April 21, 2020

I had the pleasure of reconnecting with my friend Jerry Saltz on AM art radio for a long meandering exploration of art in the time of the plague and the future of art.  Please enjoy. 

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Jerry Saltz is the senior art critic at New York Magazine and its entertainment site Vulture.com, a leading voice in the art world at large, and an innovative user of social media. He joined the magazine’s staff in 2007, and his writing ranges from cover stories to reviews to quick online commentaries. He won a National Magazine Award for Columns & Commentary in 2015 and was a finalist for the same award in 2011.

Saltz was previously the senior art critic at the Village Voice since 1998, where he was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism (in 2001 and 2006) and was the recipient of the 2007 Frank Jewett Mather Award in Art Criticism from the College Art Association. A frequent guest lecturer at major universities and museums, Saltz was also the sole adviser on the 1995 Whitney Biennial. Saltz has written for Frieze, Modern Painters, Parkett, Art in America, Time Out New York, Flash Art, Arts magazine, and many others. His Village Voice columns were compiled into a book Seeing Out Loud: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1998-2003 (Figures Press). The second volume of his criticism, Seeing Out Louder, was published by Hardpress Editions.

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Big thanks to the Facebook Artist in Residence program (@fbairprogram) for supporting the creation of this content––stay tuned for more..."

April 18th, 2020

We’re deep into the quarantine and I’m going to be honest with you guys; I have NOT felt like doing the podcast, like at all. It was super fun and was  in the beginning but like many of you, this isolation is making me depressed, anxious, and lonely. So I was grateful when Sarah Hoover took the time to speak to me this week and pushed me out of my weird isolated mind to discuss our beginnings in art, how we came to love art, our relationship to New York, female AND male feminists, and how we the art world can improve itself.

This episode gets real for me as our conversation pushed me to confront some of the unhealthy ideas surrounding art and capitalism which I’ve developed working in the art world. By the end of the conversation, Sarah had me reconsidering why I do this, how important art is, and how we can readjust our ideas as we rebuild post-pandemic. I guess this is the silver lining of all this: SELF REFLECTION and RECONSIDERING WHY WE DO ANYTHING OF THIS. I hope you enjoy the conversation. This one is an hour and half. Settle in and enjoy.

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Sarah Hoover is a director at Gagosian, where she has worked since 2007. As an artist liaison and salesperson, she is involved with exhibitions both at the gallery and art museums around the world. She is a founding member of the Accelerator board of American Ballet Theatre and has sat on the development committee at Recess Arts since 2019.

She has a perfect two and a half-year-old son named Guy Louis Armstrong Sachs and a french bulldog named Napoleon.

April 2, 2020

Ladies and gentlemen, she doesn’t need an intro from me. You know her. You love her. You love her paintings. Its Chloe Wise! 

I don’t know who needed the “therapy” more today, me or her, but I’m really glad we got to speak. I feel oddly encouraged and oddly like I can make it through one more cycle of the current groundhog’s day marathon aka “the quarrrrrrrr!!!” Its getting WERID over here. 

Enjoy the episode. Don’t worry about the quality of the recording. It's about the conversation.

Good news! I have figured out my recording situation and the podcast quality just went up 500%. AM art radio is improving. Thanks for your patience. Link to episode is in the bio.

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It was truly a pleasure to have my friend Sarah Hoover on the podcast. I actually “met” Sarah on the internet when I started Jerry Gogosian, but I’d known her husband, Tom Sachs from 2016 when he was in San Francisco for Space Program Europa at the Yerba Buena Center for the arts. I remember seeing Sarah at the opening back then and being thoroughly impressed by her commitment to a pair of outrageous looking  Chanel stilettos. Little did I know a few years later she’d become one of my biggest cheerleaders and someone I look up to for her advocacy work throughout the art world and beyond. She’s super outspoken and uses her place of privilege to push against issues like sexism & misogyny in the workplace, home politics, and has just written a book about her struggles with postpartum depression, It’s reassuring to know there’s a “good side” to the art world in all of this messy COVID-19 darkness. I truly believe that women such as Sarah will be pivotal in how the art world is reformed moving forward and I’m sure glad she’s got such a strong clear message. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

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Sarah Hoover is a director at Gagosian, where she has worked since 2007. As an artist liaison and salesperson, she is involved with exhibitions both at the gallery and art museums around the world. She is a founding member of the Accelerator board of American Ballet Theatre and has sat on the development committee at Recess Arts since 2019.

She has a perfect two and a half-year-old son named Guy Louis Armstrong Sachs and a french bulldog named Napoleon.

March 28, 2020

Today I picked up the phone and called my long time friend, the artist Chris Udemezue. I met Chris in 2009 while he was on vacation in San Francisco shortly after he graduated from the New School. Chris is the REAL DEAL. He wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth or a guaranteed path to success. He's found a way to survive and thrive as an artist by making his own place in the art world. He's equal parts talented and resourceful which is the magic. Since I've known him, Chris has always been 100% himself. He put it all out there to hang out and in turn, success followed Chris...Not the other way around. My admiration for this human being is beyond words, so enjoy our phone call today and remember; its the quality of conversation, not the quality of the audio recording. This is AM art radio!  

Born in Long Island, NY Christopher Udemezue has shown at a variety of galleries and museums, including the New Museum, Queens Museum of Art, PS1 MoMa, Bruce High Quality Foundation, and Envoy Enterprises. Udemezue recently has utilized his Jamaican heritage and the complexities of desire for connection, tragedy through personal mythology and public lynching as a primary source. As the founder of the platform RAGGA NYC & CONNEK JA, he completed a residency with the New Museum "All The Threatened and Delicious Things Joining One Another" in June 2017. Also being the lead organizing member of the art collective House of Ladosha, Christopher has shown recently in the New Museum’s “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” 40 year anniversary show and he was apart of the chosen artists in The Shed's Open Call grant program/ show that was on show in the new Hudson Yards Shed gallery, NYC in June 2019.

READ MORE ABOUT CHRIS:

ArtNews

WNYC

Topical Cream

Further references:

Advocate

Recess

The Shed

The New Museum

March 27th, 2020

AM art radio by Jerry Gogosian (link in bio and don’t forget to subscribe.) 

***Remember, it's not the quality of the audio, its conversation. xx

Emmanuel Perrotin founded his first gallery in 1990 at the age of twenty-one. He has worked closely with his roster of artists, some for more than twenty-five years, to help fulfill their ambitious projects. Perrotin has galleries in Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, and Shanghai, totaling approximately 7,100 square meters (76,500 square feet) of exhibition space across its nine locations.

Image source: François Halard, W Magazine

March 23, 2020

I didn’t even record an intro for this interview. This conversation was so inspiring that I can’t even speak. Helen Molesworth just took me on a ride and we landed at hope. I highly suggest you give this a listen.

(This is AM art radio. Its not about the quality of the audio file, its about the message.)

Helen Molesworth is a curator and writer. Her major exhibitions include: One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art; Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957; Dance/Draw; This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s; Part Object Part Sculpture, and Work Ethic. She has organized monographic exhibitions of Moyra Davey, Noah Davis, Louise Lawler, Steve Locke, Anna Maria Maiolino, Josiah McElheny, Kerry James Marshall, Catherine Opie, Amy Sillman, and Luc Tuymans. She is the author of numerous catalogue essays and her writing has appeared in Artforum, Art Journal, Documents, and October. The recipient of the 2011 Bard Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Curatorial Excellence, she is a founding board member of The Underground Museum and serves as the Curator-in-Residence for the Anderson Ranch in Aspen. She is currently at work on a book about art, love, and freedom, and she recently hosted a podcast series called “Recording Artists” with The Getty.

March 20, 2020

A few days ago I put out a story on my Instagram asking to speak to people in the art from Milan and the immediate response was intense! As we know through the media, Italy has placed up to 16 million people under quarantine as it battles to contain the spread of coronavirus. I had the privilege to speak on the phone with Gianmaria Biancuzzi (Milan Art Guide), Flavio Delmonte (Gallerie Massimo De Carlo), & Cordelia Noe (The Art Gorgeous.) They provided me with a glimpse into the future through the lease of Corona’s geographic spread from where I sit in Los Angeles. It was so kind of them to share their perspective, experience, strength, and hope as the tolls of the global pandemic mount. (Thank you guys for coming on the show.) (Thank you for listening!)  

Just wanted to tell you guys that I'm getting less shy talking to myself alone in my bedroom. Pretty soon I'll be an expert and talking to myself, but in the meantime bear with me. Again, this AM art radio. Don’t get excited about the quality. Just focus on the message. Thanks for listening.

March 19, 2020

"...at the end of the day, we serve our artists." EKV of VSF 

Esther Kim Varet, THIS lady – is one of the hardest working people you’ll find anywhere in the art world. It’s true. As the owner of Various Small Fires (VSF), she arrives to work every single day with one fundamental goal: to promote and protect her artists with the sharp team of people she has built to make it all happen. She's progressive, she's brave, and she's responsible. 

Esther is making decisions in realtime to determine how to deal with the threat of COVID-19 as its effects ripple out. It has already impacted the lives and business of most people reading this. Her protective and wise measures for her gallery are worth paying attention to and reproducing where applicable. There are digital, virtual, and analog solutions to consider in all of this. To learn about VSF's "touch-free viewing experience" please click HERE.

*Remember this is live AM radio, folks! These conversations are unscripted and unedited. This is how people are coping today, which means tomorrow it may look different! The guests I've had on are refreshing and brave to speak in such a vulnerable moment. I am releasing these conversations one by one and my goal is to connect you with voices that vary. My only rule, be real, be honest. 

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Various Small Fires (VSF) is a gallery owned and operated by Esther Kim Varet established in 2012 with locations in Los Angeles, California and Seoul, South Korea. The Seoul gallery opened last spring with a collaborative two-person exhibition of new works by California legends and longtime friends Billy Al Bengston and Ed Ruscha. VSF borrows its name from Ed Ruscha’s original self-published book Various Small Fires and Milk.

In its short exhibition history, VSF has presented the Los Angeles and Asia debuts of many internationally recognized emerging, mid, and late career artists like Liz Magic Laser, Math Bass, Julie Curtiss, Robin F. Williams, Jesper Just, and Diedrick Brackens.

VSF takes social responsibility seriously. The majority of their represented artists are women. The gallery uses 100% solar energy to operate its exhibition spaces and goes to great lengths to reduce their carbon footprint and eliminate plastic by-products.

VSF is also one of the few commercial venues to have a dedicated outdoor gallery for large-scale sculpture and installation. In April 2019, VSF opened a second location in the Hannam-dong neighborhood of Seoul, South Korea. This new ground-floor storefront added an additional 1,000 sq-ft (93 sq-m) of exhibition space in Asia.

This is Jerry Gogosian AM art radio. Listen in on my phone calls as I try to figure out what is going on in with the world! 2020 is exhausting. 

This episode I speak to Sarah Douglas, ARTnews editor-in-chief. 

Sarah Douglas was appointed editor-in-chief of ARTnews in July 2014. She has been an art journalist and editor for numerous publications for 20 years, beginning with four years running the US editorial office of the Art Newspaper, after a stint writing exhibition reviews and previews for the New York Times online. Before ARTnews, she was culture editor at the New York Observer, and she launched a visual art site called Gallerist. Prior to that, she spent six years as a staff writer at Art+Auction magazine and its website, Artinfo.com. Sarah has contributed to the New York Times, New York magazine, the Economist, Flash Art, and the National, among other publications, writing about art, the art market, and the art world. She has also participated in and led numerous panel discussions on topics ranging from art collectors’ estate planning to museum funding. Douglas has been interviewed about the art market on the NPR programs “Marketplace” and “Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen.” Books about the art world and the art market that cite her work include Don Thompson’s $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art and Michael Shnayerson’s Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art. In 2013 Sarah received ArtTable’s New Leadership award. She is not to be confused with the English actress Sarah Douglas who played the Kryptonian supervillian Ursa in Superman and Superman II. She tweets at @SarahLDouglas.