Momus: The Podcast Momus

Earlier this year, the Momus editorial team gathered for a talk at Plural Art Fair (https://www.plural.art/en) in Montreal. It marked the first time Sky Goodden, Catherine G. Wagley, Jessical Lynne, and Merray Gerges were all together IRL. The lively conversation touched on how we’ve shifted from a discourse of “crisis” in art criticism to its material reality; the ethics of editorial care; and how to address the need for mentorship across all stages of a writer’s career.Thank you to the Momus editorial team for their contribution to this season. Thank you to Artspeaks (https://artspeaks.ca/en/) for sponsoring the panel.Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors: Night Gallery (https://www.nightgallery.ca/) and Art Toronto (https://arttoronto.ca/home/visit-art-toronto/?utm_source=website+&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=momus).

Launching Season 7, Elvia Wilk, an essayist, critic, and novelist, talks to Sky Goodden about the decision to quit writing—if only to be able to start again. In discussing rejection, the changing conditions of the field, and the denuding of successful female writers, Wilk also touches on the authors who have modeled quitting ("the authors of the no"), or who have mitigated against their own exposure, including Olivia Sudjic, Enrique Vila-Matas, Rachel Cusk, and Elena Ferrante.Thank you to Elvia Wilk for her contribution to this season.Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors: Night Gallery (https://www.nightgallery.ca/) and the AGYU (https://agyu.art/).

Lara Khaldi is our final guest on Season 6 of Momus: The Podcast. A curator, artist, writer, and educator, Khaldi was born in Jerusalem, Palestine, and currently lives in Amsterdam, where she has been newly appointed as director of de Appel (https://www.deappel.nl/en/news/12827-lara-khaldi-is-de-nieuwe-artistiek-directeur-van-de-appel). In this episode, Khaldi speaks to Lauren Wetmore about the Palestinian American artist, activist, and scholar Samia A. Halaby's book “Liberation Art of Palestine: Palestinian Painting and Sculpture in the Second Half of the 20th Century” (H. T. T. B. Publications, 2001). Both Khaldi and Halaby assert that art is a critical part of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. Although representation may feel impossible in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, Khaldi urges that "the least we can do is talk about it, because the more we speak, the truth is said."Thank you to Lara Khaldi for her contribution to the season.Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors: the Sobey Art Awards (https://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/sobey-art-award) at the National Gallery of Canada (nominations close March 20th) and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. (https://www.thepowerplant.org/)

For the 50th (!) episode of Momus: The Podcast, Lauren Wetmore speaks to Nasrin Himada, a Palestinian curator and writer who is currently associate curator at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. "I write for my people. I write for Palestinians, and I write for the liberation of our lands," Himada says of their practice, which foregrounds "embodiment as method, desire as transformation, and liberation through many forms." Wetmore and Himada discuss esteemed Caribbean-Canadian poet and writer M. NourbeSe Philip's text, “Interview with an Empire'' (2003), thinking through how Philip teaches us to decontaminate language from imperialism so that it can "truly speak our truths." Himada touches on strategies, including artistic experimentation, collective action, and love.Thank you to Nasrin Himada for their contribution to the season.Many thanks to this episode’s sponsors: the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery’s In/Tension podcast, and the Sobey Art Awards (https://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/sobey-art-award) at the National Gallery of Canada.

In this episode, Jessica Lynne speaks with Catherine G. Wagley about their shared love for Barbara Christian’s iconically confrontational essay, “The Race for Theory” (1987, Cultural Critique). Christian, a ground-laying literary academic who introduced writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker to the academe, goes toe to toe with her peers in this essay, rebuking the constraints and monolith of French theory and championing the approach of learning from the language of creative writers "as a way to discover what language I might use." In it, Christian both names and demonstrates the power of critique from within the institution, and its effective complement to calls for empowerment. And as Lynne and Wagley reflect on how criticism functions through a sense of curiosity and openness in both their practices, Lynne says, “it’s an intervening hand, right? Like, look at all these other planes that we could be living in. And, why not go there? Like, let's go there. In fact, we know writers who are already there. We know artists who are already there.”

This episode features Kate Wolf, one of the founding editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books and a critic whose work has appeared in publications including The Nation, n+1, Art in America, and Frieze. Wolf is currently an Editor at Large of the LARB and a co-host and producer of its weekly radio show and podcast, The LARB Radio Hour. In conversation with Sky Goodden, Wolf discusses Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971) and what she took from it for her own writing practice: “There are many pleasures, as there are pains, but I think the pleasure of writing is unwinding an opinion, a point of view that’s latent inside of you and can become fully expressed. Especially in criticism,” Wolf adds, “the kind of closing mechanism that your brain sometimes furnishes for you where something becomes a story, both by grammar and by very minute plotting … this turn of the key in the door is immensely satisfying.” Thank you to Jacob Irish, our editor, and to Chris Andrews for assistant production.Many thanks to the National Gallery of Canada (https://www.gallery.ca/) and the Sobey Art Foundation (https://sobeyartfoundation.com/en/) for their support.