The NewCrits Podcast

with Ajay Kurian
  • 5.0 (12)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Monthly

This is what critical care for the arts sounds like. Meaningful conversations on creative practice and the conditions shaping artistic life today. Tune in on the second Thursday of every month for SPENT with Ajay Kurian, our series on creative burnout and breakthrough, and on the fourth Thursday for The Forum, our recorded artist talks. Subscribe today at newcrits.substack.com or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also join our community for transcripts and archival access via the Substack app or watch on YouTube. newcrits.substack.com

  1. 5d ago

    SPENT Episode Six | Vijay Masharani

    Ajay Kurian sits down with artist Vijay Masharani for a conversation that begins with a confession about hating the highway and expands into an exploration of cliché, mortality, and what it means to keep making work from inside an unresolved illness.Masharani, who showed in this year's MoMA PS1 Greater New York, talks about his approach to video and drawing — work that hits hard and fast, straight down the middle, refusing easy resolution — and traces how his practice shifted after being diagnosed with blood cancer twice, including a hospital stay where he was ordering drawing paper from Blick's website on bedrest. He and Kurian dig into cliché as a kind of sedimented truth, Drake's theory of what makes a pop hit work, and why Philip Guston's relationship to mortality and mass has become a constant reference point for him.Throughout the conversation, Masharani resists the idea that his illness is a resolved, past-tense event — describing himself instead as living in a kind of purgatory, mediated by a monthly blood test that's essentially binary — and reflects on impatience, discipline, and why, even at his lowest, he never stopped being an artist. Timestamps 00:00 — “I hate the highway”02:47 — Cliché and immediacy04:53 — The deer in the green tank10:55 — Greater New York at MoMA PS113:01 — Cancer and recurrence14:25 — Art after cancer21:42 — A game of taste24:16 — Art and politics32:26 — The “stove toucher” tendency36:29 — Making exhibitions41:03 — Exhibitions as albums46:32 — Drake and the imperfect pop hit49:01 — Returning to art after cancer53:23 — Why keep making art?57:32 — Philip Guston and mortality01:00:54 — Soutine, painting, and mass01:03:01 — Living in purgatory01:05:27 — Modernism and illness Vijay Masharani: I hate driving on the highway. Ajay Kurian: Damn, I didn’t know this. Vijay Masharani: I hate driving on there. I hate being in the car when someone else is driving on the highway. Ajay Kurian: Really? Vijay Masharani: I hate the highway, dude. I think the highway is wrong. I think it’s American thanatophilia, as an urban spatial form. I hate the highway. Ajay Kurian: Vijay Masharani is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Bay Area. He makes drawings, videos, and texts that are obsessed with the letter, the glyph, the geometry of meaning. Work that hits you hard and fast and then refuses to let you go. His videos open cold. His drawings span from the highly structured to the loose and associative, and the whole practice is organized around a single conviction: if the problems of language make you uncomfortable, you can’t flee to the body. And if the body makes you uncomfortable, you can’t just retreat above the neck. He’s currently showing at MoMA PS1’s Greater New York, a survey of the New York art scene that happens once every five years, which is the most eyes he’s ever had on his work. I’ve known Vijay since he was in undergrad. My first visit with him was back in 2016 at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art. Since then, we’ve gotten closer, collaborated on projects, and even spent a summer together at Skowhegan, where I was faculty and he was a participant. Not long after, he was diagnosed with blood cancer. Then diagnosed again. He’s made three shows since. We talked about what it means to make art from purgatory — not after a near-death experience, but inside one, where the blood test every month is essentially binary and the book is not yet closed. We talked about cliché as a sedimented truth, about why Drake said there has to be something wrong with a pop hit, about what Philip Guston understood that most painters don’t. And we talked about what changed in the studio after cancer and what stayed the same, and about why, in the end, he couldn’t stop making things even when he had every reason to. This dude was literally ordering paper from Blick on his hospital bed. Here is my conversation with Vijay Masharani. Vijay Masharani: I like clichés. I like so many clichés and I like stuff that’s right down the middle. I think in art there’s a bias toward the oblique, and every now and then it can feel really good to go down the middle. To me, that’s what a cliché can do. I think if people have responded to the work, for example, — especially the video work from early on — it’s because there’s something about the standard for video art, the way it stands apart from, or at one point stood apart from, though maybe still does from the more oblique or highly mediated kind of thing. I think the work for me was, hopefully, pretty visually forward and kind of frontal, but then not immediately digestible. That combination. Ajay Kurian: So what you’re saying is the video form in early video art may come off as a little esoteric or oblique to people used to watching TV and films, but your work goes more down the middle — there’s something more immediately explosive, something that can just hit and grab. There’s a hook and then there’s something to unravel the hook. Vijay Masharani: Yeah, exactly. I like hitting ‘em… I know that sounds stupid, like sports. I actually listen to a lot of NBA podcasts and they’ve definitely changed my syntax a little bit — but I talk about art with it, which is very true. I like to hit them hard and fast, but not in a way where it’s over after that. Ajay Kurian: Right. It’s not like that provides resolution. Vijay Masharani: Yeah. Ajay Kurian: It’s just one method among many. Vijay Masharani: Yeah, exactly. It makes you turn your head, but then you kind of stick with it, like, “Oh wait, what?” Maybe it’d be good to put something concrete to it. In the second video I have on view in this trilogy at PS1 — the green tank with the deer in it — Ajay Kurian: Yeah, it’s very Twin Peaks. On a formal level, looking at a giant rectangle of neon green, and then noticing a deer somewhere in it, and realizing, okay, this is an aquarium. That piece is one of those moments that’s extremely satisfying to look at. It’s mesmerizing. You fall into a place that doesn’t feel resolved, but it also feels like it gives you enough to enjoy it. Vijay Masharani: Yeah. And it’s the opening shot of the piece — we’re already in it,there’s no ramp-up to that. Now, I’m like, do I do this with water Pokémon now? Ajay Kurian: What? Vijay Masharani: Because the other one opens with a crab. Ajay Kurian: Oh, got you. A singing crab, yeah. Vijay Masharani: A singing crab. A deer that can breathe underwater, whatever. There’s something about starting with water, and to me — I think I’m using the term wrong, but mentally I call it a cold open, because a cold open is when you’re just dropped into something. So you can see how I’m using different terms to describe the same kind of deployment of immediacy. When I say “straight down the middle” or “frontal” or “drop in,” I’m referring to the same kind of move in art with different words. Ajay Kurian: And it always evolves. In terms of 3D animation and scoring, it seems like you’re a little more resistant to using pop music, or the quintessential rap song of the moment as a quick identifier — like, “oh shit, we’re here.” Vijay Masharani: Yeah, totally. It’s really tempting. Early on I think that was what felt interesting about video — the infinitely recombinable game of music and visual media. There’s still a fair amount of that in the workflow — for example, while I’m editing in Premiere, whatever’s on is just on. At least two of the songs in the new video, which is called O-----K — with five em dashes between the letters O and K, I can talk about the reason for that in a second — but two out of the three songs I kept as samples just happened to play while I was listening to NTS. One was a song I already knew, Young Thug’s “Love Me.” The other is by, I think, an indie rocker named Clarence Clarity has a song called “Cancer in the Water.” That’s another good way to demonstrate the straight-down-the-middle thing. I was trying to figure out what to put over the driving sequence with me and my dad, where I’m wearing the mask with the spinning element. Everything felt like it was trying too hard to evoke some sort of unconvincingly poetic juxtaposition between sound and image. I liked the visual so much, and then this song came on the radio and I was like, “that’s the one.” I guess it’s like this bedroom indie-pop thing but with a lot of weird producer flourishes — honestly, in a My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy kind of way. So much maximalist production fluorishes. It feels super 2010 in that way. It’s not a very tasteful song, I guess is what I’m trying to say. Ajay Kurian: Yeah, it sounds like pop-baroque. Vijay Masharani: Yeah, a little pop-baroque, but really good. And the lyrics are like, “F**k it up, put cancer in the water, put cancer in me.” Ajay Kurian: Jesus. Vijay Masharani: I was like, right, that’s perfect. Because in a way, it was too cute and metaphorical when there was a lyric with more interpretation that could tie back to what I wanted to talk about — but no, let’s just go for the most obvious, relevant, bluntest thing. Cancer in the water, cancer in me, period. Poison everywhere. Ajay Kurian: Yeah. Vijay Masharani: Like, word. You know what I mean? Hopefully that illustrates what I’m talking about. Ajay Kurian: I really wanted to catch you in this particular moment because, for one, I haven’t seen you in two years. And two, you’ve been included in MoMA PS1’s Greater New York, the survey show that happens every five years. This is 2026 — I was in it in 2015. It’s a really fun show to be in, an exciting, super generative moment. I’d say this is easily going to be the most eyes on your work that I could think of, for now. Vijay Masharani: Yeah. Zurich was cool. But the nature of the e

    SPENT Episode Six | Vijay Masharani

  2. Sep 2

    The Forum 24 | Ed Solomon

    Screenwriter Ed Solomon discusses The Christophers and reflects on his career and creative process. Solomon discusses mentorship, writing intuitively, working with actors, navigating criticism, and finding a way through creative blocks. Hosted by Ajay Kurian 00:00 — Welcome to The Forum 00:18 — Garry Shandling 02:34 — Writing The Christophers 04:05 — Trusting the writing process 06:37 — When success gets in the way 08:37 — Letting the project evolve 10:08 — The four stages of competence 12:24 — Letting characters surprise you 15:04 — Writing for great actors 17:35 — Rehearsing with Ian McKellen 18:47 — The power of silence 20:19 — How scenes change each other 23:10 — The terror of letting go 25:28 — Finding the flow state 26:17 — Inspiration is b******t 28:51 — When Lori became his mirror 34:17 — Give your characters a history 35:48 — Cultural tension in storytelling 38:08 — The pain of criticism 40:16 — How to take notes 43:34 — Managing creative emotions 46:28 — His mother’s influence 49:55 — The importance of mentorship 52:41 — Audience Q&A 52:59 — Getting through the second act 54:17 — Getting unstuck 55:00 — Working backwards 56:00 — What would be the coolest thing to happen next? 58:38 — Closing Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe

    The Forum 24 | Ed Solomon

  3. Aug 26

    The Forum 23 | Inside The Studio Panel

    Three artists reflect on their experiences working as assistants to established artists. Ian Cheng, Darren Bader, and Jamian Juliano-Villani discuss apprenticeship, authorship, studio culture, and the lessons—both practical and personal—they carried into their own practices. 00:00 — Introduction02:36 — Becoming Assistants04:10 — The Studio as Education07:37 — Learning the Craft09:13 — Building the Impossible10:54 — Authorship14:54 — Power & Studio Culture18:37 — Learning Through Failure22:50 — Good & Bad Habits30:23 — Assistants as Teachers34:30 — Knowing When to Leave40:12 — Assistants & Authorship42:03 — Learning the Business45:28 — Art & Precarity47:42 — Why Do It? 00:00:00 Ajay Kurian: Next to me here is Ian Chang. He’s an artist known for his live simulations, works that unfold over time using game engines and AI. His work has been shown at the Serpentine Galleries, MoMA PS1, Gladstone Gallery, and earlier in his career, he worked with Pierre Huyghe, which I think informs, uh, some of the ways that Ian had started to think about his work. But I’m curious to see what that relationship was. Pierre is an internationally renowned artist and has worked in massive ecosystems, taking over entire museum spaces and building things from bacteria to, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff. Um, going down the line. Next is Darren Bader. Darren is an artist whose work spans objects, language, and instructions, often questioning what an artwork even is or who it belongs to. He’s exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Palais de Tokyo, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Uh, sorry, the Museum of Modern Art in Dallas and his practice consistently unsettles ideas of authorship, making him especially interesting voice here. And he worked for the artist Urs Fischer. Um, you mentioned another artist you worked. 00:01:11 Darren Bader: For, Donald Bachelor, whom, um, the late Donald Bachelor whose estate I work for now, but he’s um. Well, yeah. 00:01:19 Ajay Kurian: We’ll get there. 00:01:19 Darren Bader: I did, yes, I did my time with two artists, um, very, very educational. 00:01:25 Ajay Kurian: And last but not least, Jamie and Juliano-villani is a painter whose work moves quickly between images, cartoons, art history, and the internet, held together by a sharp, instinctive sense of composition. She’s shown with Gagosian, Jeffrey Deitch, and at the Metropolitan Opera House. And earlier in her career she worked for Dana Schutz as well as the painter Eric Parker. So, uh, that’s actually how me and Jamie met Eric. Studio and Banks’ studio were right next to each other, and we were both assisting these artists. And yeah, Damien was just like, yeah, she, she was just in a little room and we were all just working away. So everybody give it up for all these, all the artists here. All right. Who wants to go first? No. Um, what I’m curious about is, uh, in the studios that I mentioned that you all worked for, were those studios that you sought out yourself or was it just a job? Yeah. 00:02:36 Ian Cheng: Um, yeah, I was in grad school at the time at Columbia, and I was, um, had a terrible time there. I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing. Um, I really just sat in my studio checking my email, getting no email and just, uh, just looking at the wall, waiting for the next crit to happen with nothing to say. And at the end of those two years of grad school, um, the one positive relationship I had was with, uh, Liam Gillick, who was like a kind of visiting professor. And I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? I’m gonna, I’m gonna apply as a UX designer to Google New York because I just need some totally no response rejection. And I thought, what else could I do? And I said, Liam, you know, can you hook me up with PR wigs, email? Like, I’d love to. I’ll be his dream printer. I literally pitched myself, I’ll be his dream. I can just like make anything. Um, and Liam was like, I’ll get back to you. And he gets back to me. He’s like, he used the words Pierre offers you his email, which was kind of interesting way to not like do the CC connection, but just to like, just take it from here, kid. Uh, email Pierre like pitched him like, you know, had a, had a quick meeting like, oh, I didn’t have no, had no credentials. Um, and simultaneously I thought, oh, f**k, like I need another job too. So I went to like Paul Chan’s website. Wow. Um, national philistine and just like emailed him like, hey, hi. I think like we have a lot in common. Like, can we meet? And so the next week, I met with both of them. And suddenly I had two artists kind of assistant jobs. Oh, wow. And yeah, it really kind of really began their shoot. 00:04:07 Jamian Juliano-Villani : Really good taste too, you know? 00:04:09 Ajay Kurian: Yeah. Those are great artists. 00:04:10 Ian Cheng: Well, how’s it go with people that you respect? I just thought like, oh, grad school is so bad. I didn’t respect anyone that came through. I should go to somewhere where I can speak a lot about this. Like, uh, it was the best school. Those two were like being effectively an apprentice and seeing how they lived life, like what they had for breakfast, what time they woke up, how they said no to people, how they protected their mornings was better school than school. 00:04:34 Ajay Kurian: Totally agree. Totally agree. Darren. Was it a job or was it a college? 00:04:39 Darren Bader: No no no no it was I mean, it was certainly a job insofar as you you lack the freedom that you, you um would prefer at many, many moment. But uh, no, it was a extraordinarily educational, especially with, with ers in particular. He is a real force of nature. Uh, and so, I mean, he’s just, he’s a presence. He, he’s. Always, he, he’s one of these people who, if you look at his work, you may say he’s phoning it in at times. There are also many, many, many times when he’s just creating very compelling work. But he’s he lives and breathes art every minute of the day. And, uh, it was just a very compelling environment to work in. Uh, it wasn’t always easy. I learned a ton. Um, much like what Ian said, you know, you learn about the routines, but it’s more about the relationships and how an artist can exercise power. I don’t mean that in any sort of, you know, um, manipulative or abusive way. Um, it’s just he, he was also very good at it. He if anyone I don’t Urs Fischer is physically also quite an imposing presence. He’s not Pierre um not or he’s he’s I mean he’s he’s he’s maybe five ten, but he’s very big. Uh, he’s very muscular. He’s covered in tattoos, deep voice, piercing gray eyes. Um, and so that’s a whole nother thing. And he makes these, this, this very fanciful at times and very tender art. So it’s a, but I learned so much just to just watching him operate. And then when he would let you in. 00:06:29 Ajay Kurian: Right. 00:06:30 Darren Bader: And he would say, hey, come over here. I want to talk about this work with you. What do you think of this? You’re like, okay, I’ll give my two cents. He’s like, oh, thank you. F**k off. But he’s also but you know, he’s listening the entire time, right? He’s taking all this new account and he, he understands what it takes to make an artwork, which is not infrequently, uh, you know, no artwork in Ireland. It really does require a lot of hands on, you know, hands on deck and seeing what sticks and what doesn’t. 00:07:00 Ajay Kurian: Yeah, if anyone’s interested, there’s a good interview that Rick Rubin did with Urs Fischer. 00:07:06 Jamian Juliano-Villani : Really? 00:07:07 Ajay Kurian: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It’s long and sprawling, and, um. 00:07:12 Darren Bader: There’s some moments. 00:07:13 Ajay Kurian: Tetragrammaton. 00:07:14 Darren Bader: This is. 00:07:15 Ajay Kurian: A weird plug for another podcast. 00:07:17 Darren Bader: With Urs is also very, very bright. But he does he he’s not he. You wouldn’t know it until you meet him. And he’s extremely versatile. He’s able to jump around from topic to topic and we’ll get to that at some point perhaps. Yeah. 00:07:34 Ajay Kurian: Tell us about tell us about your time. 00:07:37 Jamian Juliano-Villani : I remember. 00:07:37 Ajay Kurian: And Eric. 00:07:38 Jamian Juliano-Villani : I, it was funny, I as a painter at the time, I never painted anything that wasn’t on a desk, so I actually just lied. I did not know how to paint at all. And I showed up and I was such a nervous wreck and he knew I did not know what the hell I was doing. And, you know, I think I got fired like twice in like a week. And then, uh, I think he felt bad for me. And then I really learned really quickly. So, um, yeah. And working for Dana too, I mean, working for painters is such a weird thing because you can’t really interrupt them when they’re doing their thing. It’s like someone like breathing or f*****g or, you know, you’re like, hi, you know, you just gotta like leave them alone. Then when they’re done, you’re like, okay, maybe I can assist, you know? Um, but yeah, it was really strange. Just like, um, it’s such an intimate thing to help someone with, you know, I don’t know if, if you guys have ever seen anyone make a drawing, but can you imagine like getting in the middle of the drawing and trying to help? So I did that for people exclusively for years. So I’m just very annoying. But yeah. 00:08:42 Ajay Kurian: It was, it is very different, like the, the experience of working for a multimedia artist versus someone who has like a craft of painting is really different. And like the skill sets are really different. 00:08:55 Jamian Juliano-Villani : I remember I would see Ajay at work and it looked like someone just got murdered. Like he was just like, he would look so drained and exhausted and like lunch break because I don’t know what you guys were making over there. 00:09:06 Aj

    The Forum 23 | Inside The Studio Panel

  4. Aug 4

    SPENT: Episode Five | Marc Spiegler

    For nearly a decade, Marc Spiegler served as the Global Director of Art Basel, helping shape one of the world’s most influential institutions in contemporary art. Earlier this year, his New York Times opinion piece on the challenges facing commercial galleries sparked widespread conversation about the future of the art market and the pressures confronting artists, dealers, and collectors alike. In this episode, Marc reflects on his path from journalism to Art Basel, the evolution of the global art world, and the lessons he took from leading an institution at the center of it all. We discuss his recent writing, the expansion of the international market, the role of technology and AI, the economics of art fairs, and why he believes galleries need to rethink how they build relationships with collectors. Along the way, Marc shares his perspective on financialization, speculation, collecting, and what a healthier, more sustainable art ecosystem could look like. This is a conversation about leadership, markets, and how the art world can continue to evolve without losing sight of the artists at its center. Art Galleries Are Not OK, NYT Opinion: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/opinion/art-basel-fairs-gallery-market.html?eafs_enabled=false Marc Spiegler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcspiegler/?hl=en Hosted by Ajay Kurian Produced and Edited by Peter Groppe 00:00 Introduction 04:23 Growing up around artists and becoming a journalist 08:12 The unlikely path to leading Art Basel 12:20 Leadership lessons and managing a global institution 14:08 Expanding Art Basel: Asia, digital strategy, and the future 17:05 AI, technology, and why change is inevitable 23:00 His New York Times essay and why galleries need to think differently 28:14 Financialization, speculation, and the art market 34:30 Collectors, gatekeeping, and the changing role of galleries 39:40 Resale contracts and protecting artists from speculation 44:55 Why art fairs cost so much 51:35 How galleries actually benefit from participating in fairs 52:15 Auctions, speculation, and the evolution of the secondary market 58:55 Have collectors become today’s tastemakers? 1:08:00 Museums, collectors, and building the next generation of patrons 1:15:00 Why galleries are struggling today 1:23:00 Advice for young galleries navigating the current market 1:30:00 What a healthier art ecosystem could look like 1:36:00 Closing thoughts 00:00:00 Ajay Kurian: We’re living in an era of exhaustion, and artists and creators aren’t immune to this. We’re trying to figure it out, too. Welcome to spent from the new podcast. I’m your host, AJ Kurian, an artist, writer, and educator. I’ve been in the art world for nearly twenty years, shown all over the world, and taught at universities like Yale, Columbia, Parsons and Bard. The art world is a confusing and opaque place, but all of it tends to make a little more sense to me when I talk to one person at a time. Why do you think people blame you for this over financialization? 00:00:35 Marc Spiegler: I don’t know at all. I think it’s completely bogus. Like because. Because, I mean, first of all, like, like before I was running Art Basel and while I was running Art Basel, I was always against financialization. Like I’m literally was quoted in the New York Times talking about Art Basel, Miami Beach, the week of Art Basel, Miami Beach, and saying something like eighty percent of the art that’s sold next week will be worthless in twenty years. You know, and I wasn’t just talking about Art Basel, Miami Beach. I was talking about all of the twenty five fairs, but, you know, um, I was always very clear about the fact that people should buy art that they like, not buy art as an investment. You know, I mean, I had a funny thing, um, I wrote this article for the Business of Fashion column that I had last year. Um, and the title was something like we need to stop hyping art as an investment, you know, and, and, uh, Jamie Kenyon, your friend of mine wrote to me and said, I love this, this new mark unleashed. I’m like, dude, I’ve been saying this forever. You know, people are just noticing it now. But like, I was very clear about that. 00:01:39 Ajay Kurian: Mark Spiegler spent about a decade as the global director of Art Basel, which is to say for nearly ten years, he sat closer to the center of the art market’s money and power than most. He left that seat in twenty twenty two, and this past June did something he used to do in a prior life. He wrote an op ed for The New York Times, no less. Art galleries are not okay. The title alone got people talking. Many were infuriated that the man who’d spent the last ten years supposedly finalizing the art world was now saying it had gone too far. Around the same time, Pace Gallery let go of roughly fifty employees and fifty of their artists, and Marc Glimcher, the owner of pace, sat down with the times as well. Adam Lindemann, a collector and sometimes gallerist, responded with his own piece in Artnet, and journalist Barbara Pollock, among a handful of others, wrote a direct critique of Marc’s piece. We get into all of it. I first met Marc at a dinner in Basel in twenty sixteen, the year I did a solo booth with forty seven Canal. So I met him, in a sense as one of the artists inside the machine he was running. I’ll be honest about my expectations. I kind of assumed he’d be a bit of a douche. Instead, what I found was that Mark was quick and thoughtful and pretty fun to talk to, which is surprisingly rare at some of these fancy dinners. That wit can also function as a kind of armor. Mark has a beguiling matter of factness. He’ll answer you so plainly, so directly, that you can almost miss the moment he’s stepped neatly around the harder corners of a question. It’s disarming and it works. Going into this, I told myself I wouldn’t let him charm me away from pressing for an answer. I’ll let you be the judge, but I’d like to think I mostly held. We get into Mark’s past and where the art of it all started. Then we dip into the anxieties and inevitabilities of AI before getting to the meat of the conversation. Can you administer the market and still love the thing it sells for Mark? The answer is resoundingly yes. We cover his role in these machinations and how he sees things now, and what unquestioned truths need our critical scrutiny for the future, our worlds to thrive. This is spent. But Marc Spiegler isn’t. Marc, it’s great to have you. 00:04:22 Marc Spiegler: It’s great to be here. 00:04:23 Ajay Kurian: Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sitting down with us. Um, there’s a big story to tell here, but I think I want to start out very local and very simple, which is starting with like, how did you even get into art? What I know you started as a journalist and I know that that’s like kind of maybe the. 00:04:43 Marc Spiegler: It goes further back. It does actually, it goes way back. In fact, it goes back to my birth because my mother was, to the best of my knowledge, one of the only, if not the only surrealist papercutting artist that I’ve ever heard of. Voila. See you. Look. That look was perfect. Okay, so she was trained by her grandmother in Alsace to do paper cuts, which was a very classic folkloric art form. Right? Using tiny scissors. Almost like sewing scissors. Um, so she learned those techniques. And then living in Paris in the sixties, she fell into surrealism. Um, and then she was part of a group of, of surrealists in Chicago where I grew up eventually. Um, and so she brought kind of the, the aesthetic and the thinking of surrealism into, in combination with the techniques that she had learned as a child. So. So my mother was an artist and then my best friend Ellen growing up went on to become an artist. And then my best friend in my teen years, Yoni, also went on to be an artist. So I was always surrounded by artists, you know, like I was I grew up in Chicago and then moved to upstate New York. My parents split up, and then I went to school in Philadelphia and then England, and then I ended up in New York, and I lived with Yoni, who was an artist. And so I was always surrounded by people who were going to SVA for the most part. So I was kind of in that group. And then I moved to Chicago to do graduate school, and I was hanging out with my friend Ellen, who was also an artist. And so I was always among artists. Um, but I trained as a journalist. Right. 00:06:16 Ajay Kurian: You went to graduate school for journalism? 00:06:17 Marc Spiegler: Exactly. At northwestern. And so I came out and then I was what’s called a general assignment reporter, which means you write about whatever seems interesting. Um, and, uh, I did a few kind of like art reviews, but I would never call myself an art critic. That’s a whole other thing, you know? Um, but, you know, I wrote, I wrote a big story in ninety four, um, about what was going on at the MCA Chicago. And that was noticed by people in New York, in the art press, because it was very in-depth. And I was an investigative journalist. And so I was, I wasn’t really afraid to write what I saw, which was that there were real issues between the board and the museum directorship at the time. 00:06:54 Ajay Kurian: Which I don’t think has changed very much. 00:06:56 Marc Spiegler: I’m not close enough to that situation. 00:06:58 Ajay Kurian: I’m not even saying in terms of that museum. I just oh. 00:07:00 Marc Spiegler: In general, yes, in general, that is a topic, you know, and what I wrote about was power. You know, I had a column called Power Lines, which was about media, business and politics. And I saw there was a lot of overlap with the art world, especially at the collector level, of course. Um, and then Bruce Wolmer, who at the time was the editor in chief of Art in action, which at the time was the single most important publication in terms of news in the

    SPENT: Episode Five | Marc Spiegler

  5. Jul 30

    The Forum 22 | Baseera Khan

    Baseera Khan joins Ajay Kurian for a conversation that begins with a Garfield drawing contest and expands into an exploration of storytelling, identity, and the politics of material. Khan reflects on finding her artistic voice through tracing comics, navigating graduate school as a search for self rather than an entry into the art world, and developing works that blend performance, sculpture, painting, and sound. Together, they discuss Braid Rage, acoustic blankets, museums, language, surveillance, and the hidden histories embedded in everyday materials. Throughout the conversation, Khan shares how dreams, humor, intuition, and personal experience shape a practice that resists fixed definitions while examining capitalism, representation, and belonging. About the Guest Baseera Khan is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, labor, material culture, and systems of power through sculpture, painting, performance, installation, and sound. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and Participant Inc., and they were the winner of The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist. https://baseerakhan.com/ 00:00 Intro 00:20 Garfield, Nermal & learning to draw through comics 05:20 Finding an artistic path through Cornell and self-discovery 12:20 Storytelling, language, and the influence of Michael Asher 18:50 Braid Rage, dreams, and making work without sketches 26:50 Fabric, family, and the materials of memory 29:50 The “I AM MUSLIMA” Nike project, identity, and capitalism 34:45 Performance, acoustic blankets, and surveillance 42:30 Petroleum, plastic, and giving museum objects a voice 50:50 Working with museum archives and historical collections 54:20 Reality television, identity, and staying grounded 1:00:30 Art, ambition, and closing thoughts 00:00:00 Ajay Kurian : Welcome to the forum from the new podcast. I’m your host, Ajay Kurian. The forum is a free monthly gathering in New York where artists and thinkers come together for a live conversation. Well, you’re about to hear was recorded in front of a live audience. For details on upcoming events, sign up for our newsletter at new dot studio. 00:00:19 Ajay Kurian : I was really tickled by this like, fact that I learned about Baseera literally just a few days ago, and just a few minutes ago, I had this idea. Um, so we’ll see how it goes. But basically we both got into art. Art meaning like drawing of any kind image making, um, through Garfield. And I didn’t know this until a few days ago. 00:00:47 Baseera Khan: So do you guys know who Garfield is? 00:00:50 Ajay Kurian : Yes. Okay. 00:00:52 Baseera Khan: Do you know who Nermal is? Of course you don’t. Because that was the femme cat behind Garfield. 00:01:02 Ajay Kurian : It’s true. What I wanted to see if Baseera would be down to do is if we did a little Garfield drawing contest right now. 00:01:12 Ajay Kurian : Do you guys. 00:01:13 Baseera Khan: Like that idea? 00:01:14 Ajay Kurian : Yes. 00:01:15 Baseera Khan: I haven’t thought about Garfield in a very long time. And I have to also tell you the reason why. The reason why I started drawing Garfield was not because I innately was interested in like, Garfield and drawing. It was that I was interested in the stories and the storytelling. And, um, my brother would always run to the library and rent all of the books. And he was in his phase where he didn’t want to share. I mean, he’s a very generous human. 00:01:49 Ajay Kurian : Is he older or younger? 00:01:50 Baseera Khan: Two years older. 00:01:51 Ajay Kurian : Okay. Okay. So it’s close. 00:01:53 Baseera Khan: He’s a generous human. You know, I know I’m being recorded. Love you. William. But at the time, he was going through a phase where he wanted everything to himself. So I would sneak the books out of his bag and I would trace them. I would trace the drawings and make my own books. And I think through tracing the books, I started creating my own version of the cat. So just my pardon. If the cat looks like other things. 00:02:24 Ajay Kurian : That’s totally fine. This is all in good fun. Um, and I also, it’s again, like, it’s just crazy to hear that that’s also how you came to it because weirdly, there’s ideas of familial surveillance. There’s ideas of like having to take a story and make it yours because it wasn’t being offered to you in the first place. There’s just like strange dynamics that feel like there’s parallels in the work itself. 00:02:52 Baseera Khan: One more thing before we start this drawing contest. Um. Garfield was a bully. 00:03:00 Ajay Kurian : This is true. 00:03:02 Baseera Khan: So I, I was interested in the narrative of how he kind of came into the room and took all his space. 00:03:10 Ajay Kurian : I never thought about it. 00:03:11 Baseera Khan: I was really interested in normal story, and I thought that I would fashion a career of what would normal do. 00:03:20 Ajay Kurian : Wow. 00:03:21 Baseera Khan: But that never happened because. 00:03:23 Ajay Kurian : My normal was the. It’s, I guess in the context of the comic, it’s like normal was the exhausting, annoying, um, cousin. I don’t know what what the relationship was, but it hearing it from like hearing it out. Like as an adult now I’m like, oh yeah. 00:03:43 Baseera Khan: Nermal was the intelligent, femme capable cat and she knew a lot and it intimidated the more rugged It kind of, you know, like boyish charm that Garfield kind of, like, took advantage of. It was patriarchy. 00:04:06 Ajay Kurian : For sure. I don’t think it was boyish. He had very much old man energy to me. 00:04:11 Baseera Khan: But sometimes I think that boys and old men are very similar. 00:04:16 Ajay Kurian : Okay, I can see that. 00:04:18 Baseera Khan: Anyway. 00:04:18 Ajay Kurian : Yeah, here we go. I can totally see that. All right. Um. No stopwatch. We’re just going to do this quick and see what comes out. All right, let’s go. I mean, I drew him like a, like a thousand times. I would say this is like a very psychedelic Cheshire I’m here for it, though. 00:05:00 Baseera Khan: I think that is the CIA. He was like, did you know? Did you really draw? Garfield, let’s do a contest. 00:05:09 Ajay Kurian : That’s that’s the. 00:05:10 Ajay Kurian : Rest of the interview. Is me just grilling you? 00:05:12 Ajay Kurian : Yeah. 00:05:15 Ajay Kurian : I want to start in all seriousness with. 00:05:19 Baseera Khan: I am an artist, I promise. 00:05:22 Ajay Kurian : She’s an amazing artist. So this is this is, I guess I’m I want to start here, but I also am curious about like this, this ten year lapse. Um, but this was your first major show in New York at participant Incorporated and, um. 00:05:37 Baseera Khan: It’s, it’s participant Inc you know, participant. I know that you like long words, but. 00:05:42 Ajay Kurian : I’m gonna get killed all night. So among other things, this is like when we first see the acoustic blankets, which we’ll talk about. This is the first time. Is this the first time where Brad Rage was performed? 00:05:56 Baseera Khan: Yes. 00:05:57 Ajay Kurian : Okay. 00:05:57 Baseera Khan: That was commissioned. Most of those works were commissioned by the by the gallery. 00:06:02 Ajay Kurian : Okay. Okay, cool. And how how did. I mean, how did that whole relationship start? 00:06:10 Baseera Khan: Actually was introduced to Leo through Jeffrey Gibson, who was. I was his teaching assistant at Cornell. Oh, cool. And he was doing his show, um, at that time with participant. He had just received a capital, a creative capital grant, and he was working on his solo show. And in a way, even he’s so big, you know, in our minds, but in a way, like that was one of his first shows. 00:06:37 Ajay Kurian : Right. 00:06:38 Baseera Khan: So he was like, you know, in due time, you know, I’ll introduce you to, you know, this magical person. And I was like, I’m going to jump the gun here and just go meet her. Um, so I went out to a show that she was doing. I saw Jeffrey show, introduce myself to her and brought her over to Cornell. And so we kind of started a friendship and a very cool kind of a work life relationship at that point. Mhm. 00:07:06 Ajay Kurian : Okay. So it developed over a period. And then like through those conversations, like, did she, I mean, did she get, was she in your corner from the start? 00:07:18 Baseera Khan: Leah’s in every artist’s corner. But I have to say that when I was in grad school, I had like Xerox printout cutouts of horses behinds. I, I was thinking about a fake book of like archiving, I, I refused to paint, but I was painting. It was a very, it was a very interesting time period for me. And, um, I’m, I’m just really lucky that I did it off site because Cornell is not really a place that people go to be artists. That’s my bad. 00:07:55 Ajay Kurian : It’s I mean, it’s yeah, it’s not like one of the super well-known MFA programs, but I do think it’s to me, what’s interesting about it is that like, I think a lot of people in MFA programs get a lot of attention before things are fully cooked. And I think sometimes it’s nice to just be away and like, have some time for things to, to marinate on your own time. Mhm. 00:08:18 Baseera Khan: I didn’t really necessarily know. I know this sounds like it sounds as goofy as me knowing how to draw Garfield, but I really didn’t know about Yale and about I didn’t even know what a tenure track position was when I got into Cornell. My dad on his like last days of health and wealth before he went to the cosmos. Right. He died. He was like, how did you get into Cornell? Because I was like failing out of every institutional interaction I ever had, like elementary school. I was put into a locker because they let you do that back then to discipline you. They put you in lockers. 00:09:03 Ajay Kurian : Oh my God. Wait. The administration put

    The Forum 22 | Baseera Khan

  6. Jul 16

    SPENT Episode Four | Erin Jane Nelson

    Erin Jane Nelson joins Ajay Kurian to talk about the gap between artistic success and creative fulfillment. They discuss the reality of making a living as an artist, navigating burnout, and why reaching long-awaited career milestones can leave you questioning what comes next.The conversation explores Nelson's evolving practice—from clay pinhole cameras and photography to spirituality, caregiving, and family history—as well as the emotional and financial realities that shape life in the studio. Along the way, they reflect on ambition, artistic purpose, and the kinds of relationships that sustain a creative life long after the accolades fade.Hosted by Ajay Kurian Edited by Peter Groppe00:00 – Erin Jane Nelson on the Whitney Biennial and making cameras from clay09:38 – Success, creative block, and the unexpected reality of becoming a full-time artist17:52 – Burnout, financial anxiety, and redefining an artistic practice23:30 – October 7th, Jewish identity, spirituality, and family history31:04 – Photography, caregiving, and finding balance beyond the studio40:06 – The economics of being an artist and why most careers aren't what they seem46:39 – Almost leaving art for law school—and the opportunity that changed everything51:41 – Ajay on ambition, loss, and rediscovering purpose through art Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe

    SPENT Episode Four | Erin Jane Nelson

  7. Jun 29

    The Forum 21 | Lucas Blalock

    Lucas Blalock’s photographs often look like they’re interrupting themselves. Objects bend out of place. Edits remain visible. Corrections become part of the image instead of disappearing behind it. Rather than using photography to create the illusion of clarity, Lucas uses it to expose the decisions, accidents, and contradictions that make images possible in the first place. In this NewCrits conversation, Lucas sits down with Ajay Kurian for a discussion about photography, discomfort, and what happens when the process becomes part of the final work. The conversation begins with a story Lucas has returned to in recent years: a childhood accident that resulted in reconstructive surgery using his own toe to replace his thumb—a collision of advanced medicine and old-world improvisation that he jokingly describes as “the first bad Photoshop.” Lucas reflects on discovering art through CD covers before museums, studying at Bard, and coming of age as digital tools began changing the medium itself. Instead of treating manipulation as something to conceal, he became interested in making it visible. Again and again, he returns to the same idea: images become more interesting when they stop trying to appear effortless. 00:00 — Intro 03:10 — The Disney Accident and “The First Bad Photoshop” 09:45 — Origin Stories and Discovering Photography 15:30 — Album Covers, Culture, and Looking Before Art 20:10 — Studying with Stephen Shore 26:00 — Photoshop as a New Problem for Photography 31:20 — Signature, Style, and Staying Strange 36:15 — Making the Worst Possible Image 41:00 — Working for Vik Muniz 46:10 — Labor, Accident, and Unfinishedness 50:20 — Pictures That Resist Digestion 54:15 — Photography, Bodies, and Sensation 58:40 — AI, Anxiety, and the Future of Images 1:03:00 — Outro Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe

    The Forum 21 | Lucas Blalock

  8. Jun 18

    SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney Mallet

    SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney Mallet Whitney Mallet has spent years moving through magazines, galleries, performances, readings, and the shifting ecosystems that surround contemporary culture - not as an observer standing outside of it, but as someone committed to paying attention. In this conversation, Whitney sits down with Ajay Kurian to talk about criticism, instinct, and what it means to build a practice around curiosity. They discuss magazines as art projects, the lag between cultural change and cultural criticism, and why making connections between unlikely people, scenes, and ideas can create something more exciting than simply reinforcing what already exists. Whitney reflects on developing taste, not as something fixed or innate, but as something shaped through obsession, attention, and years of showing up. They talk about influence, authority, and the slow process of learning to trust your own perspective. Throughout the conversation, Whitney returns to a tension that runs through both criticism and creative work: the pull between analysis and instinct, busyness and reflection, skepticism and hope. What emerges isn’t a defense of optimism so much as a practice of remaining open. Believing that culture can still surprise you, that intensity is worth pursuing, and that staying curious might be one way of resisting disappointment. Hosted by Ajay KurianEdited by Peter GroppeProduced by NewCrits  The Whitney Review of New Writing:   https://www.whitneyreview.org/ 00:00 — Intro 04:50 — Running a Magazine by Instinct 09:20 — Taste, Influence, and Learning What You Like 15:10 — Building Unexpected Encounters 20:30 — Trusting Your Own Authority 27:15 — Information, Obsession, and Developing Taste 33:40 — Work as Practice 38:20 — Edging Burnout 43:45 — Busyness, Avoidance, and Personal Writing 49:30 — Disappointment, Intensity, and Staying Optimistic 55:15 — Criticism, Attention, and Cultural Delay 1:01:20 — The Internet, Institutions, and the Changing Role of Reviews 1:07:15 — Writing Without Permission 1:11:40 — Earnestness, Cynicism, and Seeing Through Things 1:16:20 — Breakthrough or Burnout 1:18:00 — Outro Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe

    SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney Mallet
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About

This is what critical care for the arts sounds like. Meaningful conversations on creative practice and the conditions shaping artistic life today. Tune in on the second Thursday of every month for SPENT with Ajay Kurian, our series on creative burnout and breakthrough, and on the fourth Thursday for The Forum, our recorded artist talks. Subscribe today at newcrits.substack.com or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also join our community for transcripts and archival access via the Substack app or watch on YouTube. newcrits.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    with Ajay Kurian
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ajay Kurian
  • Show Website
    The NewCrits Podcast

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