Cassie Packard is a freelance writer and reviews editor at frieze magazine who is particularly interested in worldbuilding practices and networks, with queerness as a frame and focus.

For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Cassie. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:James JoyceJohn AshberyFrank O’HaraJacques DupinAdrienne RichEmily Dickinson“Sable Elyse Smith’s Opera Inhabits the Storm,” by Cassie Packard (frieze, July 2024)Toni MorrisonRenee GladmanOrdinary Notes by Christina Sharpe (Macmillan, 2023)“Knotted Lives” by Cassie Packard (The Brooklyn Rail, February 2024)Drama 1882 by Wael Shawky at the 2024 Venice Biennale“The Digital Media Experiments of Auriea Harvey” by Cassie Packard (frieze, February 2024)Gamer Theory by McKenzie Wark (Harvard University Press, 2007)Art Rules: How Great Artists Think, Create and Work by Cassie Packard (Frances Lincoln, 2023)“Whose Interests Does AI Serve?” by Cassie Packard (ArtReview, December 2023)“A Common Thread by Rowan Renee” by Cassie Packard (Recess Art, January 2022)The Tarot Garden“AB-EX and Disco Balls: In Defense of Abstract Expressionism II” by Amy Sillman (Artforum, Summer 2011)“In Defense of Abstract Expressionism” by T.J. Clark (October, Summer 1994)HyperallergicCassie Packard at HyperallergicMomusContemporary Art Review Los AngelesJupiter MagazineJessica LynneJarrett Earnest

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music is by Ariel Shalom, Flint, Steven Beddall, Nomad Producer, and Just for Kicks. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work.  

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Thomas Lawson is an artist, educator and writer. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Thomas. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:The Writing of Fiction by Edith Wharton (Scribner, January 1925)Sayre GomezJack GoldsteinThe Anxiety of Influence by Harold Bloom (Oxford University Press)“The Allegorical Impulse: Toward Theory of Postmodernism by Craig Owens” (October, Spring 1980)East of BorneoSusan MorganREALLIFE magazineMark LewisRosalind KraussRobert Pincus-Witten“Outside The Box: Unpacking Craig Owens’s Slide Library” by James Meyer (Artforum, March 2003)Rose Hobart by Joseph Cornell (1936)Diva CorpTravis DiehlJohn Waters: Pope of Trash, exhibit at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 2023“Remembering Jack Goldstein” by Jennifer Bolande (Afterall 7, Spring/Summer 2003)”PST ART: Art & Science Collide,” project at Getty museum“All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” exhibit REDCAT Center CalArts (2024)Roy Cohn & Jack Smith by Ron Vawter (April 1994)The Comet / Poppea, by George LewisCasa Grande Ruins National Monument“Time Bandits, Space Vampires” by Thomas Lawson (Artforum 1988)El Anatsui: Scottish Mission Book Depot Keta, exhibit at Talbot Rice Gallery of the University of Edinburgh (2024)Christ of St. John of the Cross by Salvador Dali (1951), Glasgow MuseumsJoseph BeuysPiecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader edited by Susan Morgan (East of Borneo Books, 2012)

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music is by Ariel Shalom, Flint, Pink Desert, and CTRL S.  These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work.  

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Siddhartha Mitter is a freelance writer and critic. He is one of eight writers to win the 2024 Rabkin Prize. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Siddhartha. It has been gently edited for length and clarity.  

Mentioned in this episode:“Waking Life: Siddhartha Mitter on the art of Cauleen Smith” (Artforum, May 2019)“LaToya Ruby Frazier Is Paying It Forward” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, May 2024)“Dawoud Bey, Full Frame: On Richmond’s Trail of the Enslaved” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, November 2023)“Simone Leigh, in the World” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, April 2022)“Lorraine O’Grady, Still Cutting Into the Culture” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, February 2021)“El Anatsui Builds Monumental Art From Daily Life” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, October 2023)“At His Moment of Triumph, Arthur Jafa Is Looking for Trouble” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, May 2021)For Chakaia Booker, Whose Medium Is Tires, the Art Is in the Journey” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, May 2021)Andrea Bowers: Her Activism Animates Her Art” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, November 2021)“Steve McQueen, on a Different Wavelength” by Siddhartha Mitter (The New York Times, May 2024)Documenta 15CounterpublicCultured Magazine“Art Talk: Why Art Critics Matter” by Deborah Solomon (WNYC News, May 2013)Jupiter MagazineA Beautiful Resistance (The Boston Globe)Zoë HopkinsBurnawayContemporary Art Review Los AngelesIn the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe (Duke University Press, 2016)

This episode of The Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Flint, Just for Kicks, Aureyez, and Jim Swim. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Emily Watlington is a critic, curator, and senior editor at Art in America. She is one of eight writers to win the 2024 Rabkin Prize. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Our new Executive Director, Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist, conducted this conversation with Emily. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:

“The Pitfalls of the Something-for-Everyone Approach to the Venice Biennale” by Emily Watlington (Art In America, July 2024“Andrea Crespo” by Emily Watlington (Art Papers, Winter 2018/2019)Art in AmericaRebecca Solnit“Maurizio Cattelan’s Notorious Banana Sculpture Donated to Guggenheim Museum” by Valentina Di Liscia (Hyperallergic, September 2020)Notion appAnna Jermolaewa at the Austrian Pavilion of the 2024 Venice BiennaleNathan Fielder’s The Curse trailerLeave Society by Tao Lin (Penguin Random House, 2021)The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever by Prudence Pfeiffer (Harper, 2023)All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld (Metropolitan Books, 2024)

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music is by Ariel Shalom, Flint, warmkeys, and Duce Williams.  These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Greg Allen is an artist and writer who began greg.org: the making of art blog in 2001. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Greg. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:greg.org: the making of“Lightning Field Notes” by Greg Allen (Greg.org, July 2015)“Old News” by Jeff WeissAnne TruittOnce Again . . . (Statues Never Die) by Isaac Julien, exhibit at the Barnes Foundation, 2022Ten Thousand Waves by Isaac Julian“Just Dropped: Édouard Manet Facsimile Object (M4), ‘Fleurs’” by Greg Allen (Greg.org, May 2024)“Show Me the Manets” by Greg Allen (Greg.org, September 2022)“Hirshhorn Commissions Nicolas Party To Create New Large-Scale Immersive Mural” (Smithsonian, May 2017)“The Daily Practice of Refusing” by Greg Allen (Greg.org, January 2017)GlenstoneCady NolandLIGO“A Student Thesis Has Become a Groundbreaking Show About How Black People Have Been Pictured Across Art History” by Naomi Rea (artnet, September 2018)“For One Week Only Raphael’s Great Tapestries Have Returned to the Sistine Chapel” by Kate Brown (artnet, February 2020)Danh VoUNESCO Heritage site Buddha statues“The History of Tilted Arc Is Long” by Greg Allen (Greg.org, April 2024)“Itty Bitty Videy Committee” by Greg Allen (Greg.org, August 2024) 

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music is by Ariel Shalom, Flint, Cosmonkey and Maybird. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Holland Cotter is the chief art critic and a senior writer at The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer for criticism. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Holland. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:The Metropolitan Museum of ArtJoe Feddersen’s Charmed“Joan Jonas: A Trailblazer Shines at MoMA” by Holland Cotter (The New York Times, March 2024)Civilian Warfare Gallery“The Topic Is Race; the Art Is Fearless,” by Holland Cotter (The New York Times, March 2008)Henry David ThoreauBorobudur Temple“Native Modern Art: From a Cardboard Box to the Met” by Holland Cotter (The New York Times, July 2024)Siena: The Rise of Painting, exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard (Columbia University Press, 2024)Agnes Martin: Paintings,Writings,Remembrances by Arne Glimcher (Phaidon Press, 2012)ArtforumHyperallergicEmily DickinsonGertrude Stein

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Nomad Producer, Maybird and Jozeque. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers in the spaces where they work made by Kevin J. Miyazaki. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Robin Givhan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and senior critic-at-large for The Washington Post. She is one of eight writers to win the 2024 Rabkin Prize. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Robin. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:I Just Keep Talking by Nell Irvin Painter (Knopf Doubleday, April 2024)“America’s tents are pitched on shameful truths,” by Robin Givhan (The Washington Post, April 2024)“The ethnicity question: New York and Europe take different line” by Robin Givhan (The New York Times, October 2002)Freedom Monument Sculpture ParkThe National Memorial for Peace and JusticeBryan StevensonStumbling stonesFlyboy In The Buttermilk: Essays On Contemporary America by Greg Tate (Touchstone Books, 2015)The Art of Grace: On Moving Well Through Life by Sarah Kaufman (W.W. Norton & Co., 2015)“The Only One: As a black man and the creative director of Vogue, André Leon Talley is at the intersection of many worlds,” by Hilton Als (The New Yorker, October 1994)“Virgil Abloh’s wondrous success” by Robin Givhan (The Washington Post, November 2021)Institute of Contemporary ArtFigures of Speech by Virgil Abloh, exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2021

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Flint, ZISO, Captain Joz, and dannyminus. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

TK Smith is an arts writer, cultural historian, and the newly appointed curator of the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. He is one of eight writers to win the 2024 Rabkin Prize. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with TK. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:Beverly Buchanan, Art Papers, Fall/Winter 2020Duane Linklater: mymothersside, Frye Art Museum exhibit, 2021Malcolm Peacock, Studio Museum in Harlem residency, 2024-25Imani PerryMonument Lab“A Boxcar on East 4th Street” by TK Smith (Monument Lab, August 2023)“A Stage for Aiyyana” by TK Smith (Monument Lab, May 2023)“The Dirty South” exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts“A Cosmos of Southern Black Expression” by TK Smith (Art in America, July 2021)Benny AndrewsMichi MekoBloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler (Seven Stories Press, 2005)Christopher Robert JonesBlue by Derek JarmanKJ AbuduThe Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Hatchett Book Group, 2018) Art on My Mind: Visual Politics by bell hooks (The New Press, 1995)Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa (Aunt Lute Books, 1987)

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Flint, Sémø and Just for Kicks. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Welcome to The Rabkin Interviews. In this episode we preview a series of conversations between the eight winners of the 2024 Rabkin Prize and Mary Louise Schumacher, a journalist and the new executive director of the Rabkin Foundation.

Mentioned in this episode:The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz (Random House, 1996) Kevin J. MiyazakiCarolina MirandaAX Minarashid shabazzAndrás Szántó

This project is produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. Our production team includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Original music is HaHaHa by Ariel Shalom and Present in the Past by Flint. These interviews will be accompanied by portraits of the Rabkin Prize winners in the spaces where they work made by Kevin J. Miyazaki.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com