Bad at Sports

Bad at Sports
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Bad At Sports is a weekly podcast about contemporary art. Founded in 2005, the series focuses on presenting the practices of artists, curators, critics, dealers, various other arts professionals through an online audio format.

  1. 29 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 940: Emily Llamazales

    Recorded live during the Art Papers Symposium in Atlanta, Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist Emily Llamazales to talk speculative biology, adaptive futures, and sculptural ecosystems that feel equal parts laboratory experiment and sci-fi relic. Emily's work merges biochemistry, ecology, and material experimentation into immersive sculptural forms that hover between organism and artifact. From translucent photo-printed fabrics to ceramic "creatures" built from invasive species logic, her practice imagines a world where mutation is survival and adaptation is aesthetic strategy. The conversation ranges from collaborative exhibition-making and studio ecology to invasive snails, granite outcrops, and the porous boundary between science fiction and real science. Along the way: holography, grant writing, fungi, and the possibility that the future might already be quietly evolving around us.     Name Drops (with links) Emily Llamazales - https://www.emilyllamazales.com/  Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Jacob O'Kelly — (curator, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta) https://www.artsatl.org/mint-names-new-executive-director-gallery-director-opens-four-shows/ Ben Steele — https://bensteeleart.com/ Aaron Putt — https://aaronkaganputt.com/ Burnaway — https://burnaway.org/ Art Papers — https://www.artpapers.org/ Clio Art Fair / Clio (Savannah project space) — https://www.clioartfair.com/ Arts Capital Atlanta — https://www.artscapitalatlanta.org/ Arabia Mountain — https://arabiaalliance.org/ Ichetucknee Springs — https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/ichetucknee-springs-state-park Suwannee River — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwannee_River Apple Snail (invasive species) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_snail Dyssodia / "diamorpha" plants (granite outcrop flora) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyssodia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedum_smallii Scavengers Reign (TV series) — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21056886/ Futurama — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0149460/ Adrian Tchaikovsky — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky

    1hr 2min

  2. 19 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 939: Sarah Higgins

    Art Papers, Fire Ecology, and Ending Well This week on Bad at Sports, we sit down in Atlanta with Sarah Higgins, Executive and Artistic Director of Art Papers, during the Art Papers symposium. What unfolds is a candid, generous, and surprisingly hopeful conversation about what it means to end something well. As Art Papers approaches its final chapter after nearly 50 years, Higgins lays out a model for institutional closure that resists panic, rejects compromise, and instead asks: what if ending is a form of contribution? From the "fire ecology" framework to radical transparency about budgets, labor, and sustainability, this conversation moves from grief to strategy to something like collective possibility. Along the way: the death of art criticism models, nonprofit fatigue, Chicago parallels, and why maybe nobody is coming to save us. Names Dropped (Bad at Sports style) Sarah Higgins — https://www.artpapers.org Art Papers — https://www.artpapers.org Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Art Papers Symposium — https://www.artpapers.org New Art Examiner — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Art_Examiner Dan Talley — https://www.artpapers.org Laura Lieberman — https://www.artpapers.org Real Art Ways — https://realartways.org Critical Minded — https://criticalminded.org Ponce City Market — https://www.poncecitymarket.com Jamestown — https://www.jamestownlp.com National Endowment for the Arts — https://www.arts.gov Mary Louise Schumacher — https://www.marylouiseschumacher.com Lucy – https://www.thenewatlantis.com/futurisms/the-muddled-message-of-lucy Scarlett Johansson – https://scarlett-johansson.net/ Morgan Freeman – https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/f/fo-fz/morgan-freeman/

    58 min

  3. 15 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 938: Tori Tinsley

    Recorded live at the Art Papers Symposium in Atlanta, this episode features a deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation with Tori Tinsley. Joined by Brian Andrews and Duncan MacKenzie, Tinsley reflects on caregiving, grief, motherhood, and the evolution of her "hug" figures across painting, sculpture, and animation. Her practice emerges from lived experience, particularly her mother's diagnosis with frontotemporal dementia, and expands into a broader inquiry into emotional labor, embodiment, and the absurdity of contemporary life. Humor, instability, and tenderness coexist in work that resists resolution while remaining deeply accessible. Name Drop List (with links) Tori Tinsley — https://www.google.com/search?q=Tori+Tinsley+artist Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Art Papers — https://www.artpapers.org/ School of the Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.saic.edu/ Georgia State University (GSU) — https://artdesign.gsu.edu/ William Kentridge — https://www.kentridge.studio/ Brené Brown — https://brenebrown.com/

    58 min

  4. 13 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 937: Nato Thompson

    This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews, and Abigail Satinsky sit down with Nato Thompson for a conversation that spans collapsing institutions, alternative economies, and what it actually means to sustain a life in art. Recorded in the context of an art fair ecosystem that increasingly blurs community, commerce, and survival, Thompson reflects on his path from Creative Time to Philadelphia Contemporary (RIP unrealized museum), and into his current multi-pronged practice: consulting, artist support, and the evolving Alternative Art School. What starts as a casual catch-up quickly becomes something sharper: a diagnosis of failing art school models, a critique of nonprofit dependency, and a proposal for artist-centered infrastructures that actually function. Along the way: dark matter artists, subscription economies, global classrooms, refrigerator exhibitions, and the radical idea that maybe art isn't a career ladder at all. Names Dropped (with links) Nato Thompson — https://natothompson.com/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Abigail Satinsky — https://www.abigailsatinsky.com/ Creative Time — https://creativetime.org/ Philadelphia Contemporary — https://philadelphiacontemporary.org/ Alternative Art School — https://alternativeartschool.net/ e-flux — https://www.e-flux.com/ Anton Vidokle — https://www.e-flux.com/about/anton-vidokle/ Powerhouse Arts — https://powerhousearts.org/ Raqs Media Collective — https://raqsmediacollective.net/ Tania Bruguera — https://www.taniabruguera.com/ Guadalupe Maravilla — https://www.guadalupemaravilla.com/ Jeremy Deller — https://www.jeremydeller.org/ Lexa Walsh — https://www.lexawalsh.com/ Times Square Arts — https://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts

    54 min

  5. 8 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 936: Damon Locks

    Locks' exhibition operates as a split composition: the back gallery leans into layered, exploratory collage rooted in his teaching experience with Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project at Stateville Correctional Center, while the front gallery delivers sharper, declarative works built around text and figuration. The conversation frames this as a kind of A-side / B-side logic, with one space functioning like improvisational jazz and the other like a stripped-down, urgent punk track. Locks pushes back on easy analogies, but embraces the underlying idea: that both bodies of work are driven by different modes of attention and response. A major thread is process. Locks describes an almost anti-archival system of working, where stacks of Xeroxes, prints, and sampled sounds are mentally cataloged rather than digitally organized. This produces a practice grounded in rediscovery and accident, closer to crate-digging than database searching. Equally central is pedagogy. His decade-plus engagement with incarcerated students becomes a generative force, not a side project. The "homework" he assigns becomes his own studio method, expanding into the work shown here and into related musical output like List of Demands. Throughout, Locks positions his work within a lineage that moves fluidly between comic books, punk ephemera, Black radical print culture, and contemporary art. The result is a practice that refuses clean categorization, operating instead as an ongoing negotiation between sound, image, politics, and community. Names Dropped  Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Ryan (Peter Miller) — http://ryanpetermiller.com/ Damon Locks — https://damonlocks.black/ Goldfinch Gallery — https://goldfinch-gallery.com/ Lumpen Radio — https://lumpenradio.com/ Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project — https://pnaep.org/ Stateville Correctional Center — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateville_Correctional_Center Artists / Art References Charles White — https://www.artic.edu/artists/23067/charles-white Raymond Pettibon — https://gagosian.com/artists/raymond-pettibon/ Emory Douglas — https://www.moma.org/artists/13246 Kerry James Marshall — https://kerryjamesmarshall.com/ Music / Punk References Bad Brains — https://www.badbrains.com/ Minor Threat — https://dischord.com/band/minor-threat Government Issue — https://dischord.com/band/government-issue The Clash — https://www.theclash.com/ Siouxsie and the Banshees — https://www.siouxsieandthebanshees.co.uk/ The Damned — https://www.officialdamned.com/ Big Black — https://touchandgorecords.com/bands/big-black/ Naked Raygun — https://www.nakedraygun.org/ Black Flag — https://sstsuperstore.com/collections/black-flag Comics / Illustration Influences John Byrne — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/byrne_john.htm Neal Adams — https://nealadams.com/ George Pérez — https://www.marvel.com/comics/creators/126/george_perez Marshall Rogers — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/rogers_marshall.htm

    1hr 10min

  6. 6 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 935: Chicago Critics Roundtable

    Guests: Annette LePique, Curtis Anthony Bozif, Pia Singh, Gareth Kaye Recorded with the support of Columbia College Chicago - Colum.edu What happens when you gather a room full of critics in a moment when criticism itself feels both endangered and newly alive? In this long-awaited return to the Chicago Critics Roundtable, Duncan sits down with a new multi-hyphenate crew of writers, curators, artists, and exhibition-makers to unpack the shifting role of criticism in a fractured "art ecology." What emerges is a conversation about care, attention, subjectivity, labor, and the strange intimacy of thinking deeply about someone else's work. From the death of legacy media to the rise of Substack, from writing as love to writing as agitation, this episode positions criticism as a lived, embodied, and often obsessive practice. Criticism is relational, literary, emotional, and deeply entangled with the conditions of making and showing art in Chicago today, and certainly never "neutral".  Name Drop List (with links) Duncan MacKenzie—https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews—https://www.brianandrews.org/ Annette LePique—https://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/byline/annette-lepique/ Curtis Anthony Bozif—https://www.curtisanthonybozif.com/ Pia Singh—https://curatorsintl.org/collaborators/22319-pia-singh Gareth Kaye—https://chicagospleen.substack.com/ Derrick Guthrie—https://derrickguthrie.com/ Lane Relyea—https://www.artic.edu/authors/71/lane-relyea James Elkins—https://www.saic.edu/profiles/faculty/james-elkins Michelle Grabner—https://www.michellegrabner.com/ Lori Waxman—https://www.60inchcenter.org/lori-waxman Charles Baudelaire—https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-baudelaire Dave Hickey—https://www.artforum.com/contributors/dave-hickey Werner Herzog—https://www.bfi.org.uk/filmography/werner-herzog Timothy Morton—https://www.timothymorton.net/ Rachel Carson—https://www.rachelcarson.org/ Peter Schjeldahl—https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/peter-schjeldahl

    1hr 29min

  7. 3 APR

    Bad at Sports Episode 934: John Stezaker

    Recorded at Gray Gallery This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews, and Ryan Peter Miller, sit down with legendary British artist John Stezaker inside the unexpectedly elegant library at Gray Gallery. The conversation centers on Stezaker's recent exhibition RAFT and expands into a wide-ranging meditation on collage, photography, landscape, and the strange psychological terrain "between images." Stezaker reflects on his long-standing practice of working with found imagery, particularly Victorian-era topographical prints and film stills, and how his recent shift into landscape collage emerged during lockdown while living on the coast. What begins as a search for calm quickly mutates into something more unstable, even apocalyptic, mirroring broader cultural and political upheavals. The conversation touches on risk, intuition, the rejection of intentionality, and the generative power of getting lost in one's own archive. Stezaker's framing of collage as a way to examine the "abyss" between images becomes a central thread, offering a compelling rethinking of how we see, construct meaning, and navigate visual culture. There's also a candid and surprisingly funny detour into photography skepticism, pedagogy, and the emotional cycles of artistic production, including what Stezaker calls the "terrible moment" between bodies of work. Names Dropped John Stezaker — https://www.stezaker.com/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Ryan Peter Miller — https://www.ryanpetermiller.com/ Gray Gallery — https://graygallery.com/ Maurice Blanchot — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/blanchot/ Slade School of Fine Art — https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/ Images Stezaker 2025, courtsey Gray Gallery.

    58 min

  8. 31 MAR

    Bad at Sports Episode 933: Kate Sierzputowski and EXPO Chicago 2026

    This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with Kate Sierzputowski to talk about the evolving identity of EXPO Chicago under Frieze and what 2026 signals for the fair, the city, and the Midwest at large. Now Director of EXPO, Sierzputowski reflects on scaling up leadership while doubling down on care for Chicago's ecosystem. The 2026 edition marks a shift toward a more curatorial, thematic, and relational fair model: smaller in scale, more intentional in layout, and driven by embedded curatorial frameworks rather than parallel programming. Major highlights include a deep institutional partnership with the Obama Presidential Center, a rethinking of the fair's floor plan and visitor flow, and a stronger emphasis on Midwest networks and inter-city cultural exchange. Across the conversation, Sierzputowski frames EXPO not just as a marketplace, but as a platform for storytelling, regional identity, and long-term relationship building. At stake is a bigger question: what does it mean for Chicago to be both global and defiantly local?     Kate Sierzputowski – EXPO Chicago Director – https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/kate-sierzputowski-director-expo-chicago-essence-harden-1234760346/ Duncan MacKenzie – https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews – https://www.brianandrews.org/ Frieze – https://www.frieze.com/ EXPO Chicago – https://www.expochicago.com/ Obama Presidential Center – https://www.obama.org/presidential-center/ Dr. Louise Bernard – Obama Presidential Center Founding Director – https://www.obama.org/press-releases/obama-foundation-announces-dr-louise-bernard-director-museum-obama-presidential-center/ Katie Pfohl - Detroit Institute of Art – https://www.diaart.org/ https://dia.org/about/media-room/news/detroit-institute-arts-names-katie-pfohl-associate-curator-contemporary-art Essence Harden –https://www.essenceharden.com/ Independent Curators International – https://curatorsintl.org/  Images by Leslie Hewett and courtesy of EXPO Chicago

    58 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.4
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Bad At Sports is a weekly podcast about contemporary art. Founded in 2005, the series focuses on presenting the practices of artists, curators, critics, dealers, various other arts professionals through an online audio format.

Information

  • Creator
    Bad at Sports
  • Years Active
    2005 - 2026
  • Episodes
    944
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © badatsports.com
  • Show Website
    Bad at Sports

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