Unibrow Radio

It's hard not to find a bit of pop-cultural appropriation in the roots of street art. There has always been artists who take from Disney, Hollywood, politics, and remix it into stencil art, wheat-pastes and murals. But there has been a trend over the last decade, as Big Muralism has become the trend, where we have begun to toe the line toward cultural appropriation in ways that have become insensitive and uneducated. Predominantly, we see this in depictions of Asian woman and culture, where Geishas pop-up in far away cities without context and often over-sexualized by a male artist.

In this short report from Radio Juxtapoz, Doug Gillen speaks with artists Hueman and Sheena Liam about this conversation about depictions of Asian culture in street art, their own experiences and how nuanced conversations are not being had or understood for a better and broader dialogue. 

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 072 was recorded via Skype in London, Penang and Oakland in early May, 2021. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

There's probably a good chance that you heard the news that BEEPLE, the graphic artist born as Mike Winkelmann, had just sold the third most expensive piece of artwork for a living artist and thought to yourself, "WTF is a BEEPLE?" Or if you were me you said just a plain "WTF?"  Sure, you probably knew a little bit about NFTs (Winkelmann had only just started working with NFTs in October 2020), but the fact that someone had paid $69,346,250 on March 11, 2021 for his work  Everydays: the First 5000 Days, the massive JPEG collage of images from his Everydays series, kind of felt like either a game-changer, an insane hedge, a turning point, a blip, a hero moment, an insider moment, a gross use of money or a smart investment of someone who saw a landmark moment in digital art.

Whatever it was, you had a reaction. Many were mad. Many in the establishment almost cried out that it was the end of art as we know it. To be honest, it all felt a little silly. Everyone ran to NFTs for some of that million dollar energy, and some of it worked, some didn't. Winkelmann himself was new to the platform of selling his images this way, but had already accumulated a massive audience for this Everydays series, creating a digital work and posting it everyday since 2007. Regardless of what the market did, of what his impact on NFTs has been just in a few short months, Winkelmann just makes art everyday. It's kind of his thing.

On this episode of Radio Juxtapoz, we talked to BEEPLE about just that: making art everyday. We of course talk about the landmark auction and his thoughts on NFTs and his quite interesting advice to everyone joining the medium. We talk about the sudden criticism, what the media seems to have surmized about him from this sale, and what it means to have an audience before the wider public knew BEEPLE. He gives his insights about how artists will help make NFTs more environmentally friendly just through their desire and awareness that it needs to change. But like any disrupter of the art market and art consciousness, we just wanted to talk to BEEPLE about his craft, practice, humor and where he thinks this is all going. 

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 071 was recorded via Skype in London, San Francisco and Charleston on April 16, 2021. Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz

We have come to know Action Bronson as many things; a hip-hop artist with impeccable sampling taste and delivery, a celebrity chef, a VICE host, an author, a spokesperson, a body boarder (something we learned on his social channels these past months), graffiti artist and now... a painter. It makes plenty of sense if you look at the broader view of Action Bronson and his taste. He is always exploring unseen or unfound pieces of culture, much of it to do with his Queens upbringing and the diversity one understands and immerses themselves in the various cultures of the great Borough. NYC can be many things, but for the man born Ariyan Arslan in 1983, he channels a special energy of nostalgia with a very in-the-moment sense of self and what he loves to do.

In a new work by Lagos, Nigeria-based painter, Chidinma Nnoli, a woman stands and looks through to the viewer, or maybe she's even looking at a mirror and back to herself. The arches look familiar, a cross is in her hands, the gaze strong and knowing. The work is called did you sin today (pink walls), and in a slight moment, you could see the figure maybe smiling,  as if, yes, I have sinned and it's our little secret. In each of Nnoli's newest works for her debut solo show, To Wander Untamed, on view with Rele Gallery in Lagos at the time of this conversation, there is a coming of age story engrained in the figures. Nnoli said that with these works, “I just want to escape the conditioning." A powerful sentiment that is both so universal and so personal.   

In the newest episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak to Nnoli about that escape, from Catholicism, art historical narratives, to the complicated history of power and authority in Nigeria. We speak about what it is to be a feminist in Nigeria in the 21st century, how the potential of social hierarchical evolutions are seen in her work and her own love of both traditional painting and contemporary abstraction. As the works themselves carry a powerful sense of mystery, Nnoli opens up about her own personal histories and how, at the young age of 22, her work is resonating on an international level that shows what feels like a personal escape is also one of the most universal feelings one can capture.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 069 was recorded via Skype in London, San Francisco and Lagos on March 25, 2021. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE

They may be faceless, but they are definitely not nameless. The works that painter, illustrator, designer and digital artist Melissa Koby has been shared, seen and loved without you maybe even knowing she was the artist behind the work. The Jamaican-born, Tampa, Florida-based artist has created an aesthetic so universal and so universally hers, she has created a collective spirit that she notes is a "safe space" in her bio, but feels almost like an international space of power and community. In a time of collective unease, with so many conversations coming to the forefront and at times, being had in such public manner, there is a something fascinated about speaking to an artist that is about creating in a time of social chaos, and being one of the synonymous with having people think outside of themselves.

But of course, things haven't been all that smooth. Working with these bodies, she has had to emphasize and re-emphasize to clients the importance of her content and position POC in her works in that universal spirit. On the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, this isn't a conversation we have had over the past few years; how does an artist confront expectations in commercial while simultaneously owning her unique aesthetic. In this conversation, we learn a lot about those times when Koby's had to fight back on commercial work, how she is trying not to pigeonhole herself as a self-proclaimed "moody" artist and how to navigate the fast-paced and nonstop 21st century media ebbs and flows.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 068 was recorded by Doug Gillen via Skype in London and Florida on March 17, 2021. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast HERE.

There are those moments in an interview where you know as soon as the subject has said something profound that it will become the centerpiece of their spotlight. In our conversation with Milwaukee-born, NYC-based painter Khari Turner, the Radio Juxtapoz team kept finding so many incredible words, messages, thoughts on art and life with Turner that it's almost impossible to give you one simple summary. He's a throwback in a lot of ways, but a fresh face on the contemporary art scene. His earliest influences were from his grandfather, who turned an art degree into a trade with his skill, and that allowed Khari to see that art could be an option as a career; just perhaps not fine art.

But that is just the beginning of the journey. From a botched financial aid mishap to a scholarship and being a cheerleader at Austin Peay, working as one of those incredible high-flying stunt slam dunkers with the Milwaukee Bucks, to Columbia in NYC and now an emerging art career, these are just a few of the incredible stops along the way for Turner. But it was over the past few years, exploring the history of water as both an art material and historical signifier and means of transportation and navigation, Turner has created some of the most powerful paintings we have seen over the past 12 months. At first sight, they are stunning and moving, literally and figuratively. Dig deeper and Turner is working on something personal and universal, speaking about family and names, identity and home.

On this episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, Turner tells us of the unique route to his now burgeoning career, what he learned in art school, what he sees in water, growing up on Lake Michigan, how a residency in Venice Beach changed his trajectory, and the art of knowing how to fall.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 067 was recorded via Skype in San Francisco, London and NYC on March 4, 2021.

We don't often have a guest on the Radio Juxtapoz podcast who is days away from opening a comprehensive survey of their work in a museum where they grew up. That is where we found Melbourne-based artist RONE this past week; prepping, experimenting and reminiscing while putting the final touches on his museum show at Geelong Gallery. Who wouldn't want to catch up with an artist on the week of a major milestone?   

RONE has been at the forefront of new muralism movement of the 21st century with big, bold and highly detailed works that also translated into his studio paintings. In recent years, RONE has experimented with experiential installations, combining site-specific work with photography and narrative-based creations that audiences could walk into, touch and feel. Built around ideas of beauty and decay, RONE always captures a sense of physicality and scale, and speaks to our enduring relationships with the past while he consistently expands where his art can go next.

On episode 066 of Radio Juxtapoz, RONE talks about the Geelong show, his pivot from murals, a new grant he was awarded and what that may mean for his dream projects. (hint, think a ghost town).   

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 066was recorded via Skype in San Francisco, London and Melbourne on February 10, 2021.  

There is so much going on in the painting of Suffolk, UK-based painter, Ania Hobson. At first glance they are portraits, people posing, leaning, conversing, in bars, bedrooms and in cars. But there are escapists fantasies and sense of almost being misunderstood in each work, like a conversation gone awry or a secret being told. The colors are bold. The facial expressions are often intense or contemplative. And in the end, you are entering Hobson's world that teeters between a sense of reality and that of a distant daydream.   

There are people in your life you go to for some advice, some perspective, maybe even a little... real talk. Carissa Potter, the brilliant mind behind People I've Loved and a fine artist in her own right, is one of those people. Through a particularly bold vulnerability and honesty, she navigates both contemporary life and art with a sense of questioning, longing and introspection while simultaneously creating a collective sense of community with her audience. This is such a rare feat, and in a year of uncertainty and change, Potter's work spoke volumes.  

In 2020, Potter help co-found If You Were Here Now, a platform that gave artists the opportunity to share their process and creative spirit when we all were looking for a little camaraderie. As Carissa and Radio Juxtapoz co-host Evan Pricco worked on a few projects over the last year, they sat down to talk about... well, what they talk about all the time together; drawing connections in art, understanding communication through the arts, those vulnerable moments of being exposed through art and just how the past 12 months have affected both their practices.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 064 was recorded via Skype in the Bay Area in January 2021. 

It's amazing where the last year has taken us, but when we look at 12 month journey of Argentinian-born, Barcelona-based painter/muralist Franco "JAZ" Fasoli, it seems about right that we had an almost 90-minute conversation with our friend from a remote gas station/rest stop in the middle of the Argentinian countryside. Fasoli has been on the forefront of a generation of South American street and fine artists, most specifically of course, Buenos Aires artist who stormed the international scene with a unique blend of fine art muralism and bold studio works in the early years of an incredible global movement.   

Now based in Spain, but in the midst of crazy year of exploration, experimentation and... being stuck, we caught up with Fasoli back in his home country on a bit of summer break. After a residency in North Carolina led to Fasoli living in Charlotte for an extra six months during the early months of the pandemic, he gave us the lowdown on living in the American south during a time of social turmoil and how it related to social upheavals in South America in his youth. We learn about his past in set design, graffiti, Tango Culture, muralism's infancy, OSGEMEOS' groundbreaking influence and why Barcelona works for him. We also get an in-depth look at Argentinian BBQ, summer in the country, the works he was able to complete at his rented studio in Charlotte and how he thinks we took our globe-trotting ways in the art world for granted.

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 063 was recorded via Skype from a gas station in Argentina, San Francisco, London, February 5, 2021.