UNTITLED, Art. Podcast

This program, recorded in July 2020 in the weeks leading up to UNTITLED, ART Online, focuses on the importance of Black-owned galleries and arts spaces in today's world. Hear the conversation with artist Genesis Tramaine, gallerist Richard Beavers, and Prizm Art Fair founder Mikhaile Solomon, moderated by Donnamarie Baptiste. As part of their participation in UNTITLED, ART Online, Phaidon & Artspace have produced a benefit edition by Brooklyn-based artist Genesis Tramaine to support programming, fellowships and grants at the New York Foundation for the Arts.

This conversation was recorded on July 14, 2020 in the lead up to UNTITLED, ART Online, which runs from July 31–Aug 2, 2020. Jeff Lawson, Founder of UNTITLED, ART and Mattis Curth, Founder of Artland, discussed their collaboration on UNTITLED, ART Online, the world’s first virtual reality art fair in a conversation moderated by arts writer Brian Boucher.

Visual artist Binta Oxossi Ayofemi creates urban forms inspired by black abstraction through sound, movement, and space. Her first building as artwork, COMMONS, opens in Oakland in 2020, in collaboration with renowned architect Bonnie Bridges of Studio BBA. Studio BBA transforms buildings with historic fragments into contemporary buildings. COMMONS began with Oxossi’s strategic cuts into the building as performance, next shaped as an opening or flow between form and function in dialogue with Studio BBA. The space transforms a formerly vacant music building in downtown Oakland, into a portal for gathering, sound, and sustenance. Inspired by both Black Panthers and Black Shakers, COMMONS infuses an Afrofuturist narrative with materials gathered, honed, and milled from Oakland. Recorded in January at UNTITLED, ART San Francisco 2020, Oxossi Ayofemi and Bonnie Bridges discussed the making of COMMONS, explored contemporary art, architecture, race, buildings, urban subjects and urban material. James Voorhies, Chair, Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts, moderated the conversation.

At UNTITLED, ART San Francisco 2020, Withersworldwide presented a lively conversation titled, "Fresh Perspectives on Collecting; What New Collectors Need to Know." Beginning the process of collecting art can often be challenging for new collectors. Listen to a distinguished panel of experts discuss methods and tips on building an art collection with topics that range from current market trends and art financing to conservation and art insurance. Panelists include Kimberly Almazan, Special Counsel at Withersworldwide and Chair of the San Francisco Bar Association’s Art Law Section, Sophia Kinell, Regional Lead for the San Francisco Bay Area at Phillips, and Paul Becker, Art Money Founder and CEO. James Voorhies, Chair, Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts, moderated the conversation, recorded on January 18, 2020.

At UNTITLED, ART San Francisco 2020, three noted San Francisco artists working in diverse media discussed their art practices, concerns and challenges, and where the equity movement might lead in coming years. Hear artists Indira Allegra, Katherine Vetne, and Erica Deeman, as well as Heidi Rabben, Senior Curator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. This panel was organized by ArtTable Northern California, a chapter of the foremost professional organization dedicated to advancing the leadership of women in the visual arts. This year, ArtTable celebrates 40 years of women's advocacy and professional development.

Recorded live at UNTITLED, ART San Francisco 2020, textile artist Kira Dominguez Hultgren and Charlie Sutton, Head of Design for the Facebook App, discussed how ancient analog processes like weaving relate to new immersive technologies like virtual reality, and how both can address ideas of human connection and isolation. In creating an empathic user experience, what is the relationship between designing with physical materials versus virtual means? What does it mean for both analog and virtual creators to design outside the traditional rectilinear, two-dimensional frame? How do traditional collective activities like weaving connect with current advances in the game mechanics of virtual worlds? What role do these practices play in the service of amplifying human agency and providing spaces for authentic connection and discovery? James Voorhies, Chair, Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts, moderated the conversation.

At UNTITLED, ART San Francisco 2020, Mike Henderson, accomplished musician and Bay Area artist included in Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power​ at the de Young Museum, performed a special musical set highlighting the influence of blues music on African American artists from the 1960s-1980s. Listen now to hear Henderson and his band perform, and check out Writer in Residence, Brian Boucher's take on the performance at Pier 35 on Friday, January 17, 2020: https://medium.com/@UNTITLEDARTFAIR/

At UNTITLED, ART San Francisco, Leigh Raiford, Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, conversed with gallerist Michael Rosenfeld to discuss Michael Rosenfeld Gallery’s curated presentation of artists exhibited in "Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963–1983." The gallery’s booth presentation at UNTITLED, ART San Francisco will included works by such seminal artists as Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, Sam Gilliam, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Betye Saar, and William T. Williams, among others. The conversation ranges in topics, from the prominence of abstraction in Soul of a Nation, the place of Africa in African American art, and the gallery’s long history exhibiting Black artists as well as the "discovery" of many older Black artists in today’s contemporary artworld. James Voorhies, Chair, Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts, moderated the conversation.

Yelena Rachitsky, Executive Producer of Experiences at Oculus, and Kelly Sicat, the director of the Artistic Program and Lucas Artists Residency Program at Montalvo Arts Center, discussed how cultural producers working with both virtual and analog technologies are addressing the so-called “loneliness epidemic” by creating space for authentic empathic connections. Through the yearlong initiative SOCIAL: Investigating Loneliness Together, Montalvo brings together artists who are investigating how to foster social engagement in an age where social media both connects and isolates people. Oculus’s recent project Traveling While Black is a virtual reality documentary that immerses the viewer in the long history of restricted movement for Black Americans. James Voorhies, Chair, Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts, moderated the conversation.

Journalist Brian Boucher is UNTITLED, ART's inaugural San Francisco Writer in Residence. Join him as he interviews artist JPW3 and VIP Preview attendees during the live performance at "Food 4 Less," the artist's special project, presented by Night Gallery (C6). The artist made juice out of the plants grown in his three mobile gardens, in which he has been cultivating wheatgrass, agave, and tomatoes. Listen now to find out how the juice tasted.

UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach curator Jordan Stein speaks with several fellows from Artists in Residence in Everglades, AIRIE, about the work, processes, influences, and motivations around their research in the Florida Everglades. Having spent up to a month living and working in Everglades National Park, AIRIE fellows meet with ecologists, biologists, hydrologists, community leaders, and environmental advocates to study this complex ecosystem. Artists include Dana Levy, Harumi Abe, Christina Pettersson, and Onajide Shabaka.

In his final audio dispatch as Writer in Residence at UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach 2019, Osman Can Yerebakan sits down with Pari Ehsan, the visionary behind @Paridust. The two discuss the prevalence of textile based art at the fair this year, specifically highlighting works by South American artists. Listen to a friendly conversation about their discoveries at the diverse galleries of UNTITLED, ART, as well as why dressing for Miami Art Week is a form of art in itself.

In conversation with curator Larry Ossei-Mensah, artist Damien Davis discusses the research surrounding his booth presentation with LatchKey Gallery and forthcoming solo exhibition at the Weeksville Heritage Center, titled “Collapse: Black Wall Street”. This exhibition is centered around the history of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, recently depicted by the HBO series Watchman and highlighted in the New York Times.

For his next audio dispatch from UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach 2019, Writer in Residence, Osman Can Yerebakan sits down with Carolyn Ramo, the Executive Director of Artadia. The two discuss new discoveries made on the fair floor, the successful trajectories of previous Artadia grant recipients, and the internationality of UNTITLED, ART year after year.

In this episode, UNTITLED, ART’s inaugural Writer in Residence, Osman Can Yerebakan, meets with Galerie Magazine’s Art and Culture Editor Lucy Rees. Perched on a Wendy White jofa in the lounge designed by the same artist, the two share their picks from the VIP and Press Preview. They discussed the intersection of art and design through artists blurring the distinction between sculpture and function, and mentioned a handful of names whose use of materiality, form, and dimension caught their eyes.