Bad At Sports

In this throwback episode to Open Engagement 2016, Dana and Patricia take a walk with Cary Lin and Sarah Hotchkiss project Stairwells. Part curatorial platform, part experimental art practice, Stairwell’s facilitates interactive experiences to challenge familiar understandings of place and create new opportunities to engage with the everyday. An ever-evolving project, Stairwell’s fosters temporary communities of curious and engaged individuals, providing opportunities for connections and changes in perspective. http://stairwells.org/

On today’s episode Brian & Dana take a deep dive into the world of Poncili Creacion, object makers and reality hackers from Puerto Rico. Artists, Pablo and Efrain, explain their new performance, The Beginning of Nothing, presented by The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival’s Neighborhood Tours and additional improvisational performances across the city. We discuss the limitations of theater, the art world and human experience alongside the potential of their expansive creative practice and philosophy.    More information can be found on their instagram, @poncilicreacion or at https://www.chicagopuppetfest.org/event/neighborhood-tour-2019/. 

Brian Belott and a casual drop in by Matthew Thurber? Hell yes.This episode almost has too much artist!  join us for this ruckus romp through Belott's painting practice, commitment to children's art, and improv performances. This interview recorded live at NADA Miami a little longer ago than Duncan would like to admit. Brian Belott Matthew Thurber NADA Art Fair Tom Sanford Amanda Browder Brian Andrews Duncan MacKenzie our friends at Blick... http://www.dickblick.com/stores/coupons/badatsports    

Duncan catches up with two of the members of BFAMFAPhD for a chat about the upcoming event series, which for those of you in NYC starts friday with MAKING & BEING.   Conversations about Art & Pedagogy co-presented by BFAMFAPhD & Pioneer Works, hosted by Hauser & Wirth, with media partners Bad at Sports and Eyebeam.   image credit... BFAMFAPhD, Making and Being Card Game, print version, 2016-2018, photograph by Emilio Martinez Poppe. Full details below... ____________________________   Hauser & Wirth   BFAMFAPhD is a collective that employs visual and performing art, policy reports, and teaching tools to advocate for cultural equity in the United States.   Pioneer Works is a cultural center dedicated to experimentation, education, and production across disciplines.   Contemporary art talk without the ego, Bad at Sports is the Midwest's largest independent contemporary art podcast and blog. Eyebeam is a platform for artists to engage society’s relationship with technology.   Access info:  

  Tune in this years first Bad at Sports Center with artist Gregory Bae & Kyle Bellucci Johanson of Table Projects in Avondale. We discuss how Bae’s experience of the movie Groundhog Day in Korea resulted in his new exhibition at Table, Black Hole or Love. We hear the foodie backstory behind Table Projects and rip the art right out of Bae’s soul as he describes the semi-science behind his work. We’re still wondering who The Rooster is, and you will too.

Tune in for this MONSTER DROP of an episode from our recent stint at the Chicago Art Book Fair. Roving reporter, Dana B., does a loop around the booths, covering as many as possible and speaking with Libri Finti Clandestini, Chicago Artist Writers, Homie House Press, Paint & Polish, Temporary Services, Archives & Futures, Aay Preston-Myint of CABF, Genderfail, The Bettys, The Filipino American Artist Directory, Walls Divide Press, Platform Editions, WORK PLAY,Jamiyla Lowe and Chloe Perkis. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll enjoy the amazing cutting and interludes provided by the always super older brother, Duncan Mackenzie.  Thanks to the Chicago Art Book Fair for the opportunity and for gathering so many amazing artists all together at the Chicago Athletic Association. Happy New Year from your friends here at Bad at Sports, all the best in 2019! Libri Finti Clandestini (http://librifinticlandestini.bigcartel.com/)  Chicago Artist Writers (https://chicagoartistwriters.com/)  Homie House Press (http:/

Chicago comic artist and animator Scott Roberts gets down with the universal question of what if Martin Kippenberger's art logic could be applied to comics. Aggie Toppins, professional graphic designer and amiteur mixologist contemplates the relationship between alcohol and philosophy while asking questions about the concept of client driven design. 

On this ultimate 2018 episode of Bad at Sports, the team finds themselves in the presence of Chicago legend, Suellen Rocca. Founding member of the Hairy Who, Rocca drops by the studio to illuminate Dana, Duncan, and Ryan on Chicago Art Institute’s 50th anniversary survey, Hairy Who? 1966-1969. Rocca also discusses her role as Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Elmhurst College, where she has recently curated, The Figure and the Chicago Imagists: Selections from the Elmhurst College Art Collection. Join us as we experience collective transcendent delight.

Brook Hsu joins the Bad at Sports Crew this week to discuss her contemporaneous group exhibit at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society, Let me Consider it from Here. Brian and Jesse lead the listeners on an aural tour of Hsu’s paintings and the breadth of her multifaceted, autobiographical practice. It’s real and fun and real fun.

In this episode Tom Sanford is pulled out of retirement to throw down with Canadian Art all star, Marcel Dzama. We trace his history, the challenges of Winnipeg, Raymond Pettibone, David Zwirner, the Royal Art Lodge, and how drawings should go on tablecloths in Hong Kong. Duncan swoons a little. It embarrassed everyone.  https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/marcel-dzama https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/raymond-pettibon    

Join Bad at Sports at the Chicago Art Book Fair! Starting our series is an interview with Fully Booked’s Anthony Tino. We discuss Fully Booked’s unique and fascinating approach to sourcing and distributing art books from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, and their work on the Dubai art book fair. Listen in & check out Fully Booked’s current Kickstarter campaign for the 2019 edition of the Dubai fair! Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fullybooked/fully-booked-dubai-art-book-fair-2019?ref=12zwza

Susan Giles and Jeff Carter meet Jesse and Brian for a warm conversation on a cold day. Giles and Carter constitute two-thirds (the third third being BAS friend Faheem Majeed) of a wonderful new show at the Chicago Cultural Center until January 6th. We talk IKEA, gesticulation and gesture, modernism, cultural erasure, scale, materials, architecture, tedium and more, more, more on this episode of Bad at Sports. Jeff Carter Susan Giles Cultural Center

In this episode of Bad at Sports, Dana meets up with Nathaniel Mary Quinn at the Museum of Contemporary Photography to discuss the work on view in "Echoes: Reframing Collage", the companion exhibition to "The Many Hats of Ralph Arnold: Art, Identity & Politics", currently on view through Dec 21, 2018. Come for Quinn discussing his work ethic and personally philosophy on creativity, but stay for the dish on his day with a certain celebrity at the Brooklyn Museum. All this and always more, on this episode of Bad at Sports.  https://www.mbart.com/artists/192-nathaniel-mary-quinn/works/ http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2018/10/echoes-identity-and-politics-in-contemporary-collage.php http://thebottomline.drawingcenter.org/2018/11/16/thoughts-on-for-opacity-with-nathaniel-mary-quinn-elijah-burgher-and-toyin-ojih-odutola/    

This week, Ryan and Dana are pleased to welcome Milwaukee-ite Nathaniel Stern back to the show. We discuss his latest art historical publication, Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics. Stern gives our hosts some insight into what he considers Ecological Aesthetics with examples and artists ranging from South African artist Doung Anwar Jahangeer, to the Overpass Light Brigade. Dana gets to say the word marginalia as she tries to discover Ryan's Term Up the Volume. All this and clearly lots more on this episode of Bad at Sports. http://nathanielstern.com/text/2018/ecological-aesthetics/

On this weeks episode, Dana and Brian nerd out with the impressive and eclectic team behind Chicago New Media 1973-1992, currently on view at Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois, Chicago and presented in partnership with Video Game Art Gallery. Guests Jon Cates, Tiffany Funk, Chaz Evans and Jonathan Kinkley talk us through the major historical moments in Chicago New Media history, including, but definitely not limited to, the midwest origins of Mortal Kombat. Oh, also, we're all wearing costumes.

Duncan and Matthew discuss what the art world feels likes, how a comic can be institutional critique, and what good art might be, all from the basement of Quimby's Chicago! From Drawn and Quarterly the publisher of Art Comic... Matthew Thurber's unpredictable practice has included: Mining the Moon, a full length musical play; Moon Tube, a week of movies each made in a single day; an olfactory performance, dressed as a giant nose; Mouse Maze, a mosaic labyrinth installed in an elementary school; Terpinwoe, choreographed noise dance about a carrot-based economy; an interactive novel about handwriting analysis. As Ambergris and in other ensembles he has performed at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Hammer Museum, the Fumetto Festival, Abrons Art Center, and in an eyeglass store. He co-founded Tomato House, an art gallery in operation from 2012-2015, with Rebecca Bird. Finally he is the author of 1-800-MICE, INFOMANIACS, and Art Comic. T hurber resides in New York’s Hudson Valley where he is working on anim

Bad at Sports Center has a full house for today’s episode with hosts Jesse Malmed, Dana Bassett & the one and only DJ Super Older Brother in the studio with artist Beatriz Santiago Muñoz and Assistant Director of Exhibitions at SAIC Sullivan Galleries, Hannah Barco. Muñoz & Barco walk us through “Safehouse”, the culmination of a two-year project conducted in Puerto Rico and Chicago in partnership with Sullivan Galleries. Muñoz discusses her research into the history of the Puerto Rican Anti-Colonialist Movement, and gives our host some insight into her process and philosophy around the documentary and exploratory style of film and exhibition making. Not to be missed! 

Dana hosts solo on this episode of Bad at Sports Center featuring curators Esteban King of Espac in Mexico City and Mia Lopez of the DePaul Art Museum, alongside artists Tamara Becerra Valdez and Alejandro Jiménez Flores. Our guests bring us into their textually inspired exhibition “So close, far away” (Tan cerca, tan lejos) which opens Saturday, October 13th at Sector 2327. Sector’s last ever exhibition, “So close, far away” is presented in partnership with the Lit y Luz Festival, celebrating and exchanging culture between Mexico City and Chicago. Our guests discuss the discursive and experiential aspects of the show, and Alejandro treats us to a short poetry reading. We threw in a little gossip at the end just for fun. More information about “So close, far away” and Lit y Luz can be found at https://www.litluz.org/.    Super special thank you & shout out to Julie Wi for helping us produce this episode! 

  On this illustrious episode of Bad@SportsCenter, Brian and Ryan chat with the collaborative, Balas & Wax, about their current project Settlement, sponsored by Chicago's Threewalls. Susy Bielak is an artist, writer, curator, and educator, and Fred Schmalz is and artist, poet, and editor. Under their collaborative moniker, the partnership focuses on the peculiarities of contemporary cities, generated from a foundation of ethnographic and journalistic research and healthy touch of the absurd.    https://three-walls.org/exhibition/outside-the-walls-balas-wax-present-settlement/ http://www.balasandwax.com http://www.fredschmalz.com http://www.susybielak.com

Live from the patio of the Oakland Museum! Artist, organizer, spiritualist Brett Cook enlightens us on the structure of dialogue and how we as artists can provide platforms for others. we also stared towards the negotiation of power relationships within the visual and the social. We also wrestle with how an audience can more completely understand artists and their production. All of us struggle with validation in the context of separation and exclusion. Brett Cook artist of love and support.