We Eat Art

Reine Paradis produces quirkily utopian photographs of a world seemingly painted into being in bright bold strokes that belie the complexity, labor and danger involved in creating them. We talk about where these glossy images of a folded, flattened world come from--and how she almost dies in the process. Check out the trailer for her upcoming documentary "Queen of Paradis" out in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-7pneZR1bk

we talked Young Joon Kwak about trauma, sculpture, William Burroughs the X Men, being a punk being trans, growing up in a conservative household, the healing power of literature, and being a massive slut...with color. (featuring music clips of Young Joon's band Xina Xurner)

For Patreon Subscribers: Five artists at once!! Zak hosts an artist panel discussion in Culver City at the Castanier Gallery where he had a group exhibition with Claire Collette, Adam Beris, Kenton Parker, and Patrick Martinez. The exhibition was curated by past podcast guest Andrew Schoultz. Lagunitas Pilsner was served, tongues were loosened, and there were great audience questions. The color yellow gets a very thorough consideration, as does the city of Los Angeles.

We talk to Jim Shaw about melting face masks, weirdness, thrift store paintings, Oism, meaning and secrecy, being in a two-artist household, assistants, Destroy All Monsters, second jobs for artists and more.

We talked with Amanda about the exact moment she decided she couldn't be an artist, whether or not she likes to enjoy life, erotic uses for spreadsheets, video art, Makunaima, how exactly you become an independent curator, and the difference between doing it right and doing it wrong.

We got to talk to rising star Deborah Roberts in maybe? her first long interview about process, the world through the eyes of little girls, Tanner and Normal Rockwell, getting called "African", being fierce, hungry collectors, Roland Barthes as the Beastie Boys of critical theory, how Skechers just needs to stop making shoes, Good Times and Rudolph, the boy in grade school she became an artist to impress

Zak Smith, our host, gets spoken with, to mark his show at Fredericks and Freiser gallery this month. Friend of the show Sean McCarthy joins John to interview Zak about brush hair, punk and fine art, porn and fine art, being a seasoned art school attendee, drawings that don’t make the cut, why painting is impressive, using your art to tell other people’s stories, the reality of desire, Suicide Girls, pizza, and why Los Angeles is Viennese modernism and New York is an open secret.

We are taping the show live tomorrow, May 19th, at Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach California! Audience members get a chance to stump us with pieces the hosts will have to analyze on the spot. Come by at 1pm, and bring ideas for art works from before 1950. It's FREE. This event was created by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), and is part of their Frame Rate series. https://nomadicdivision.org/exhibition/frame-rate/

we talk to Ron Athey about growing up with weird religion, having sex in the 1970s, having aids in the 1980s, being used as a pawn in the NEA Culture wars, the early West coast punk rock/ industrial performance circuit, The pre-lapsarian Los Angeles tattoo/body mod scene, being banned in the USA being received in Europe collaborating with classical musicians, blood and death, sanctity in mortification, politics, subculture, grant money, generation gaps, and trying to keep your art out of the hands of music video directors

We talked with Andrew Schoultz about his physical and political relationships with cities, staying out of trouble by skateboarding, getting in to trouble with graffiti, going political in jail, making street art that exposes architecture, reasons why people make maps, juggling between galleries and streets, using the American flag, painting an entire airplane and more.

Our sonic invitation to the art opening of the century. It's not just a promo teaser, it's an audio adventure. Zak has an opening today (April 19th) at Fredericks and Freiser gallery in NY. It'll be up for a month. Don't miss it!

Hey kids, We Eat Art has a new partner-- Artillery magazine is going to be sponsoring some of our episodes. Here's a promo that goes in to more detail

We talk to Glen E. Friedman about photographing skaters, punks and rappers, how to photograph character, the point of wide-angle lenses, working together with the subject to get the perfect picture, how he decided to stop photographing guns, collaborating, mythmaking, politics, and contemporary art. Plus Ice T as art-director, the Beastie Boys learning from Glen, photographs of Jay Adams 40 years apart, King T's wraparound shotgun cover, Shepard Fairey as collaborator, Noam Chomsky and Pussy Riot posing for photos and more.

We talked with artist and “Black Pulp” curator Mark Thomas Gibson and vintage Marvel expert Jeff Lester to find out everything you ever wanted to know about the comic books that contributed to Black Panther movie but were afraid to ask. we also cover Afro futurism, problems of representation, Octavia Butler, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The difficulties of making art under capitalism, Some beautiful drawings and, hopefully, recommend some comics you might wanna read. Become a patron, you get this whole episode, and you help us keep making them. Thanks! https://www.patreon.com/weeatart

we talked to Ben about the police chasing him across the country after he ran away from his Mormon parents and confiscating all of his art and we also talk about that art and also about bureaucracy and Washington DC and construction and The Kafkaesque

We talk to Jocelyn Hobbie about how pointless it is to talk about art, about medieval illumination, and egg tempera, about whether girls would hang out with you or whether they’re actually made of paint, about fabric patterns, about process, about whether there’s an art world or not and about Holly Hobbie

We talk to Gary Taxali about the optimistic era of corporate mascots, disturbing santas, irony, whether or not money can be funny, working for cigarette companies and the Canadian government and Aimee Mann and christian rock bands, using drawing to attract girls and repel bullies, sausages with faces, toys, Bollywood and more

We talk to writer-curator Anuradha Vikram about Claes Oldenberg, Carolee Schneeman, Sesame Street at the Temple of Dendur, sexism in midcentury art, Lee Krasner, Minimalism, Mike Kelley, Nam Jun Paik, the recent Whitney Biennial, running an art space, what makes a good show and curator-as-art-mom.

Gronk talks to us about B-movies, being inspired by a coffee table, the well-dressed women who determined the course of his life, Max Beckmann, making theatre sets, the Asco art collective and their non-movies and tape-murals, decades living in downtown LA with 'the elite of the maladjusted' and much more

We have far too much fun talking to Aaron Johnson about James Ensor, Garbage Pail Kids, deplorables, preparing disgusting slides and housesitting on the palazzo in Honduras, Trump-era art, pizza, turduckens, abstraction, expressionism, satire and, of course, socks.

Mike Giant talks to us about Americana, graffiti, and running from the police, and advises us all to do drugs, meditate, and shoot guns.

Peter Shire is an artist and designer whose public projects and furniture defined the look of the modern west coast. We visit Peter's funhouse studio to talk about being an artist and a businessman, cliche art interview questions, primary colors, how many assistants you can have before one is a disaster, the Bauhaus, deco, collaboration and giving to the customer any size they want.

We talk to Melissa Brown about abstraction, beauty, chaos, Vegas, chance, printmaking vs painting, preserving moments in time, color choices and rear view mirrors.

In our longest episode to date we talk to James Jean about assimilation, the paintings nobody buys, how Zak and James both painted Sasha Grey, death awareness, social media, legitimacy and competitiveness, illustration vs fine art and the crossover of the two, illustrating nothing, NGOs hiring you to make sex rabbits, comics, vintage illustrators, Kuniyoshi, and never doing the decisive moment, plus we ask James which of his art friends is crazier: Takashi Murakami or David Choe?

John Ehrenberg creates otherworldly videos with a side of deadpan humor. We talk about how that sensibility formed, how the work gets made, and how it relates to John's old day job in animation.

We visit Robyn's studio to talk about death, artists as represented in 1980s sitcoms, Romanticism, ugliness, making art in Hollywood, Howard Stern, being Werner Herzog's student, poetry, and everything else.

We make the case for going full stop. WEA would like to take you with us, but we need your help. We've launched a Patreon account with rewards at: https://www.patreon.com/weeatart Thank you for any way you can help!

We talked to Rona Pondick about Egyptian art, having ideas and not having ideas, how people are just animals, how long it takes Rona to make a sculpture, death, process and scary teeth.

Jen Ray puts together stylishly feminist drawings and performance pieces of amazon women using fantastic imagery drawn from rock's trippy and fantastic side. We talk about drawing, music, politics and the seedy side of childhood.

Al Jaffee has quite literally been making cartoons longer than any artist in history. Unfortunately for everyone involved, he works at Mad Magazine.

Drew Heitzler is a conceptual artist and occasional curator who works in a variety of media. We talk about how you represent a train of thought, what's harder: making art or curating it?, working at CBGBs, being a dirtbag, the town of Goose Creek, Thomas Pynchon, Los Angeles as an art subject, philosophy, art fairs, owning a bar, and octopuses.

Valerie Hegarty's sculptures show nature reclaiming art and history and often get mistaken for actual decay. One piece is attacked by a woodpecker, another harpooned, another one has an idea she totally stole from her dad. We talk about experiment, craft, and being a consummate wiseass.

An outtake from this weeks episode with Nicholas Di Genova. Nick and Zak discuss the aesthetics of Role Playing (video)Game art and the subject matter of podcasts.

Nicholas DiGenova (aka Medium) is a painter, sculptor and street artist who makes art about mutant monsters. We talk about all that, plus ecology, scale, his urban and rural phases, the worst dentist in history, and more.

Ganzeer paints, draws, designs, makes street art and comics and was chased out of Egypt for being a dissident. We talk about where his ideas come from, how he puts them together and what it was like to be in the middle of Cairo as the revolution was happening.

A new years message from the podcast that loves the taste of art.

Jane Dickson makes psychologically loaded paintings about light, darkness, the city and the people who live there. We talk about all that, of course, plus Jane gives us some great details about the New York art scene in the 80s, where everyone from Kiki Smith to Basquiat seemed to all know each other and hang out.

John Pylypchuk makes paintings and sculptures of pathetic little creatures in the grip of massive forces they'll never understand. We talk about John's collective, the Royal Art Lodge, being a rock dude, running your own gallery and more.

Trenton Doyle Hancock's delirious paintings, prints, drawings, performances, toys, books and sculptures depict a complex mythological world that comments on the one we live in. We talk about a childhood of horror movies and Christianity, the process of painting, Philip Guston, German Expressionism, rhythm and poetry, the nature of storytelling in pictures, Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown and having your paintings made into a ballet.

Molly Crabapple is a journalist/artist who just put out the memoir Drawing Blood. We talk about the book, and about New York, activism, art vs illustration, artistic lineage and how you go from being a naked art student to an international correspondent with work in the MOMA.

Ted Mineo makes objects that shouldn't exist--mixtures of lurid color and uncanny texture. We talk about a lot of things, including how they relate to fiberglass New Orleans restaurant food ad sculptures

Mark Thomas Gibson makes powerfully graphic paintings oozing with poetic weirdness. He also went to the same art schools as Zak and shows at the same gallery. So we had a lot to talk about.

Mary Reid Kelley has just been officially declared a genius by the MacArthur Foundation. She makes densely allusive videos that refer to classical mythology and literature and freak everyone out. We talk about art, jokes, puns, wordplay and poets--especially AC Swinburne.

Raymond Pettibon is known for the pulpy intensity of his ink drawings, the cryptic text that accompanies them. Nowadays he shows internationally all over the world, but when he started he was just a guy who was studying economics and drew some album covers for his brother who was in a band called Black Flag. We talk about all of that--plus weird brushes.

Carolina Miranda is an art editor and art writer at the LA Times. We talked to her about how she ended up doing that and what that's like, plus garages, being a fox in a world of hedgehoggy writers, dick jokes, recording the shitshow of art for humanity, and more...

Diana Cooper makes wonderfully detailed microcosmic abstractions that start with painting and drawing and then go where they need to from there. She got like a Guggenheim grant and a 10-year retrospective at the Cleveland MOCA and is generally a badass. We talk about painting, dancing, music, frustration, tiny worlds and other things.

Gary Panter is a manic expressionist painter, draughtsman and underground comic artist. He's the author of the surrealistic Jimbo, had work in the seminal 80s alternacomic zine RAW and, yeah, also did the set designs for Pee Wee's Playhouse. We talked about comics, meeting Jack Kirby, psychedelic light shows, making paintings versus making comics and a lot more.