John Byrne, author of "Useful Art- How Activist Artists Can Change the World," and professor of Useful Art at Liverpool John Moores University's School of Art and Design, talks about:

The city of Liverpool and its art community, with about 20 total galleries, and how he fits into it; where he'll be book touring the book; a key framing in the book, being in a 'neo-liberal occupation' that we live under, which has a huge impact on the culture industries and means the financialization of essentially everything; the surprising pushback there's been at conferences and other events where Useful Art is discussed, including a lot of resistance from those in the art world who may feel that their positions of power are being threatened; the complex but far too under-considered distinction between "use value" and "aesthetic value," and why it's worth considering "use value" as a legitimate part of art-making (and which can even somehow manage to incorporate some aesthetic value); how one of the things he's interested in is having a radical re-think of what aesthetics are but also what they can be; some among many Useful Art projects, including by individual artist Tania Bruguera and Indonesian collective Ruangrupa, which curated Documenta 15, and how they came to be as a group…and, in turn, what the effect of having Ruangrupa curate that Documenta, which was an adventurous choice of curation, a role that John has heard described as "the curatorial Everest."

In the 2nd half of our conversation, available to Patreon supporters of The Conversation, John Byrne talks about:

how ruangrupa came to be, a very different trajectory as they didn't grow up in a culture with contemporary galleries or museums (though they did go to art schools abroad), but had a goal to make a living as artists through the collective, more specifically the "lumbung," equivalent to a co-operative; how the controversy that arose from a single figure with a swastika in the much, much broader scope of ruangrupa's curation led to calls of anti-semitism which overshadowed that Documenta from an outsider's and the press's perspective, and how John believes this distraction was used by many as a way of avoiding discussing some of the core meanings and significance of ruangrupa's contributions to the vaunted art event; the importance of "switching the aperture of the Overton Window," a term he mentions several times, which is about re-orienting your settings in terms of shared understandings of what big concepts are, like Art with a capital A, and how venturing into Useful Art doesn't in any way mean excluding being an individual artist who works solo- they can exist simultaneously; it's also that if we don't open up and expand the definition of what an artist can be and art can be and who can make it, we run the risk of surrendering Art to the neoliberal occupation; his interest, back in the day when he was a young person, in DIY culture (Rough Trade Records, et al.) and how that's a good analog for Useful Art projects; the artist Ahmet Ögüt, a former student of John's who started The Silent University, a knowledge exchange which evolved into a significant cultural platform; Tania Bruguera's project for the Tate Modern which entailed accessing/experiencing police horses and their corralling, and how inside the institution it follows certain basic and old-school protocols, whereas she also has done several projects outside the institution/into the street/community; the concept of 1:1 Scale Art, which the critic Steven Wright appropriates from a Lewis Carol story, in which a map is produced that is so elaborate that it covers everything that exists in the 'real world' of that map, and Wright takes that perspective and applies it as the idea that artists jettison making representations of the real world, and instead affecting change in the real worlds itself (one of the cruxes of the book), which the art world hasn't been able to understand because of the condition of neoliberal capture; a former student who's working on a project in which public libraries become spaces of the Commons, open to all kinds community members including especially those on the margins (whether pensioners, immigrants, etc.); and how posting some of the entries from the Association of Arte Util in open community meetings/events has been a great starting point – another bringing someone in to introduce a skill – to get people engaged in a Useful Art project and think and live artfully.

Boston-based photographer Jim Dow talks about:

The Boston art community (which is often connected to the art school and universities) and why he's lived there the great majority of his life (he lives in the house he grew up in); he's a dedicated Mass-hole- there's an edge to people there and you have break that edge; how he navigates random passersby when he's photographing for long sessions with his wooden large-view camera (his exposures range from a second to 20 minutes), with people always around him (here's a short video of a food stand guy singing tango where Jim was doing a shoot); his experiences with the difference between analog and digital photography, each of its pros and cons, and why he uses digital for documenting exhibitions which he's used for his teaching; suggestions for how to best edit documentation of your own work, which starts with photographing on your phone, to get a good sense of color that you can use as a template for your photo editing; how he used the NEA's selection process, of not using artist statements as part of the process for the initial rounds, as a tool to teach his students (including as a guest lecturer at Harvard) about how decisions are made; the Harvard student he had who wrote a study evaluating the value of photography based on economic models; two fully adults students he's had over the years, and how their stories impacted both Jim and his other, younger students; and how the odds of becoming monetarily successful artists are worse than becoming a professional baseball player, at least by one (possibly obsolete?) metric.

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In the 2nd half of the conversation, available to Patreon supporters, we talk about:

His own relationship to financial success as an artist, both as a teacher and a photographer, which has added up to a solid middle-class income, and how 'his photography supports his photography,' just barely; how crucial it is for artists to have day jobs; how scarcity and nostalgia play a big role in a photograph's market value; his insights on financial precarity, not only through his students but his own kids, and what he tends to advise kids to do vis-à-vis art school; how he worried about students who thought their path after leaving art school was being an art star – because of those low odds he mentioned – and meanwhile how many mature adult students he had who were in their 30s all the way up to even their 70s, and how they got so much out of his classes with the life experience they brought; how he wrote 'a million' letters of recommendation for students, always starting from scratch (no template); though he didn't want to necessarily become friends with his students, he's become good friends with about 7 of them between early 30s and early 70s; how he saw his students as "peers-in-training;" the visual sophistication of the recent college kids he taught, due to their lifelong exposure to such a vast range of imagery; how the women and the gender fluid students were infinitely more articulate than the men, in his experience; how one of his students, who grew up on a dairy farm, expressed her frustrations with class differences she experienced amidst her fellow students (read: privilege); and his next project, documenting the food stands and other businesses along north-south highway 111, using it as an opportunity to explore the 'hallway doors' along the way.

Hadley, Massachusetts and NYC artist Sarah K. Khan talks about:

How it's a "little miracle" to have a studio (a former chick coop on a farm in the 5-college area of Mass.) after so many years working in kitchens and other spaces not dedicated to her work and where she can really spread out; her short films about the immigrant experience in New York via food trucks (particularly her Queens Migrant Kitchens series), and how she was originally motivated to work in this area in 2015 as a way to follow up on the fall-out from 9/11 among the immigrant community; the challenges she had getting street vendors and other food makers in being filmed, because they were afraid of being surveilled; the films' impact on the street vendor community, including one woman who was able to grow from a street vendor stall to a brick-and-mortar restaurant (and keep the food stall active); her collaboration on 'Speak Sing Shout: We, Too, Sing America' with the animator Simon Rouby; her film and photography work in Old Dehli, one of the many world crossroads she's covered; how making things for herself, first and foremost, is a practical way of making work (this may or may not be connected to her not being trained in a BFA/MFA kind of way; she has advanced degrees in food studies and has a background in integrative medicine); and how the core of her work is talking about the migration of people, plants and ideas (often women, often domestic spaces).

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In the 2nd half of the conversation, available to Patreon supporters, we talk about:

Sarah's background in integrative medicine, including teaching chefs about nutrition, and taught Western nutrition to Eastern practitioners; how it's time to grow our own vegetables as a way of taking control of our own health; vegetables and herbs people can grown themselves, both as food and in teas; plant-based diets, which are followed by most of the world; how food and culture infuses the ceramics, prints and animation work she's been doing; the research and work she's been doing in southern India and how it connects with the history of 'the Sultan,' and in her case replacing that story with the Queen of Shiba; how her engagement with her own cultural lineage in her work can encourage viewers to engage with their own cultures; how she's created her own pipeline as an artist, without a BFA or MFA (having come from nutrition and science); her filming all over India (including in Nagaland in the far north) of women farmers; and how compassionate and tuned in she is to the immigrant experience.

Artist and legendary street artist Robbie Conal talks about:

His family history, including his two activist-and-politically inclined parents, his background in fighting the power; moving up to Los Osos (in San Luis Obispo County) as a permanent residence (back after the 2008 crash), but keeping a small place in L.A.; what he misses about not being in the city (he's lived in NYC and SF as well as L.A.); his first big moment with public art, through postering, which was born out of caricature paintings he was making of Ronald Reagan's cabinet, which he dubbed 'Men with No Lips,' and alighted through a large postering campaign just as Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, was opening to the public in 1986; how he's Shepard Fairey's OG, and how he was an influence on him as a future street artist (though Fairey said, "I can do that" quite confidently); his personal mantra: "apply what you do best to what you care about most," which in his case his drawing and talking smack (does best) and American democracy (cares about most); how, to make his work quicker to keep his work temporal, he switched from oil painting to charcoal and then to acrylic with oil accents; how all his friends who have his art (mostly of terrible characters) have them in their toilets; and his most popular work, "Watching, Waiting and Dreaming," a triptych of Gandhi, the Dahli Lama and Martin Luther King.

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In the 2nd half of the conversation, available to Patreon supporters, we talk about:

How he's sustained himself financially over the decades outside of sales of his work, from teaching to receiving donations to his postering campaigns to lots of (young) volunteers; what he thinks about street art, and mural art, today, and the distinction between graffiti, street art and poster art, and how his reputation saved him from competing street artists when he was postering; our different respective takes on street art, and how Leon Trotsky taught him that everything is political, and street art is inherently political; what he's learned from terrible jobs: mainly, you can't make good art, let alone great art, in your spare time, while holding down a full-time job (and doing the work on the side); the most commonly asked questions he's received about postering (how many times have you been arrested?); how part of your mission as a poster is muscling up for the consequences; and what the best thing is to say to the judge when you're asked why you did it.

And for the final 15 minutes of our talk, he covers the breadth of logistics related to putting up posters in public/on the street, which he refers to as 'acts of civil disobedience.'

Napa, CA-based artist Arleene Correa Valencia talks about:

Why she lives in Napa, CA, and the two distinct versions of the town, for the wealthy and for the poor ("you're either the owner of the vineyard, or you're working the vineyard," as she put it); how she's the first generation to not be working the vineyards, his dad having worked the vineyard for a period before transitioning to hand-painting etched wine bottles for a winery (which he had to ultimately leave for lack of being paid enough because he didn't have an MFA); her favorite wines by grape (Pinots and Cabs from Sonoma mainly), and more recently a master fabricator color theorist and surface touch-up artist; making her dad's dreams to become an artist come to fruition through her; how she always refers to the work she makes as 'ours,' assuming everyone knows that her father always has a hand in the projects, in addition to consistently collaborating with makers from her culture of origin; the letters she exchanged with her father, while he was working to lay a foundation for the family to move to the U.S., among the artworks acquired by Stanford's Cantor Arts Center; her complicated DACA (Dreamer) status, and the exhibition she was able to have in Mexico (in Puebla, about 2 hours from Mexico City) which ultimately allowed her to apply for, and get, a green card; how she had to defer her dream to go to a 4-year university or art school until she received DACA status, and then she got a Diversity Scholarship that allowed her to attend California College of the Arts, which she would never otherwise would have been able to afford; how one of her 1st interviews was for someone interested in learning about being undocumented in the arts (originally published in Hyperallergic, she had to have it taken down for legal reasons to protect her); how her various supporters propelled her into her art-making and her art school education, and in turn the questions she asks herself about how she can help others, undocumented and otherwise…

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In the 2nd half of our conversation (available on Patreon), Arleene talks about:

How her mom comes from a family with 36 brothers and sisters, so is part of an enormous extended family; the BRCA mutation in her family, in which bodies are much more susceptible to various cancers, including breast cancer and ovarian; why ICE hasn't been active in the Napa Valley area, very likely because people of wealth and/or power won't allow their wine supply to be affected; how aware she is of her career and her sales, and that she's proud of her production rate and the work her gallery is doing with her; the demand for her truck paintings, and why she has a need to make those paintings, not producing them for a paycheck; when she requested a collector give her more time to finish a piece that she wasn't happy with, and re-made it; how integral her dad is to her work and her process, and how he's celebrated along with her, if only through his tremendous pride in her, and that it wouldn't all happen without him; the work they do with a tattoo family, and how it's similar to the dynamic that she and her dad as a family do together, which she acknowledges is a bit like the man behind the curtain; her Tochtli (rabbit) tattoo, a symbol in her family that signifies selflessness and the ultimate sacrifice; how the evolution of her being tattooed, which started when she was 18, has been about honoring the story of her ancestry and claiming her identity, and how her brothers, like her, are acquiring full body suits of tattoos.

London-based photographer and writer Michael Collins talks about:

The flat where he's lived for 35 years, which is getting 'Wallace & Gromit' crowded; how he keeps film in his deep freeze (aka freezer) as opposed to anything edible, and how he's happy to shop for the day, while he points out that Brits see American refrigerators and are overwhelmed by how large they are; and by the way, we're also bludgeoned by advertising here, compared with the UK and Europe; how he sees our social media consumption as giving in to the impulsive at the expense of the rational, a battle he gives in to daily for a half hour on IG…and how sometimes, you just want to look at a panda falling out of a tree; why readers (of books) make better viewers of artworks; how when his photographs are printed at full scale (4 x 5 feet) you can walk into them and how part of photography's schtick is that it's nosy, that it admits everything in it; his takeaways from giving a presentation at the Hampstead Photographic Society, in which have the members bolted for the door at the break; the importance of 19th century photography to understanding the history of photography, and how it's not shown enough in museums (at least in London); how he started studying politics, but switched over to art, initially stumbling into photography as an editor at a teenage girl's magazine, then moving to The Observer, and then he became picture editor at the Daily Telegraph, where he realized, amidst a more rushed editorial structure that went with predictable stock photographers, that the most interesting photography was not there to fulfill another's agenda, but in pursuit of independence, to fulfill its own agenda.

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In the 2nd half of our conversation (available on Patreon), Michael talks about:

The challenges of evolving and following your own path at the expense of taking the more marketable route, which means maintaining your integrity, and how his photographs, and his writing are both better than ever; the complex and fulfilling experience he had visiting and re-visiting a Jeff Wall museum exhibition; how the photographer Martin Parr dominates the scene in Britain, and how all his pictures look roughly the same, and yet he's kind of this hero in the country, through the 'steamroll of publicity,' and how there's far more depth, wealth and nuance out there than we're being allowed…; his first art review (for The Daily Telegraph), of Andreas Gursky's exhibition at Tate Liverpool, which uncovered a surprising digital edit, one he was turned on to by one of the museum custodians, and when he wrote the review that included his misgivings about the work, the Tate press office told him he was being cruel (to which he replied, "that's not being cruel, that's being honest"), and how another artist's agent threatened to sue for a negative review; our respective takes on art writing and criticism, in terms of what he appreciates vs. can't tolerate, and what I appreciate and can't tolerate; more about the world of magazine editing, which he describes as being a lifetime ago…; and finally, to wind down our conversation, we talk about his book, Blind Corners, which features several essays exploring across the spectrum of photography and photography's history; in particular we review a passage where he compares Americana via Kodachrome and Hollywood light with the dull, austere light of Britain, and he goes on to call out Dubai as the culmination of late capitalism.

Pasadena-based artist Linnéa Gabriella Spransy talks about:

Growing up between Wisconsin and a commune in Oregon, the latter which she describes as a complete commitment more than an experiment (the town was Wildeville, Cape Junction being the closest city); how you radically live out the life of Christianity, including giving away all their stuff, and how her father played in a Christian glam rock band that toured the world; having a positive commune experience, yet winding up 'inevitably becoming part of the machine,' aka capitalism, despite her wonderings as a child, which are still there; her period living and working in Kansas City for seven years after grad school at Yale, figuring out which voices to use in her work and make enough to have a house and a nice studio, and yet felt claustrophobic by its limitations and where she saw herself in the future if she had stayed there; her mantra in Kansas City, "if there's no pressure, I still do it," in determining what work she would keep making no matter what; her intense experience at Yale, where everyone, even the future stars, received harsh criticism for a range of reasons; the big advantages of artists who are extroverted charmers, especially in comparison to the 'ambiverts,' as Linnea calls them (and who we both essentially identify as), and even more so the more misanthropically aligned artists; her tenure co-founding Bridge Projects, a spiritually-oriented gallery in Hollywood, which had the misfortune of opening days before the pandemic.

In the Patreon BONUS episode (379A), twice as long as episode 379/the public feed, Linnea also talks about:

Her complex take on the existential state we're in politically and culturally in the context of history, in which she identifies with people from numerous eras of the past, confronting their own challenging times and what we have in common; her experience living in Pasadena as a diverse place with a significant history and culture, and, as a neighbor to Altadena, what their respective roles have been as neighborhoods for artists in the context of the Eaton fire; her different working methods, from the through-the-process-oriented abstraction, as opposed to her much more research-based figurative work…she describes each of them as working different muscles; in the context of her 'growing a human person,' as she put it, the importance of having a rich internal life, interesting things, interesting people…; and whether she should get a studio in an artist building downtown, vs. sticking with her garage studio at home. She also asks (and to some extent answers) a question in support of the future artist advice podcast, The Intrepid Artist.

Camilla Taylor, Los Angeles artist, and curator of "My House Burned Down" (at Track16 Gallery), talks about:

Her childhood with complicated religious origins, between her Mormon LDS father and her mother who branched off to start her own organization (some might say 'cult,' per Camilla), and how art, for her and many artists, can often fit the functions that people are often looking for in religions (including being part of something bigger than themselves); how she's really good at compartmentalizing, seeing difficult experiences from her life as existing in rooms in a house, where she can shut the door to any given room; the epic story of experiencing her house burning down in the Eaton Fire in Altadena-- from her 16-hour drive home from the Sitka Center residency in Oregon, to seeing it when she approached her part of the San Gabriel Valley, to arriving home and having the wind lift her off her feet, to their belated evacuation; and subsequently how she found out her and her partner's house, and her studio, had burned down, and that that process of mourning has been like; how trauma has manifested from losing her home and studio, and the range of reactions she's received, including a lot of suggestions that are tone-deaf; what insurance will cover, and the studio spaces she's been loaned/gifted for now, putting off the need for having to rent a studio for the first time (since studios have always been attached to her living spaces).

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In the 2nd/Patreon Bonus half of the conversation, Camilla talks about:

How, because of her visibility as an artist, she's been more fortunate than many others who lost homes/studios in the fire by receiving a range of resources that artists less visible have not; the lawsuits against Southern California Edison, who allegedly started the Eaton fire; the group show she curated, 'My House Burned Down,' at Track 16 Gallery, which included four artists who lost their homes in the Eaton fire, and four artists who lost their homes in prior fires, and how the show addressed a commonality in losing one's home as an artist, with an extra emphasis on materiality; how while she doesn't know what the right reaction is, when people learn that her house (and studio) burned down in a fire, she knows that the reaction that she's going to rise above it, like the phoenix from the ashes, is absolutely not the reaction to have, because it's hurtful especially in its negating of what happened to her; and we have an extensive exchange about what I have long referred to as "the P-word," as in 'practice, as in 'my art practice, a word Camilla also hates, and she talks about why language has become so important in art/the art world, including her take that artists overcompensate in art because, essentially, we/art is so unimportant to everyone else; and Camilla shares her favorite and least favorite art-speak words; and how in her teaching she's honest with students about how their work affects her, as opposed to making art historical comparisons.

Brooklyn-based artist and sometimes New Yorker magazine cartoonist Guy Richards Smit returns to the podcast eight years after his first visit to talk about:

His admitted high self-regard, paired with self-awareness, which we identify as being rare; our respective experiences and takes on artist blowhards; his history with cartooning, going back to his obsession with gag cartoons, going back to a New Yorker cartoon book he read at his grandparents' house when he was a kid; how he started making his own gag cartoons; the steps he took to build his cartoon portfolio, leading to getting published in the New Yorker after a year and a half of submitting (which is much quicker than some); the cartoon he made for the New Yorker website, the 'Daily,' that went viral (receiving 1500 comments, not to mention other viral stats), including getting re-created in Turkish by a Turkish cartoonist; how he actually sees the cartoons as sketches for paintings (and gets quite painterly in the making of them); how about half of his cartoons are more insider-baseball-art cartoons, and the one he made that references one artist that he had in mind, although several reactions interpreted it as another artist, whom Guy actually heard from, wondering if it was about them.

In the 2nd half of our conversation, available to Patreon Supporters of the podcast, you'll hear Guy talk about:

How the parameters for where art can come from have changed, and how humor in art is still held, especially in the U.S., as a bit off limits; how his desire to paint a rock led to his Sisyphus cartoon (every cartoonist wants to do a Sisyphus cartoon); his desire to make a put out cartoons that are beautiful, not really a quality that the cartoon editor, or even cartoon consumers, are necessarily looking for; why the New Yorker cartoonists haven't been able to form a union, which is related to why there aren't really any other high-profile venues for gag cartoons to be seen; how he didn't have a gallery for 15 years, and was "forced to sell" his own work, using Instagram successfully for sales in the pre-algorithmic takeover era, when he got three to four times more engagement than he gets now (and thankfully for him he now doesn't require sales thru IG as much); his new dealer, Adam Cohen, who opened the gallery A Hug from The Art World three years ago; and how wanting to draw a Miro sculpture led to one of his most popular and most responded to cartoons at the Independent art fair in NYC this past spring.

This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod

In Episode 376, Alex and Theo Gribaudi-Plytas talk about:

Their location in rural France, at the southern end of the Champagne region, where there are tons of vineyards, many of which they take friends from out of town to, and how even in their minimally populated area they see plenty of income inequality; how they met while living in London's version of dorms for art students, even though they were going to art schools that weren't at all near each other, and how they evolved from friends to romantic partners to romantic partners who make art collaboratively; Theo's art school professor, Leigh Clarke, who looked through the class's sketchbooks, and if they didn't past muster he'd throw them in the trash (it was symbolic); how they organically evolved into making art together as a pair, and what the advantages (and occasionally disadvantages) are, including the energy from vibing off each other's ideas, and how one can inspire the other and v.versa; how their life is their art, particularly with the evolution of their home/home studio and garden, all together as a piece.

In the BONUS Full Episode, available to Patreon supporters of The Conversation, Alex and Theo discuss: Their perpetual moving in and moving out of studios in London, each after just a year or two, because they got priced out or the situation was unsustainable, and how they're translating the various functioning areas of those fleeting studio spaces to this permanent one, which is still very much a work-in-progress after three years (it's a former school house built in 1879 and a house next door); their 24-hour work/artmaking sensibility, which they make sound quite appealing, a world in which breakfast can be art, or they can be working on art-related sewing while watching a film; why they left the city for the country, even when they had such a wonderful time during art school and beyond in London; the details of their property, including the view into the forest, where hunting takes place (and which we discuss); their complex relationship using Instagram (they don't like to but need to); Theo's sister, Sarah Rosenzweig, who they both admire for getting off of Meta platforms despite living in the mountains in the south of France (she sends out calendars and advocates for progressive political causes).