EP 028: ISRAEL LUND

04/17/19 • 28 min

My guest today is the painter Israel Lund. Israel is interested in images, the way they are reproduced, transmitted and passed through digital and analog systems. His early experiences as a teenager making zines and posters for local punk shows introduced him to a visual culture that thrived on the copy, and motivated him to introduce CMYK screen printing techniques into the realm of painting. The aesthetic of his work falls somewhere between abstraction and a glitchy computer screen. Through it all, there is a constant examination of how the information of an image is determined by the system it’s put through, be it a Tumblr page, a photocopier, or one of Israel’s screens.

I’d like to thank Israel, as well as Olivia Smith at Magenta Plains and David Lewis. I’d also like to send a special thank you to Alex Bacon who wrote an excellent piece on Israel’s work in The Brooklyn Rail that I referenced frequently in preparation for this show.

You can find that article HERE:

Remember you can see my portrait of Israel in his studio at williamjesslaird.com/imageculture as well as on Instagram @william.jess.laird and @image.culture

Our show is produced by Sarah Levine. Our music is by Jack & Eliza.

Thank you so much for listening.

Check out Israel’s Tumblr page at https://israellund.tumblr.co m

You can find that article HERE:

Remember you can see my portrait of Israel in his studio at williamjesslaird.com/imageculture as well as on Instagram @william.jess.laird and @image.culture

Our show is produced by Sarah Levine. Our music is by Jack & Eliza.

Thank you so much for listening.

Check out Israel’s Tumblr page at https://israellund.tumblr.co m

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EP 027: VIRGINIA LEE MONTGOMERY

My guest is Virginia Lee Montgomery, whose new solo show Pony Cocoon is up now at False Flag in Long Island City though March 24th. The show is titled after her new film, following the birth of a Luna moth from a disembodied blonde ponytail, a frequently used symbol in Virginia’s practice. Her films are diffused with these repeated visual motifs. Dripping honey engulfs an object; a power drill bores a perfect hole through the surface of an image; a narwhal’s horn pierces the Arctic water. Images become like recurring characters through her films, which unfold like a surrealist mind-map attempting to make sense of free-associative thought. Concurrent to her art practice, Virginia works as a graphic facilitator, meaning she travels the country diagramming the flow of ideas and concepts for a variety of corporate clientele. The influence of this work is clearly felt in the way she edits her films, taking seemingly disparate ideas and finding the ways they’re interconnected.

We’d like to thank Virginia Lee Montgomery as well as Edwin Lewis, Alexander Heffesse, Jon Huddleson, Whitney Smith, and Mel Hyde at False Flag. You can see my portrait of Virginia in her show at www.williamjesslaird.com/imageculture as well as on instagram @william.jess.laird and @image.culture

You can see Virginia Lee Montgomery’s work at www.virginialeemontgomery.com and you can find the press release for Pony Cocoon at www.false-flag.org

This show is produced by Sarah Levine and our music is by Jack and Eliza.

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EP 029: JARRETT EARNEST

On the show today I’m talking with writer, curator and critic Jarrett Earnest, whose 2018 book What it Means to Write About Art assembles his conversations with thirty of the most influential American art writers. Jarrett’s interviews with figures ranging from Rosalind Krauss to Dave Hickey, Roberta Smith to Kellie Jones, and Jerry Saltz to Hal Foster trace a path through art criticism from the 1960’s up to the present moment. His subjects remind us of the diversity of thought that has defined modern art criticism. It’s truly a rare thing to find a book that offers such a plethora of ideas about how we think about and relate to art.

You can find more of Jarrett’s work at www.jarrettearnest.com and on Instagram @jarrettearnest