Bad at Sports

Bad at Sports
  • 4.5 (93)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Semiweekly

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. 2d ago

    Bad at Sports Episode 965: Jaymee Harvey Willms

    Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist, curator, arts administrator, and Door County Contemporary co-founder Jaymee Harvey Willms for an unexpectedly personal and funny conversation. What begins as a discussion about goats unfolds into an exploration of grief, religious deconstruction, contemporary art, and the rituals we create to survive profound loss. Once a painter immersed in saturated color, Jaymee found herself unable to tolerate color at all, turning instead toward broken ceramics, white paint, damaged objects, and sculptures that ask what it means for something broken to continue functioning. Links Jaymee Harvey Willms http://www.jaymeeharveywillms.com/ Door County Contemporary https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/ Familiar (Milwaukee) https://www.familiarmke.com/ Walker Art Center https://walkerart.org/ Mary Gabriel — Ninth Street Women https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/joan-mitchell/citations/ninth-street-women Lee Krasner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Krasner Jackson Pollock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock JoAnne Carson https://joannecarson.com Adam Frelin https://adamfrelin.com Hair + Nails https://hairandnailsart.com

  2. 5d ago

    Bad at Sports Episode 964: Jenal Dolson

    Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, and Brian Andrews are joined by painter Jenal Dolson for a conversation recorded live from the Door County Contemporary Art Fair in Wisconsin. Dolson discusses her vividly textured paintings, her installation practice, and the role of touch, memory, and sensory experience in shaping the visual language of her work. The conversation ranges from tactile abstraction and flocked wallpaper to popcorn ceilings, raccoon vision, painting directly onto gallery walls, collaboration, titling artworks, and why artists continue making work in the first place.  Links Jenal Dolson https://jenaldolson.com/home.html Andrew Rafacz Gallery https://andrewrafacz.com/ 65GRAND https://65grand.com/ Good Naked Gallery https://www.goodnakedgallery.com/ Door County Contemporary https://doorcountycontemporary.com/ Deb Sokolow https://www.debsokolow.com/ Trish Tillman https://www.trishtillman.com/ Rebecca Morris https://www.byrebeccamorris.com/ Chris Cran http://chriscran.com/

  3. Aug 6

    Bad at Sports Episode 963: Tyson Reeder

    Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller finally welcome painter, educator, and perennial instigator Tyson Reeder to Bad at Sports. Recorded during Door County Contemporary Art Fair, the discussion wanders through the history of Milwaukee's DIY art scene, the legendary Dark Fair, artist-run culture, teaching, painting, collaboration, and the productive tension between sincerity and absurdity. Reeder reflects on organizing exhibitions as artistic experiments rather than scholarly declarations, describing curating as "a speculative mindset" where the question is always what if?  The conversation also explores painting's unique solitude, collaborative work with his brother Scott Reeder, the role of humor in contemporary art, regional artistic identity, materiality after the pandemic, why artists still need to stand in front of paintings, and how drawing together can become an antidote to digital isolation.   Links Tyson Reeder https://canadanewyork.com/artists/tyson-reeder Scott Reeder https://canadanewyork.com/artists/scott-reeder Canada Gallery https://canadanewyork.com/ Door County Contemporary Art Fair https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/ Process Print Shop https://process-process.com/ Swiss Institute https://www.swissinstitute.net/ White Columns https://whitecolumns.org/ Threewalls https://three-walls.org/ Green Gallery http://www.thegreengallery.biz/ Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture https://www.skowheganart.org/

  4. Aug 3

    Bad at Sports Episode 962: Sophia Chai

    This week Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist Sophia Chai at the Door County Contemporary Art Fair to discuss photography that insists on becoming something else. Working between painting, sculpture, installation, and large-format analog photography, Chai creates images that challenge our assumptions about perspective, representation, and the mechanics of seeing itself.  The conversation moves from camera obscuras and four-by-five view cameras to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, cave painting, Korean language, immigration, and the colonial language embedded within photographic practice. Chai reflects on transforming her graduate studio into a walk-in camera obscura after September 11th, collaborating with architectural space rather than simply depicting it, and asks whether photography might become a practice of witnessing rather than capturing. Name Drops & Links Sophia Chai – https://www.sophiachai.com Hair + Nails – https://hairandnailsart.com/ University of Illinois Chicago School of Art & Art History – https://artandarthistory.uic.edu/ Kerry James Marshall – https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/kerry-james-marshall Judith Kirshner – https://stories.mcachicago.org/speaker/judith-kirshner/ Plato – https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ Camera Obscura – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura Plato's Allegory of the Cave – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave Jeff Wall – https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/jeff-wall Barbara Kasten – https://barbarakasten.net/ Johannes Vermeer – https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/johannes-vermeer Peter Jackson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson The Lord of the Rings – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)

  5. Jul 30

    Bad at Sports Episode 961: Tanner MacArthur

    Tanner MacArthur joins Bad at Sports live from Door County Contemporary for a conversation that begins with secret fry sauce recipes and somehow ends with the shape of Delaware as a sandwich-eating methodology. MacArthur discusses his dual role as both artist and gallerist through his Milwaukee project space, Addendum, founded alongside James Stepanek as an extension of No Instructions Gallery. The conversation moves through contemporary painting, Midwestern DIY culture, artist-run spaces, collecting habits in the Midwest, labor history, and the strange but fertile ground between formal abstraction and dumpster diving. Tanner speaks about his own assemblage-based painting practice, his evolution from hard-edge abstraction into sculptural wall works built from salvaged materials, and his desire to reconnect with painting's possibilities through color, surface, and material experimentation. The discussion also highlights a growing generation of Milwaukee artists creating new spaces and opportunities outside traditional institutions, including apartment galleries, publishing projects, and experimental exhibition venues. Name Drops and Links: Tanner MacArthur – https://www.tannermacarthur.com/ Addendum Gallery – https://addendum.gallery/ No Instructions Gallery – https://www.noinstructs.com/ Martyna Alexander – https://www.instagram.com/martyna_alexander Meg White (artist) – https://www.meganwhite.work/ Tony Conrad – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Conrad Lawrence University – https://www.lawrence.edu/ University of Wisconsin–Madison – https://www.wisc.edu/ University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts – https://uwm.edu/arts/ Experimental Sculpture Room (ESR) – https://experimentalsculptureroom.com/ Milwaukee Art Museum – https://mam.org/ Gertrude Abercrombie – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Abercrombie Kim Sajet – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Sajet Door County Contemporary – https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

  6. Jul 27

    Bad at Sports Episode 960: Shane Walsh

    This episode on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, and Brian Andrews sit down with artist, organizer, and Door County Contemporary co-founder Shane Walsh at the close of another sunny and slightly delirious weekend in Door County. The conversation ranges from the growth of the Door County Contemporary fair, the peculiar magic of creating a temporary art community in Wisconsin, and the challenge of building an audience for contemporary art outside major metropolitan centers. Along the way, Shane discusses his own abstract painting practice, the virtues of Detroit-style pizza, and why a successful art fair might really just be "arts summer camp." Shane talks about the evolution of Door County Contemporary from its inaugural edition into a larger and more ambitious event, reflecting on how local partnerships, community engagement, and a relaxed atmosphere have helped make the fair feel distinct from the larger art-world circuit. The crew also dives into Shane's own painting practice: lush, unhinged abstractions informed equally by modernist painting histories and the visual language of 1990s punk culture. The result is a conversation about painting, community, and finding ways to make art experiences feel meaningful, generous, and fun. Name Drops and Links: Shane Walsh – https://shanewalshpaintings.com/home.html Door County Contemporary – https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/ Pen Art School of Door County – https://peninsulaschoolofart.org/ OS Projects – https://www.osprojects.art/ Willem de Kooning – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_de_Kooning Helen Frankenthaler – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Frankenthaler Johnny Carson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Carson

  7. Jul 23

    Bad at Sports Episode 959: Shane McAdams

    This week Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller head north to the Door County Contemporary Art Fair to sit down with artist, curator, writer, gallerist, and all-around art evangelist Shane McAdams. Broadcasting from a gazebo in Door County, Wisconsin, the conversation ranges from the weather, custard, and pontoon boats to larger questions about why contemporary art struggles to reach broader publics, why the Midwest needs more artist-run infrastructure, and how we might create healthier cultural ecosystems. McAdams makes the case for a bigger, messier, more porous art world—one where commercial galleries, nonprofits, academia, collectors, artists, and curious newcomers all coexist.  This is a conversation about building bridges: between Chicago and Minneapolis, between contemporary art and regional audiences, between artists and the merely art-curious. It is also a reminder that art remains one of the few places where genuine meaning-making and community formation can still occur. Name Drops Shane McAdams https://www.shanemcadams.com/ Door County Contemporary Art Fair https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/ Real Tinsel Gallery https://www.realtinsel.com/ Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel https://www.saintkatearts.com/ Peninsula School of Art https://www.peninsulaschoolofart.org/ Claire Ashley https://clairehelenashley.com/ David Letterman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman Marcel Duchamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp Robert Ryman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ryman James Audubon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon Mark Glimcher / Pace Gallery https://www.pacegallery.com/ Peter Buggenhout https://www.axel-vervoordt.com/gallery/artists/peter-buggenhout University of Chicago https://www.uchicago.edu/ University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art https://art.uga.edu/ Trainspotting https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/ Miami Art Week https://www.miamiartweek.org/

  8. Jul 9

    Bad at Sports Episode 958: Rafael Salas

    This week Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with artist and educator Rafael Salas for a wide-ranging conversation about rural Wisconsin, magical realism, county fairs, country music, identity, and the contested landscapes of contemporary America. Salas discusses growing up in rural Wisconsin, returning to the Midwest after years in New York, and how his paintings inhabit a space between celebration and unease. The conversation moves from the influence of Wisconsin Death Trip to the political symbolism of county fairs, mixed-race identity, landscape painting traditions, and the challenge of making meaningful contemporary art from outside major art centers. Name Drops and links:  Rafael Salas – https://www.rafaelsalas.com/ Door County Contemporary - https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/ Ripon College – https://www.ripon.edu/ Museum of Wisconsin Art – https://wisconsinart.org/ Newcity – https://www.newcity.com/ Michael Lesy (Wisconsin Death Trip) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lesy Wisconsin Death Trip – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Death_Trip Charles Van Schaick – https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/record/image/W0128W2 Mark Tansey – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Tansey Grant Wood – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Wood Cormac McCarthy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy Caspar David Friedrich – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich Johnny Cash – https://www.johnnycash.com/ Dolly Parton – https://dollyparton.com/ Willie Nelson – https://willienelson.com/ Hank Williams – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Williams Woody Guthrie – https://www.woodyguthrie.org/ Neil Young – https://neilyoungarchives.com/ Marquette University – https://www.marquette.edu/ John McCain – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain Sarah Palin – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin Barack Obama – https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

See All (969)

4.5
out of 5
93 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
    969
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © badatsports.com
  • Show Website
    Bad at Sports

You Might Also Like