Ep: 015 - Vincent Desiderio
Explicit content warning
08/01/18 • 161 min
This installment of the Art Grind podcast features a painter who has been a longtime personal role model for several of the podcast's hosts. Even as he is a creator of absolutely monolithic paintings, Vincent Desiderio, a veteran lecturer at the New York Academy of Art and elsewhere, also manages to be an incredible speaker on the subject of art; laying out an ideological landscape that encapsulates why artists (including Desiderio himself) do what they do and how they do it. Both as a painter and an art theorist, Desiderio seems to inhabit a sort of isthmus, a place which he himself describes to be a liminal boundary which, once you push past it, "you experience something that is absolutely unforeseeable...and that is a total engagement with the process of painting.” In this episode of Art Grind, Vincent Desiderio maneuvers flawlessly between mini-lectures on semiotics in painting, the advance of postmodernity and the elusive avant garde, and the constant reassessment and summoning of drive involved in making one's life as a painter. In recounting his own ongoing battle with this last topic, Vincent enchants us with stories from his own art career, encounters with art critics and other villains, as well as personal crises including the day that a crucial moment of his career coincided with a medical emergency. Resounding through much of these stories and lectures is the concept of 'terror' and of 'opting to thrive' in the face of it -- an undercurrent which is reminiscent of Antonin Artaud's famous claim that "No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.” Written by Michael Gusev. Interview recorded and edited by Michael Gusev.
This installment of the Art Grind podcast features a painter who has been a longtime personal role model for several of the podcast's hosts. Even as he is a creator of absolutely monolithic paintings, Vincent Desiderio, a veteran lecturer at the New York Academy of Art and elsewhere, also manages to be an incredible speaker on the subject of art; laying out an ideological landscape that encapsulates why artists (including Desiderio himself) do what they do and how they do it. Both as a painter and an art theorist, Desiderio seems to inhabit a sort of isthmus, a place which he himself describes to be a liminal boundary which, once you push past it, "you experience something that is absolutely unforeseeable...and that is a total engagement with the process of painting.” In this episode of Art Grind, Vincent Desiderio maneuvers flawlessly between mini-lectures on semiotics in painting, the advance of postmodernity and the elusive avant garde, and the constant reassessment and summoning of drive involved in making one's life as a painter. In recounting his own ongoing battle with this last topic, Vincent enchants us with stories from his own art career, encounters with art critics and other villains, as well as personal crises including the day that a crucial moment of his career coincided with a medical emergency. Resounding through much of these stories and lectures is the concept of 'terror' and of 'opting to thrive' in the face of it -- an undercurrent which is reminiscent of Antonin Artaud's famous claim that "No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.” Written by Michael Gusev. Interview recorded and edited by Michael Gusev.
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Ep: 014 - Frank Bernarducci - Visionary Art Dealer
We sit down with gallery director Frank Bernarducci, and discuss his new gallery, the state of the art world, and partying with Andy Warhol. Frank has been a groundbreaking curator and art dealer in NYC since the mid-1980s. In this episode, he tells us how his curatorial career began, what draws him to a work of art, and the do’s and don’t for emerging artists applying to his gallery.
Next Episode
Ep: 016 - Stephen Shaheen
Our guest on this episode is Steve Shaheen, a well-known sculptor and stone carver. As painters, we had a lot of questions about the logistics involved in this particular strain of contemporary art-making: what happens when, during a process that is based on removal rather than addition or application, one makes a mistake? How does a sculptor store his works, which typically take up more 3-dimensional space than those of a painter? And how does carving massive blocks of marble that, if left unattended, could persist as they are for centuries to come, affect one's sense of permanence and legacy? Steve gracefully answers all of our novice questions about technique and logistics, weaving in humorous and instructive anecdotes about the hidden deformities of Michelangelo's sculptures and Rodin's incompetence with his own tools. We also get to hear the remarkable story of his leap of faith into a life as an artist at a vocational program in Italy as well as his efforts to erect a 9/11 memorial in his New Jersey hometown. Interview recorded, edited and written by Michael Gusev.
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