Podcast
Bad at Sports
Hosted by Bad at Sports · EN
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.
38episodes
Episodes
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Bad at Sports Episode 945: Dreamsong Gallery
1w ago00:43:53Tap to summarizeRecorded in the sunburnt delirium of Miami, Duncan and crew stumble out of the Midwest and into the heat of the fairs, only to find a familiar sensibility in an unexpected place: Dreamsong. Rebecca Heidenberg joins the conversation to talk about building a gallery ecosystem in Minneapolis that resists isolation and instead fosters dialogue between regional artists and those working in larger art centers like New York and Los Angeles. From this conversation we get a portrait of a space that operates as both a commercial gallery and something closer to a cultural commons, anchored by programming, residency initiatives, and a commitment to community. From the founding logic of Dreamsong to the evolution of the Cloud House residency program, Rebecca outlines a model that prioritizes relationships over market pressure. The conversation moves fluidly between Minneapolis as a site of artistic possibility, the economics of running a gallery outside New York, and the strange spectacle of Miami's art fair ecosystem, including dystopian crypto exhibitions and phantom Lamborghini launches. Along the way: documentary filmmaking in Cuba, the legacy of an art-dealing mother, the emotional labor embedded in artistic practice, and the ongoing tension between "pretty" art and meaningful engagement in a complicated political moment. It's Midwest pragmatism meets art world absurdity. And somehow, it works. Rebecca Heidenberg — https://dreamsong.art/Dreamsong — https://dreamsong.art/Cloud House — https://thecloudhouse.org/Gregory Smith — https://dreamsong.art/Edgar Arceneaux — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Arceneaux Walker Art Center — https://walkerart.org/Minneapolis College of Art and Design — https://www.mcad.edu/Rachel Collier — https://rachelcollier.com/Hair + Nails — https://hairandnailsart.com/All My Relations Arts — https://allmyrelationsarts.org/ Minneapolis Institute of Art — https://new.artsmia.org/Henry Moore — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore Douglas Kearney — https://www.douglaskearney.com/ Art Basel Miami Beach — https://www.artbasel.com/miami-beach Frieze Los Angeles — https://www.frieze.com/fairs/frieze-los-angeles Jean-Michel Basquiat — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat
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Bad at Sports Episode 944: Amy Kligman
2w ago01:08:40Tap to summarizeRecorded live at NADA Art Fair, this episode finds the crew in full fair-mode: cramped booths, warm beverages, and the particular energy of artists, curators, and dealers trying to make something real happen in public. Joining the conversation is Amy Kligman, founder of Special Effects Gallery, a Kansas City–based gallery barely out of the gate and already showing at fairs. Alongside Tom Sanford, the conversation moves quickly from logistics and booth banter into something deeper: how artists carry histories, how objects hold people, and how a gallery can function less like a marketplace and more like a host. Kligman's project is both scrappy and intentional. Special Effects Gallery is rooted in Kansas City but outward-facing, acting as a connector, a translation device, and maybe even a love letter to regional practice that deserves a broader stage. The name itself comes from her parents' rural Indiana video store, a place that served as a portal to elsewhere - Special Effects Gallery carries that lineage and seeks out a similar ethos. Amy Kligman — https://www.specialeffectsgallery.com/ https://www.amykligman.com/Tom Sanford — https://www.tomsanford.art/ Kevin Demery — https://www.kevindemery.com Rashawn Griffin — https://www.instagram.com/ras9s/Charlotte Street Foundation — https://charlottestreet.org/Plug Projects — https://plugprojects.org/Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art — https://nelson-atkins.org/NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) — https://newartdealers.org/Dana Schutz — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Schutz
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Bad at Sports Episode 943: Nanako Kono and Olivia Zubko
2w ago00:56:53Tap to summarizeFrom the humid chaos of Miami Art Week, Bad at Sports drops into the garden at NADA for a conversation with two artists from Western Exhibitions: Nanako Kono and Olivia Zubkov. A loose, funny, and surprisingly thoughtful discussion about painting that isn't painting, sculpture that remembers your body, and bathrooms as sites of intimacy, memory, and quiet surveillance. Nanako walks through her hyper-flat, acrylic-based "paintings" that live somewhere between screen, object, and comic logic. Olivia counters with slip-cast porcelain sculptures drawn from domestic life. Towels, tiles, soap dishes, and mirrors become witnesses to the private rituals of living. The conversation drifts between material process, Chicago's influence, comic culture, color as personality, and the strange emotional charge of everyday objects. Along the way, there are riffs on boob lights, mold-making ethics, and whether your bathroom fixtures are silently judging you. Ryan Peter Miller — https://badatsports.comDuncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/Western Exhibitions — https://westernexhibitions.com Nanako Kono — https://www.nanakokono-rolly.com/ Olivia Zubkov — https://www.oliviazubko.com/ Scott Speh — https://westernexhibitions.com NADA Art Fair — https://newartdealers.orgLumpen Radio — https://lumpenradio.comSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.saic.eduUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas — https://www.unlv.eduRichard Rezac — https://www.richardrezac.com/ Julia Fish — https://juliafish.com/
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Bad at Sports Episode 942: Embajada Gallery
3w ago00:58:14Tap to summarizeRecorded live at NADA Art Fair, Episode 942 features a deeply generous conversation with gallerist and artist Christopher Rivera—founder of Embajada ("Embassy") Gallery in Puerto Rico. Joined by hosts Ryan Peter Miller, Tom Sanford, and William "Bill" Pereda, Rivera discusses artist-led infrastructures, building a gallery as a political and conceptual project, and the evolving ecosystem of Puerto Rican contemporary art. At the center of the conversation is Rivera's presentation of artist Taina Cruz whose hybrid practice—spanning painting, robotics, and installation—anchors the booth. The discussion moves fluidly between artistic identity, diaspora, conceptual vs. formal practices, and the strange alchemy of building a gallery that resists becoming purely commercial. This is also a conversation about organic growth: careers, relationships, and opportunities that emerge through trust, community, and sustained engagement rather than strategy alone. NADA Art Fair — https://www.newartdealers.org/ Taina Cruz https://tainacruz.com/ Art Basel Miami Beach — https://www.artbasel.com/miami-beach Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) — https://www.mica.edu/Yale University — https://www.yale.edu/Hunter College — https://hunter.cuny.edu/Marlborough Gallery — https://www.marlboroughgallery.com/ Rachel Uffner Gallery — https://www.racheluffnergallery.com/ Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling — https://www.sugarhillmuseum.org/ Artforum — https://www.artforum.com/Bad Bunny — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Bunny Joshua Nazario Lugo — https://joshuanazario.com/about Jan Anthony Olivares — https://www.instagram.com/janthonyolivares/ Carla Acevedo-Yates — https://mcachicago.org/about/who-we-are/people/carla-acevedo-yates William Wegman — https://www.wegmanworld.com/Claude Monet — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet Camille Pissarro — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro
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Bad at Sports Episode 941: Myra Greene
3w ago00:59:52Tap to summarizeRecorded live in Atlanta at the Art Papers Symposium at Ponce City Market, Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist, educator, and department chair Myra Greene for a conversation on materiality, identity, and the long arc from photography to textiles to weaving. The conversation centers on practice as evolution, about what happens when an artist refuses to stay in one lane, and about how material decisions carry conceptual weight. Greene reflects on her move from Columbia College Chicago to Spelman College, where she helped build a program grounded in storytelling, experimentation, and liberal arts integration. From ambrotypes to fabric dye to loom-based weaving, Greene's work consistently circles a central question: how can identity exist without the body? Name Drops & Links Myra Greene — https://www.myragreene.com/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Spelman College — https://www.spelman.edu/ Columbia College Chicago — https://www.colum.edu/ Jeanne Gang — https://studiogang.com/ Mary Schmidt Campbell — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Schmidt_Campbell LaTanya Richardson Jackson — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTanya_Richardson Samuel L. Jackson — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_L._Jackson Candida Alvarez — https://candidaalvarez.com/ Patron Gallery — https://patrongallery.com/ The Weaving Mill — https://theweavingmill.com/ Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild — https://chgweavers.org/ Ansel Adams — https://www.anseladams.com/
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Bad at Sports Episode 940: Emily Llamazales
Apr 2901:02:19Tap to summarizeRecorded live during the Art Papers Symposium in Atlanta, Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist Emily Llamazales to talk speculative biology, adaptive futures, and sculptural ecosystems that feel equal parts laboratory experiment and sci-fi relic. Emily's work merges biochemistry, ecology, and material experimentation into immersive sculptural forms that hover between organism and artifact. From translucent photo-printed fabrics to ceramic "creatures" built from invasive species logic, her practice imagines a world where mutation is survival and adaptation is aesthetic strategy. The conversation ranges from collaborative exhibition-making and studio ecology to invasive snails, granite outcrops, and the porous boundary between science fiction and real science. Along the way: holography, grant writing, fungi, and the possibility that the future might already be quietly evolving around us. Name Drops (with links) Emily Llamazales - https://www.emilyllamazales.com/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Jacob O'Kelly — (curator, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta) https://www.artsatl.org/mint-names-new-executive-director-gallery-director-opens-four-shows/ Ben Steele — https://bensteeleart.com/ Aaron Putt — https://aaronkaganputt.com/ Burnaway — https://burnaway.org/ Art Papers — https://www.artpapers.org/ Clio Art Fair / Clio (Savannah project space) — https://www.clioartfair.com/ Arts Capital Atlanta — https://www.artscapitalatlanta.org/ Arabia Mountain — https://arabiaalliance.org/ Ichetucknee Springs — https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/ichetucknee-springs-state-park Suwannee River — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwannee_River Apple Snail (invasive species) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_snail Dyssodia / "diamorpha" plants (granite outcrop flora) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyssodia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedum_smallii Scavengers Reign (TV series) — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21056886/ Futurama — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0149460/ Adrian Tchaikovsky — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky
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Bad at Sports Episode 939: Sarah Higgins
Apr 1900:57:36Tap to summarizeArt Papers, Fire Ecology, and Ending Well This week on Bad at Sports, we sit down in Atlanta with Sarah Higgins, Executive and Artistic Director of Art Papers, during the Art Papers symposium. What unfolds is a candid, generous, and surprisingly hopeful conversation about what it means to end something well. As Art Papers approaches its final chapter after nearly 50 years, Higgins lays out a model for institutional closure that resists panic, rejects compromise, and instead asks: what if ending is a form of contribution? From the "fire ecology" framework to radical transparency about budgets, labor, and sustainability, this conversation moves from grief to strategy to something like collective possibility. Along the way: the death of art criticism models, nonprofit fatigue, Chicago parallels, and why maybe nobody is coming to save us. Names Dropped (Bad at Sports style) Sarah Higgins — https://www.artpapers.org Art Papers — https://www.artpapers.org Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Art Papers Symposium — https://www.artpapers.org New Art Examiner — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Art_Examiner Dan Talley — https://www.artpapers.org Laura Lieberman — https://www.artpapers.org Real Art Ways — https://realartways.org Critical Minded — https://criticalminded.org Ponce City Market — https://www.poncecitymarket.com Jamestown — https://www.jamestownlp.com National Endowment for the Arts — https://www.arts.gov Mary Louise Schumacher — https://www.marylouiseschumacher.com Lucy – https://www.thenewatlantis.com/futurisms/the-muddled-message-of-lucy Scarlett Johansson – https://scarlett-johansson.net/ Morgan Freeman – https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/f/fo-fz/morgan-freeman/
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Bad at Sports Episode 938: Tori Tinsley
Apr 1500:57:50Tap to summarizeRecorded live at the Art Papers Symposium in Atlanta, this episode features a deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation with Tori Tinsley. Joined by Brian Andrews and Duncan MacKenzie, Tinsley reflects on caregiving, grief, motherhood, and the evolution of her "hug" figures across painting, sculpture, and animation. Her practice emerges from lived experience, particularly her mother's diagnosis with frontotemporal dementia, and expands into a broader inquiry into emotional labor, embodiment, and the absurdity of contemporary life. Humor, instability, and tenderness coexist in work that resists resolution while remaining deeply accessible. Name Drop List (with links) Tori Tinsley — https://www.google.com/search?q=Tori+Tinsley+artist Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Art Papers — https://www.artpapers.org/ School of the Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.saic.edu/ Georgia State University (GSU) — https://artdesign.gsu.edu/ William Kentridge — https://www.kentridge.studio/ Brené Brown — https://brenebrown.com/
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Bad at Sports Episode 937: Nato Thompson
Apr 1300:54:04Tap to summarizeThis week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews, and Abigail Satinsky sit down with Nato Thompson for a conversation that spans collapsing institutions, alternative economies, and what it actually means to sustain a life in art. Recorded in the context of an art fair ecosystem that increasingly blurs community, commerce, and survival, Thompson reflects on his path from Creative Time to Philadelphia Contemporary (RIP unrealized museum), and into his current multi-pronged practice: consulting, artist support, and the evolving Alternative Art School. What starts as a casual catch-up quickly becomes something sharper: a diagnosis of failing art school models, a critique of nonprofit dependency, and a proposal for artist-centered infrastructures that actually function. Along the way: dark matter artists, subscription economies, global classrooms, refrigerator exhibitions, and the radical idea that maybe art isn't a career ladder at all. Names Dropped (with links) Nato Thompson — https://natothompson.com/ Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews — https://www.brianandrews.org/ Abigail Satinsky — https://www.abigailsatinsky.com/ Creative Time — https://creativetime.org/ Philadelphia Contemporary — https://philadelphiacontemporary.org/ Alternative Art School — https://alternativeartschool.net/ e-flux — https://www.e-flux.com/ Anton Vidokle — https://www.e-flux.com/about/anton-vidokle/ Powerhouse Arts — https://powerhousearts.org/ Raqs Media Collective — https://raqsmediacollective.net/ Tania Bruguera — https://www.taniabruguera.com/ Guadalupe Maravilla — https://www.guadalupemaravilla.com/ Jeremy Deller — https://www.jeremydeller.org/ Lexa Walsh — https://www.lexawalsh.com/ Times Square Arts — https://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts
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Bad at Sports Episode 936: Damon Locks
Apr 801:10:04Tap to summarizeLocks' exhibition operates as a split composition: the back gallery leans into layered, exploratory collage rooted in his teaching experience with Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project at Stateville Correctional Center, while the front gallery delivers sharper, declarative works built around text and figuration. The conversation frames this as a kind of A-side / B-side logic, with one space functioning like improvisational jazz and the other like a stripped-down, urgent punk track. Locks pushes back on easy analogies, but embraces the underlying idea: that both bodies of work are driven by different modes of attention and response. A major thread is process. Locks describes an almost anti-archival system of working, where stacks of Xeroxes, prints, and sampled sounds are mentally cataloged rather than digitally organized. This produces a practice grounded in rediscovery and accident, closer to crate-digging than database searching. Equally central is pedagogy. His decade-plus engagement with incarcerated students becomes a generative force, not a side project. The "homework" he assigns becomes his own studio method, expanding into the work shown here and into related musical output like List of Demands. Throughout, Locks positions his work within a lineage that moves fluidly between comic books, punk ephemera, Black radical print culture, and contemporary art. The result is a practice that refuses clean categorization, operating instead as an ongoing negotiation between sound, image, politics, and community. Names Dropped Duncan MacKenzie — https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Ryan (Peter Miller) — http://ryanpetermiller.com/ Damon Locks — https://damonlocks.black/ Goldfinch Gallery — https://goldfinch-gallery.com/ Lumpen Radio — https://lumpenradio.com/ Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project — https://pnaep.org/ Stateville Correctional Center — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateville_Correctional_Center Artists / Art References Charles White — https://www.artic.edu/artists/23067/charles-white Raymond Pettibon — https://gagosian.com/artists/raymond-pettibon/ Emory Douglas — https://www.moma.org/artists/13246 Kerry James Marshall — https://kerryjamesmarshall.com/ Music / Punk References Bad Brains — https://www.badbrains.com/ Minor Threat — https://dischord.com/band/minor-threat Government Issue — https://dischord.com/band/government-issue The Clash — https://www.theclash.com/ Siouxsie and the Banshees — https://www.siouxsieandthebanshees.co.uk/ The Damned — https://www.officialdamned.com/ Big Black — https://touchandgorecords.com/bands/big-black/ Naked Raygun — https://www.nakedraygun.org/ Black Flag — https://sstsuperstore.com/collections/black-flag Comics / Illustration Influences John Byrne — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/byrne_john.htm Neal Adams — https://nealadams.com/ George Pérez — https://www.marvel.com/comics/creators/126/george_perez Marshall Rogers — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/rogers_marshall.htm
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