The Conversation Art Podcast

Nyack, New York-based artist Rob Strati talks about:
Living in Nyack, as far as its local arts community and proximity to NYC; his early artist years in San Francisco, including driving a cab for several years, and eventually getting into tech (starting as a web designer at Yahoo) as a day job, always to support the art even though it became a big part of his then-identity; how his 25 years working in research, marketing and technology all started when he was exposed to web design while staying with friends in DUMBO, Brooklyn; how he shared his 2025 earnings in an end-of-year newsletter, why he did so, and what kinds of responses he received (without naming the number here, the earnings are in the top 1% of artists); how he's applied his research experience in tech to his sales approaches, including making different entry points available to collectors, and taking what he learns from selling direct to collectors on Instagram and applying to future sales; how he's been doing non-exclusive consignment agreements up until now, but is signing on with a London-based gallery for exclusive sales in the U.K. and Turkey, and why he's doing so; the fact that he's had such success selling on IG that it's allowed him to establish consignment-based agreements with galleries as opposed to contractual ones, which has given him more autonomy and leverage than most artists (who do traditional contractual agreements); how he took Dec. of '25 and the first two months of '26 "off," to recover from the grind of 2025, did a lot of skiing with his 13-year-old son, and generally recharged, while acknowledging the accomplishment of such a strong year; the nine different galleries he's currently working with (including Duane Read Gallery in St. Louis and Fremin Gallery in New York); the origin story of his signature art object(s), which has been the work that's transformed his career, all staring with his wife breaking a plate in the kitchen, and how he saw an expanded world in it; the conversation around his work as far as decorative art- how it fits into that lineage, and the emotional connection to that tradition, in contrast to the conceptual tendencies of contemporary art, but how he sees elements of both.
In the 2nd half of our conversation, available to Patreon Supporters of the show, Rob talks about:
How he first improvised the drawing that accompanied that first broken plate piece, and how subsequently he evolved his style in extending the plate patterns into extended landscapes and scenes; we geek out materials, including his determining that Signo pens are the best for the fine lines that he needs (and we geek out on pens for a moment); why being transparent about income (his income) is something he stands behind, including investing in the marketing of his work (boosting posts, advertising, and so on), and how last year, for example, he spent 50k on marketing his work; the "Decision I Did Not Take Lightly," which was his canceling his exhibition at the James Cancer Center Gallery at Ohio State University (his alma mater) because of it being under the umbrella of Leslie Wexner, the philanthropist who funded the Wexner Center for the Arts as well as many schools at OSU, and who has very much been part of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, how Rob was able to shift the show to the Columbus Museum by renting out a space there and continue the conversation about justice and making space for him to stand up for it, but also recognizing how difficult it is to stand up to a boss whom your livelihood depends on; and his job history – prior to striking out on his own making a living from his work alone – including being fired a lot, partly for standing up against abuse in the workplace.
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"To Post, or Not to Post….That is the Question"
In this pilot episode of The Intrepid Artist, the main question asked by a listener is whether sharing (or even having) one's social media plays an important role in grant and open call decisions.
Arleene advocates for developing a thoughtful, engaging and empathetic feed, as opposed to one in which an artist is simply constantly sharing work. She wants a feed in which the artist shares who they really are, beyond the gallery setting; whether to use Stories vs. Posts, and the importance of sharing what you want to share, and how Arleene likes to be able to share her failures on IG as a way of showing her full output and working through those failures; whether you would make the work if it isn't/wasn't posted- a key question for artists to ask themselves, and how (of course) the ultimate objective is to be engaging in the studio.
In the 2nd question, a listener asks how to get motivated to draw, to make work, which has Arleene recalling a lifechanging moment in her first real drawing class in art school, led by a professor who asked his students if they needed – not just wanted – to be there; Arleene and I share our very different takes on what it feels like being in the studio- euphoria vs. reality; how the research and other behind-the-scenes work done in the studio that's necessary for making our work goes unseen, and for Arleene that means it's hard to have gratitude when she's not making the art.
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In the extended Patreon BONUS section, Arleene talks about her forms of meditation- the gym and working out, as well as swimming, as key rituals that help to clear her head before she gets to the studio, so when she's there, she's in the most optimal mental space to focus on her work.

Hunter College professor and author of The War of Art, Lauren O'Neill-Butler talks about:
Her 12 years at Artforum magazine, including its balance between advertising and hard-core art writing, and how her chapter on Fierce Pussy was written while at Artforum; the classes on Activism she's taught at Hunter College, which were not to get students to become activists but to make them aware of its history and context; how teaching activism and writing the book were both 'rage containers' but also ways to inspire difference; how activisms 'expire,' including in the case of her colleague Carrie Moyer, whose hardcore activism (including her campaigns for Dyke Action Machine) lasted two years and followed by going back to the studio and making abstract paintings; the difference between 'activists' and 'artists activists,' which culminated in a question at one of her book events at the New York Public Library: "why are you focusing on artists? What makes them so special? Why can't you talk about other activists too?" and how, in addition to bringing an aesthetic to their activism, as part of the answer, artists are beleaguered; the seminal moment in the artist Rick Lowe's career, when a student living in the 3rd Ward of Houston asked him why, as opposed to just showing them the problems in their neighborhood that they were already aware of, wasn't he being creative about coming up with solutions?; her contention that all art is political, but what does an artist's role look like in terms of their actions; how there's no purity in America and no purity in activism, and how Project Row Houses wouldn't have become as robust without the corporate effort; Sarah Schulman's recent writing on the importance of solidarity, and how the left keeps pointing the figure and keeps eating itself; what Project Row Houses looks like, including the mix of affordable and market rate housing, artists who live in them, and expensive condos recently going up in the neighborhood amidst preserved housing in the 3rd Ward of Houston.
In the 2nd half of our conversation, available to paid Patreon Supporters of the podcast, Lauren talks about:
Why she included (former guest) Ben Davis's critique of Project Row Houses, along with a contextual framework on the challenges of limiting the effects of gentrification, primarily as a way to point out that it isn't artists who are the problem fixers, it's our government representatives; for Rick Lowe and Project Row Houses, it was about trying to do better for the locals; the highly influential and impactful activist organization P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), started by artist Nan Goldin, which was instigated by the terrific irony of the Tate Museum, with £4 million in donations from the Sackler Family Trust, purchased Goldin's "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" at the same time as she was addicted to Oxycontin (the highly addictive pain medication that led to an epidemic, of which the Sacklers are known for); the successful objective of P.A.I.N. (which is a non-partisan group despite it being formed by a politically progressive artist) to eliminate the art-washing of the Sacklers by putting their names on so many museum wings, and in turn what it was like for PAIN members to attend the protests with fellow protesters who were in very different cultural spheres, including hard-core trumpers; how savvy PAIN was in cultivating and working with the press, which really got their actions thoroughly covered, and even their private meetings were recorded, which helped provide lots of content for Laura Poitras's documentary on Goldin; how Lauren uses YouTube video footage of the PAIN protests, which were so well thought out and dramatic, in her classes; why she didn't right about the Stop Oil! Activist actions in museums (because it's mainly taken place in the U.K.); how the effectiveness of a protest depends very much on the press coverage and the level of circulation of the images from a given action; how most activisms have a figurehead (Goldin), and how it matters, for better or worse, when there's a public-facing person in a group; how successful activism depends on bringing in new blood and new ideas, and how big a factor burnout is for activists; the state of agitprop, or postering, today vs. the 90s- Carrie Moyer and Sue () of Dyke Action Machine would say that the street postering they did wouldn't work today, because there's just too much visual noise, and Lauren's nostalgia for the 90s for those reasons; the 'Secret Handshake' sculptures of trump and Epstein that have been making the rounds on social media around the world, work which she hates but recognizes as effective nonetheless; the hostile takeover of the New College of Florida, Lauren's undergraduate alma mater, by governor Desantis, and how she's been part of the alumni response to the takeover including the forming of nonprofits, a project that is very close to her heart and how she's been involved in it for the past three years, and the struggle of the school was recently featured on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."

Writer and Frieze editor-in-chief Andrew Durbin talks about:
His book tour for "The Wonderful World That Almost Was," which has been hectic; how he became familiar with Peter Hujar's work initially, and why his and Paul Tek's legacies really took off after their deaths; Peter's persona and personality as someone who could be as charming and engaging as can be, but also someone who flew off the handle with a volatile anger at some in his life, and how he actually using photography to deal with some of that anger; how Paul Tek appeared to be thoroughly charming and quintessentially hippie-ish from the various television footage of him in interviews, despite his ultimate distaste for and rebellion against the hippie archetype, and how he had an ongoing contradiction in wanting to be around people and then wanting to get away (he often questioned the love of those who loved him), which he did prolifically, from Miami right out of school to various parts of Italy throughout his adulthood; Peter's troubled relationship with his mother, who was emotionally abusive and neglectful, and whom was described by a boyfriend of Peter's at the time as "very good at being unsatisfied;" how Peter learned much of his photography skills working in commercial photos studios in the '60s and '70s (including that of Richard Avedon) and eventually applied and expanded them in the darkroom for his own work, and to what extent Gar Schneider, his friend and the printer of the work in his estate, will make prints posthumously from the estate; 
In the 2nd half of the conversation, available to Patreon supporters, he covers:
The legacies of Peter and Paul, including via Linda Rosenkranz's book "Peter Hujar's Day," which became a film by Ira Sachs, and how Andrew's book may just be part of the rise in their respective public profiles; how he was more interested in and relied on their own memories of their childhoods (and adulthoods) as opposed to thru the lenses of family; how Andrew melded with his subjects, and how consuming and  surprisingly somatic the experience of writing the book became, leaving him unsure how to re-fill his time once the writing finally ended; how thru writing the book he had to confront his own fears of AIDS, of death, and his insecurities, and the therapist who guided him gracefully through that process; how, despite the book being published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, he still maintained his full-time job (editor of Frieze magazine), and in fact how much the book strained his finances, as biographies turn out to be expensive endeavors (with almost no opportunity for grants to support them); how the reason that Andrew's book and Ira Sachs' film (Peter Hujar's Day) are coinciding has to do with a hunger for authenticity, including especially a yearning for a time (the '70s) in New York when artists could live together in a community and scrape by financially on whatever they made, a time long-gone but one that even some young people are aware of; iconic writer/cultural critic Susan Sontag's relationships with Peter and Paul, the latter of whom became infatuated with her, and how Andrew showed her as 'an intoxicating' individual, and what that feels like; Paul's complex relationship with his sexuality, to the extent that he often pursued relationships with women, whom he dated quite often but never got serious with, and how sexuality was something he may have tormented himself over; how the actor who played Peter in "Peter Hujar's Day" could never fill Peter's robust shoes, but at the same time how happy Andrew is for how many people the film has brought to Peter's work; the differences between living in New York and London (where he lives now), including how London actually has more in common with Los Angeles in terms of its size and its more deliberate social dynamics whereas in New York you're constantly running into people everywhere; and how he'll finally be ready to transition to his next project once this one if finally done, as it's been such an immersive, somatic experience.

James Delbourgo, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of A Noble Madness: the Dark Side of Collecting from Antiquity to Now, talks about:

Why he's written about contemporary art so extensively, as a history academic who's very interested in the present, going to galleries and wondering who collectors are right now, raising a lot of questions about archetypes for what would become a big part of his book; how collectors can not only be defined as powerful, they can also be defined as weak, unhinged and deranged, among other things; how the profile of the collector, over time, is more a corkscrew than an arc, with the Freudian view of the collector was seen as repressed and even dangerous, whereas the contemporary collector is seen as being more about power; how in Robert Bloch's book "Psycho," upon which the movie was based, the Norman Bates character is actually described as a collector but one who is ugly and unprepossessing, and how the Hitchcock film turned him into a charming, ingratiating figure who turns the audience on his side; how really thoroughly experiencing housed collections (prime examples are the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA, and    the Vittoriale degli Italiani in Gardone, owned by Gabrielle d'Anunzio) was embedded in his writing the book; the collector as puppeteer, as orchestrator (and collector) of people, as William Randolph Hearst was; how encountering someone's place, and their things, is "a physical experience that constitutes the way you understand this person and your relationship to them," as James put it; and how Freudian interpretation has had such a lasting relevance over the years, even as it's gone out of fashion.

In the 2nd half of our conversation, available to Patreon Supporters of the podcast, you'll hear James talk about:

How hoarding, like the Middle Ages, has waned, and is tossed around far too lazily; the 'l' word, as in "loser," which he used to describe Robert Bloch's Norman Bates, whom he qualifies as a 'lovable loser,' particularly because collectors like Bates collect authentically, out of passion, not for financial gains; how he couldn't quite get the marketing department to change the subtitle of his book (particularly "The Dark Side" part), and why he's interested in authentic collectors, those who collect for love, with no thoughts of profits or strategy, the type of collector who he believes is vindicated in the end, as opposed to the Charles Foster Kane-type collector, who collects to accumulate; the democratization of collecting, including 'garbologists,' in which everything can, and does, get commodified; countercultural collectors, who collect things like deformed animal corpses, their own child's placentas, and other curiosities, and how they don't care what people think of them, or in fact that they want to defy popular opinion…as James put it: "their truth to self is uncompromised…by notions of taste or fine arts or utilitarianism…they're the freest people of all…they've freed themselves from the tyranny of the respectable opinion of other people;" and finally he describes an exhibition about Marie Antoinette at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (the lines to get in were staggering), a collector of shoes and porcelain and snuff boxes and furniture…who was so vilified/demonized for political reasons, as the enemy of the people…she is the classic case of the political demonization of a collector who is executed as if it would purge the suffering of her subjects; the most classic case of that political question around the collector, and how, ironically, it was her execution that made her immortal.