun Sargent joins us to discuss the effects of the pandemic and Alex Greenberger's Zombie Figuration, a confusing essay that appeared earlier this month in ARTnews. In the first half hour...

Institutional failure, Trump's Agenda, and Meme-Driven Conservative Movements: A Talk with Nayland Blake

Artist Nayland Blake joins the podcast to discuss the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, mass protests, and the resurgence of COVID as the backdrop for public art and how museums are addressing diversity. ...

Revolution for the Family: Heather Bhandari and Nikki Columbus on Pandemic Parenting, art, and Activism

This week on Explain Me, co-hosts William Powhida and Paddy Johnson talk to arts organizers and activists Heather Bhandari and Nikki Columbus about the challenges for mothers during the pandemic, and the challenges for arts workers seeking to make changes...

From L.A. With Love: Thoughts on Online Viewing Rooms, Museum Layoffs, and More with Carolina Miranda and Michael Shaw

Explain Me with Jonathan Schwartz of Atelier4 and Magda Sawon of Postmasters

Serkan Özkaya's Proletarier Aller Länder (Workers of the World) 1999, Image via Postmaster's Gallery. In this episode of Explain Me, hosts Paddy Johnson and William Powhida talk to Magda Sawon of Postmasters Gallery in New York, and Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO and founder...

Explain Me: We're Baaaaaack!

Welcome back to Explain Me! In an effort to produce content a little more regularly we're trying something new: no editing. This means a little more baseless speculation, and off the cuff commentary, in return for actual podcasts! Yes! In...

Standing in Quicksand

We cover a lot of ground in this episode of Explain Me. That ground looks something like this:  The Velvet Buzzsaw is a bad movie. Mary Boone is still awaiting sentencing for falsifying tax documents—a whistleblower could get as much as $300,000...

Museum Board Members Fail Moral Challenges, Museum Exhibitions Exceed Expectations

Donna DeSalvo assembles some of Andy Warhol's greatest work for his retrospective at the Whitney Museum, while revelations that Whitney Vice Chair Warren B. Kanders owns a company that sells tear gas used at the border shake museum staff. Soul of...

Live From Forward Union: Four Women Who Are Using Art to Change the World

It's been a rough news week. Between Thursday's testimonies of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Kavanaugh's near appointment to the Supreme Court Friday, many of us are exhausted. We would like a...

What it Really Means to be A Mid-Career Artist: A Talk with LoVID's Tali Hinkis

In this episode we talk with LoVID's Tali Hinkis about the challenges of being a mid-career artist outside of New York. We discuss how to engage a general audience to getting grants and networking. A refreshingly frank talk about what mid-career actually looks like for artists...

What it Really Means to be A Mid-Career Artist: A Talk with LoVID’s Tali Hinkis

In this episode we talk with LoVID's Tali Hinkis about the challenges of being a mid-career artist outside of New York. We discuss how to engage a general audience to getting grants and networking. A refreshingly frank talk about what mid-career actually looks like for artists...

Explain Me: The Case for Taxing the Hell Out of Peter Brant

In this episode of Explain Me William Powhida and Paddy Johnson discuss the horrific business practices of Peter Brant and Interview Magazine, a fundraising campaign at University of North Carolina so misguided that firing is in order, and the latest headscratching Creative Time...

Explain Me: The Case for Taxing the Hell Out of Peter Brant

In this episode of Explain Me William Powhida and Paddy Johnson discuss the horrific business practices of Peter Brant and Interview Magazine, a fundraising campaign at University of North Carolina so misguided that firing is in order, and the latest headscratching Creative Time...

Explain Me, Part II: Doug Aitken New Era, Worst Show of 2018

In Part II of Explain Me, William Powhida and Paddy Johnson discuss the difference between relational aesthetics and social practice, the whims of the auction market and the perilous affect it can have on artist careers, and Doug Aitken's train wreck...

Explain Me: Bags of Cash Help New Galleries

In this episode we discuss how the Frieze Art Fair's failing air conditioning units won't help global warming, sales strategies for emerging artists, and galleries that have come and gone.

Related Utopias: Bitcoin Economies and the Art World

This week on Explain Me, William Powhida and Paddy Johnson talk with artist Kevin McCoy about Blockchain, Bitcoin and the Monegraph. This episode is your ultimate bitcoin/blockchain/monegraph explainer.  Links:  Monegraph Seven on Seven, 2014 Public Key/Private Key Reading List:  China, Crypto-Currency, and the World OrderTribute and...

Explain Me: The New Museum Triennial—Two Critics Perform Their Own Acts of Sabotage

In this episode of Explain Me, Paddy Johnson and William Powhida discuss the New Museum Triennial "Songs for Sabotage". Both Johnson and Powhida agree this show has more of its fair share of bad art but only Powhida sees this...

Spring Break Part Two: The City and the City (Part Two)

In part two of Explain Me William Powhida and Paddy Johnson discuss at the following exhibitions:  “Secret Identities” The Amazing Blackman and other comics by Kumasi J Barnett. Curated by Jac Lahav "Freedom School" by Elektra KB "A Pressing Conference" by Macon Reed. Curated by...

The Spring Break Art Show: A Good Time Show Disrupted by the Specter of Trump (Part One)

In this episode of Spring Break we discuss the fairs in general and where Spring Break fits in, themes, trends, the over all quality of the art, and a few pieces that stuck out for their overall failure. We also...

The Stink of Met Admission Hikes Endures

Back in January, William Powhida and I recorded an episode of Explain Me on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new admission policy. Earlier that month, the museum known for housing some of the world's greatest treasures announced its admission price would no longer remain...

What Curators Really Think: A Cringe Worthy Report

On this episode of Explain Me we discuss a disastrous curator conference at SVA titled "Curatorial Activism and the Politics of Shock", the Miami art fairs, and three shows— "Talon Rouge: Six Mexican Artists Revisit José Juan Tablada and His...

Gentrification, Income Inequality and Donald Trump Baby Turds

In this episode of Explain Me William Powhida and Paddy Johnson talk about the 450 million dollar Leonardo Da Vinci of disputed authenticity and the Boyle Heights activists who follow artist Laura Owen's from L.A. to New York to protest her non-profit...

An Interview with Kenny Schacter: There's No Bubble in the Art Market and No Solution for Struggling Artists

Hosts Paddy Johnson and William Powhida talk to art advisor Kenny Schacter about the art market at the upper levels and the art market in the middle and emerging tiers. Our central question: How Trumpian is the Art World. We...

An Interview with Kenny Schacter: There’s No Bubble in the Art Market and No Solution for Struggling Artists

Hosts Paddy Johnson and William Powhida talk to art advisor Kenny Schacter about the art market at the upper levels and the art market in the middle and emerging tiers. Our central question: How Trumpian is the Art World. We...

Making Monstrosity Visible in Three Parts: Paglen, Ga, and Fast

Three shows. Three reviews. The Trevor Paglen exhibition at Metro Pictures is creepy as fuck. We take issue with New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz's review on the subject. Ellie Ga  at Bureau sensitively touches on the horror of the Syrian...

The Turd of Gentrification Floating in the Pond of Urbanism

This week on Explain Me William Powhida and Paddy Johnson chat with Los Angeles Times staff writer Carolina Miranda about David Geffen's $150 million donation to LACMA and the questions surrounding the gift. Will he bequeath his collection to the...

The Broken Toilet

The inaugural episode of Explain Me, an art podcast with critic Paddy Johnson and artist William Powhida! A round of woos and hoos please! Explain Me looks at politics, money and the moral of responsibility of artists working in the art...