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by Bad at Sports
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.
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- 1 weeks ago1h 2m
Bad at Sports Episode 977: E. Saffronia Downing
What can a handful of dirt tell you about where you live? At ACRE Projects in Chicago, the Bad at Sports crew joins ceramic artist E. Saffronia Downing amid her exhibition Pressed Flower to talk about wild clay, the material memory of cities, and what happens when people are invited to mail you their dirt. For Call for Clay, Downing issued open invitations in 2023 and 2025 for participants to send foraged clay, along with letters about where it came from. Published by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, the resulting book brings together 40 contributors from 19 states and three countries. Part correspondence project, part material archive, it is a portrait of the places we carry around with us—even when they arrive in a Ziploc bag. The conversation moves from Chicago's common bricks and a stream beneath Downing's family home in Baltimore to a mysterious flower-or-gear pressed into an upstate New York sidewalk. There are hand-pinched beads that are also seeds, ceramic tiles embedded in gallery walls, the environmental ethics of taking dirt from the ground, and the industrial operations hidden behind the humble bag of studio clay. Add some kiln-shelf anxiety, colored-pencil drawing on fired ceramics, and an inconclusive effort to determine whether everything is sculpture, and you have a pretty good afternoon at Bad at Sports. Names Dropped: E. Saffronia Downing – https://e-saffronia.net/ Ryan Peter Miller – https://ryanpetermiller.com/about Duncan MacKenzie – https://badatsports.com/broadcast-staff/duncan-mackenzie/ Brian Andrews – https://www.brianandrews.org/ Katherine (Kitty) Ross – https://www.saic.edu/profiles/faculty/katherine-ross Amber Ginsburg – https://www.amberginsburg.com/ Lisa Frank – https://lisafrank.com/ Pressed Flower – https://acreresidency.org/index.php/exhibition/pressed-flower Call for Clay – https://i-n-g-a.com/products/call-for-clay-by-e-saffronia-downing ACRE Projects –<span styl
- 2 weeks ago1h 38m
Bad at Sports Episode 976: Tony Lewis and Bosco Bae
Duncan MacKenzie and Jesse Malmed sit down with artist Tony Lewis and Bosco Bae, brother of the late Chicago artist Gregory Bae (1986–2021), for a moving, funny, and candid conversation recorded live at PATRON Gallery in Chicago. The occasion is Let's Go Exploring!, a two-person exhibition bringing together work by longtime friends and studio mates Tony Lewis and Gregory Bae. But what begins as a conversation about an exhibition quickly becomes something more complicated: an exploration of friendship, loss, memory, artistic responsibility, and the strange business of keeping an artist's work alive after their death. Tony and Bosco recount the collective efforts to preserve Gregory's work, from moving the contents of his studio and organizing the artist-led archival project CV to making curatorial decisions that Gregory himself might not have agreed with. What should survive? What gets exhibited? Who has the authority to decide? And how can an archive remain experimental, generous, and alive rather than becoming a monument to a fixed history? The group considers the ethics of recreating artworks, a bonsai that might be both alive and doomed, Tony's enormous graphite basketball-court drawing, the politics of Asian American identity, and the sometimes extraordinary generosity of Chicago's artistic community. The exhibition's title comes from the final Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Name Drops and links: Tony Lewis – https://patrongallery.com/artist/tonylewis/cv Bosco Bae - https://boscobae.com/ Gregory Bae – https://patrongallery.com/artist/gregorybae Josh Dihle – https://www.joshdihle.com/ Robert Chase Heishman – https://www.robertchaseheishman.com/ Mika Horibuchi – https://patrongallery.com/artist/mikahoribuchi Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) – https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes PATRON Gallery – https://patrongallery.com/ Let's Go Exploring! – https://patrongallery.com/exhibitions Chicago Works: Gregory Bae, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago – https://mcachicago.org/whats-on/events/talk-24-7-365-a-roundtable-on-the-life-and-work-of-gregory-bae/ Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago – https://mcachicago.org/ School of the Art Institute of Chicago – https://www.saic.edu/ This Thing We Call Art: Gregory Bae – https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/archive/gregory-bae Two of a Kind: At Patron, Tony Lewis and Gregory Bae Explore How Friendship Impacts One's Artwork, Chicago Reader – https://patrongallery.com/press/item797/Two-of-a-kind-At-Patron-Tony-Lewis-and-Gregory-Bae-explore-how-friendship-impacts-ones-artwork
- 3 weeks ago57 min
Bad at Sports Episode 975: Paul Nudd
Brian Andrews, Duncan MacKenzie, and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with Chicago-area artist Paul Nudd at Spudnik Press, surrounded by the work of the 1st International Milwaukee Riso Invitational. Nudd has spent more than two decades producing a gloriously strange universe of hairy organisms, mutant bodies, psychedelic biological forms, and wonderfully unsettling surfaces. His work moves between painting, drawing, printmaking, video, and, most recently, ceramics. But beneath all the slime, crust, and occasional bodily horror is an artist deeply committed to experimentation, collaboration, and the pleasures of making things. The conversation begins with Nudd's long relationship with Chicago's printmaking community, including his legendary 2009 residency at Spudnik Press with cartoonist Onsmith, where the pair produced more than a thousand prints—and apparently sold none of them. Nudd describes why he loves Riso's imperfect surfaces, the magic of working with master printers, his affection for Chicago Imagism, and the importance of preserving uncertainty in the studio. The hosts also investigate whether Nudd's work is actually gross or not. The second half finds Nudd reflecting on the unexpected pleasures of ceramics, his work as an elementary school art teacher, creative attention, and the increasingly porous boundaries between his studio, garden, kitchen, compost heap, and classroom. Recorded at Spudnik Press, Chicago, in conjunction with the closing of the 1st International Milwaukee Riso Invitational. Name drops and links Paul Nudd - https://westernexhibitions.com/artist/paul-nudd/ Onsmith - https://www.spudnikpress.org/people/onsmith/ Chris Flynn - https://cflynnprints.com/ Jim Nutt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Nutt Peter Saul - https://www.moma.org/artists/5178-peter-saul Chloe Perkis - https://www.chloe-perkis.com/ Big Black - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Black Spudnik Press - https://www.spudnikpress.org/ Western Exhibitions - https://westernexhibitions.com/ Hoofprint - https://www.hoofprintchicago.com/ Marz Community Brewing - https://www.marzbrewery.com/
- Oct 2, 20261h 0m
Bad at Sports Episode 974: Mari Eastman
What makes a painting worth saving? What happens when the image in your head refuses to become the image on your panel? And why does everybody want another fox? This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews, and Ryan Peter Miller welcome Chicago painter Mari Eastman for a conversation recorded at Spudnik Press during its Riso Print Fest. Eastman takes us through the pleasures and frustrations of painting, from translating a beloved fox into a woodblock print to rescuing abandoned paintings with techniques borrowed from Bob Ross. They explore fashion photography, the Chicago figurative painting scene, the peculiar intimacy of appropriated images, and the elusive point where faithful representation can lose the feeling that made an image irresistible in the first place. Name Drops: Mari Eastman - bombonprojects.com Ben Butler - benbutlerart.com Shannon Stratton - shannonraestratton.com Edvard Munch - nga.gov Kerry James Marshall - nga.gov Paul McCarthy - hauserwirth.com Tyson Reeder - canadanewyork.com Carl Baratta - carlbaratta.com Bob Ross - bobross.com Rebecca Morris - bortolamigallery.com Richard Estes - nga.gov Karen Kilimnik - metmuseum.org Richard Prince - gagosian.com Elizabeth Peyton - gagosian.com Margaux Williamson - bradleyertaskiran.com Leanne Shapton - leanneshapton.com School of the Art Institute of Chicago - saic.edu Spudnik Press - spudnikpress.org Process/Process - process-process.com Bombon Projects - bombonprojects.com
- Sep 30, 20261h 6m
Bad at Sports Episode 973: Manuel Mathieu
What do you do when your hope for the future starts to feel fragile? And what can a painting, an act of remembrance, or a bottle of perfume do about it? Duncan MacKenzie sits down with Haitian-born artist Manuel Mathieu at Calgary's Esker Foundation for a conversation that moves between studio practice and the world beyond it. They begin with Mathieu's presentation at the 2026 Venice Biennale, including GENOCIDE and his mosaic Abundance and Drought, then explore archives, erasure, political power, the responsibilities of artists, and whether art can make room for disagreement without closing down empathy. Mathieu talks through the evolution of his paintings, from highly controlled marks to surfaces that scrape, drip, burn, and resist their original plans. He argues that figuration is not abstraction's opposite so much as one of its tools. He and Duncan work through the possibilities of beauty, Haitian Vodou, spirituality, the legacy of Toussaint Louverture, and the difference between changing the world and changing the lives of the people near you. Name Drops and links Manuel Mathieu - https://www.manuelmathieu.com/ Clyfford Still - https://clyffordstillmuseum.org/ Kara Walker - https://www.karawalkerstudio.com/ Kent Monkman - https://www.kentmonkman.com/ Titus Kaphar - https://www.kapharstudio.com/ Willem de Kooning - https://www.dekooning.org/ Christian Boltanski - https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/personne/z88xAxH Francis Bacon - https://www.francis-bacon.com/ Toussaint Louverture - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_Louverture Audre Lorde - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audre_Lorde bell hooks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks Esker Foundation - https://eskerfoundation.com/ Pilar Corrias - https://www.pilarcorrias.com/ Manuel Mathieu Parfums - https://manuelmathieuparfums.com/en
- Sep 29, 20261h 6m
Bad at Sports Episode 972: Jeanette Andrews
Artist and magician Jeanette Andrews joins Duncan and Jesse at the Elmhurst Art Museum, the very place where, as a teenager, she began imagining how magic could become contemporary art. Nearly twenty years later, that ambition has become an exhibition. The conversation travels from Victorian parlor magic and vaudeville to the psychology of surprise, Alan Turing, and Andrews's Taken by Artificial Surprise, which asks audiences to distinguish between human-created magic and illusions developed with machine learning. Along the way: why knowing how a trick works can ruin the experience, whether magic is really for adults, and a research process involving enough handwritten notes to make an apartment resemble a conspiracy theorist's headquarters. ****Update: The HCL Benefit is November 10th, 2026 Photo: Michael George Name Drop List: Duncan MacKenzie - kurasmackenzie.com Jesse Malmed - uwm.edu/arts/directory/malmed-jesse/ Jeanette Andrews - jeanetteandrewsstudio.com Bad at Sports - badatsports.com Lumpen Radio - lumpenradio.com Elmhurst Art Museum - elmhurstartmuseum.org McCormick House - elmhurstartmuseum.org/architecture Criss Angel - crissangel.com John Cottingham - johncottingham.co.uk Western Philosophy: An Anthology - johncottingham.co.uk/Western-Philosophy/ Max Maven - maxmaven.com The Office - peacocktv.com/stream-tv/the-office Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin - encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/theater-biographies/jean-eugene-robert-houdin Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - mcachicago.org Invisible Roses - <sp
- Sep 25, 202658 min
Bad at Sports Episode 971: Jean Alexander Frater, Matthew Girson & Dana DeGiulio at Material
What can eight small paintings tell us about the possibilities of an artist-run space? Duncan MacKenzie, joined midway by Jesse Malmed, speaks with Jean Alexander Frater, Matthew Girson, and Dana DeGiulio about a two-person exhibition at Material, Jean's artist-run project space in Chicago's Roscoe Village. Four paintings by Matthew and four by Dana are installed in an alternating sequence, setting up a conversation across the walls rather than dividing the gallery by artist. Their discussion begins with the particular staying power of artist-run Chicago: Dana's work establishing Julius Caesar in 2008, Matthew's earlier project presenting artworks from the cab of a pickup truck, and Jean's decade of making room for other artists at Material. From there, the conversation turns to the peculiar ambitions of intimate paintings, each made within a day. Is choosing a familiar genre conservative? What happens when a painting leaves the studio and enters the social space of an exhibition? And what can an actual encounter with an object offer that a circulating image cannot? The group follows those questions through care, constraint, repetition, touch, and hospitality—with Maggie Nelson, Agnes Martin, Nina Simone, and the art market making appearances along the way. If a painting cannot tell its viewer what to feel, perhaps it can begin a sentence someone else is free to finish. Names Dropped: Duncan MacKenzie - kurasmackenzie.com/ Jesse Malmed - jessemalmed.net/ Jean Alexander Frater - alexanderfrater.com/home.html Matthew Girson - matthewgirson.com/ Dana DeGiulio - danadegiulio.com/ Agnes Martin - diaart.org/collection/artist-a-to-z/martin-agnes Jackson Pollock - pkhouse.org/ Maggie Nelson - poetryfoundation.org/poets/maggie-nelson Martin Luther King Jr. - thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/martin-luther-king-jr/ Nina Simone - ninasimone.com/biography/ Nick Cave (musician) - nickcave.com/ Bad at Sports - badatsports.com/ Material - thevisualist.org/
- Sep 22, 20261h 6m
Bad at Sports Episode: 970 - A P(o)or(t)ch Theater with Mark Jeffery, Judd Morrissey and Kristin Mariani
At Spudnik Press in Chicago, Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews and Ryan Peter Miller welcome Mark Jeffery, Judd Morrissey and Kristin Mariani to discuss the Poor Farm Experiment's Leopold Benches: A P(o)or(t)ch Theater (MIDWEST REDUX). Developed through the U.S. Pavilion's PORCH program at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale and presented in Chicago at the MCA's Chicago Performs festival, the work turns a porch into a place of observation, invitation, performance and collective play. The conversation moves through Aldo Leopold's benches, stereoscopic photographs and binocular rivalry, Mariani's language-bearing Text Toiles, the choreography of "queer sitting," and the Deeply Choir's role in animating the museum plaza. It also opens onto the project's wider artistic ecology: Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam's Poor Farm in Wisconsin; Mark Jeffery and Kelly Kaczynski's residency practice; the nido residency in Umbria; and an approach to collaboration in which living together, hosting, making and friendship become inseparable. PERFORMANCE: 9/25/2026 - 3pm at the MCA! (Dolly Day) Names Dropped: Duncan MacKenzie - kurasmackenzie.com Brian Andrews - brianandrews.org Ryan Peter Miller - ryanpetermiller.com/about Mark Jeffery - saic.edu/profiles/faculty/mark-jeffery Judd Morrissey - saic.edu/profiles/faculty/judd-morrissey Kristin Mariani - saic.edu/profiles/faculty/kristin-mariani Kelly Kaczynski - kellyfkaczynski.com/About Michelle Grabner - michellegrabner.com Brad Killam - cod.edu/faculty/websites/killam.html Cynthia Post Hunt - cynthiaposthunt.com/about Aldo Leopold - aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold Shannon Stratton - shannonraestratton.com/about Kelly Lloyd - k-lloyd.com/bio-statement C
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About Bad at Sports
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.
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