You better work, work!

TIMOTHY HULL: Hello, hello, hello. This is Timothy Hall.
Keith: This is Gina Beavers.
TIMOTHY HULL: And you're listening to Unstriating
Keith: That was awesome. yeah. I loved it. It was very free form. Yeah, it was great.
TIMOTHY HULL: Trying to make it something. I don't know. We'll get it. Well it'll happen. Yeah, exactly. Going free form. You know what was so fascinating last night was the Knicks were playing, and I don't follow basketball at all. But being in New York, it's hard not to because I was asleep in my apartment in the East Village, and I was awoken around midnight to waves of cheering and like crowd.
Keith: Yeah. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. ⁓
TIMOTHY HULL: you know, horns honking and people screaming. And usually, you know, even though I live right in the heart of the East Village, there's bars and restaurants everywhere, our apartment is in the back of a building and it's very quiet. You almost would never know you were in the heart of the East Village. But last night the cheering and the sounds and the street noises were so loud that it woke me up. And I at first I was like, what's going on? Is there like a An attack or war or something. And then I thought I was in in Moby Dick. I thought I was in the the Robert Wilson play of Moby Dick because it was so like jarring and deep and weird. And then I realized, ⁓ it must be the the basketball game. And it was crazy. Like the it sounded like thou hundreds of thousands of people roaring and cheering and the horns honking. And it was it was sort of beautiful, reminded me of when Obama
Keith: Shit. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ yes. Ugh. It was so ⁓ it was amazing. I was on the Avenue C, like in the East Village when that happened, just like streaming out into the street and like but I know what you're saying about the Knicks. Like first of all, I stayed up until eleven thirty watching the whole game.
TIMOTHY HULL: One and everyone went out into the streets and were marching down the streets, and it felt like ⁓ my god, like a historical moment. Wow.
Keith: ⁓ I signed up in into some free stri streaming account that's gonna cost me seventy dollars if I don't cancel it in like three days. So I have to remember. I know I should I gotta go. I gotta go cancel this. But ⁓ thanks to Jess Stoller and her husband Simon, who took ⁓ Anna Benaroya and I out ⁓ to this beer garden to watch the first game, then now all of us are like hooked.
TIMOTHY HULL: My God, cancel it right now. I'll set a reminder.
Keith: on the next and so basically the deal is now they come home for two games and if they win those two games they win the whole series. So Wednesday night, if are you in the city on Wednesday night?
TIMOTHY HULL: I think I'm going to be.
Keith: 'Cause if they win Wednesday night, it's gonna be ten times what you heard last night. It'll be just like absolute Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Bedlump. I mean maybe I'm I'm like kinda debating if I wanna be in the city that night or not be in the city that night because I feel like it could go e either way, but I do feel well ensconced and safe in our little apartment. So I feel like I'm not gonna get like, you know, crowd surfing like it's all
Keith: Yeah. I know. It c Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's gonna be both nights probably. Monday night at but Wednesday night will be the most insane. I w I'll also say like one of the ⁓ I was at Penn Station when they clinched and one of the weird things about Penn Station is it's under Madison Square Garden. So I was sitting down there and I thought the roof like I thought the building was gonna collapse on me because I could feel the stomping and the screaming. I was just like, Holy shit, like what it was so nuts. So
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ sure.
Keith: It's it's fun.
TIMOTHY HULL: One time one time I was at a concert at Irving Plaza. I think it was brand new is playing and they were like a Long Island, like like hardcore Screamo type of band. And we were everyone was jumping up and down and the floor was going up and down like a wave. And the and the police and fire department came in and shut it down because they were like, this place is probably gonna collapse.
Keith: ⁓ my god, that's so terrifying. ⁓ my god. ⁓ man.
TIMOTHY HULL: Your plaza is still even in business anymore. I don't know. All those places are
Keith: I don't know. Is that was that on 14th Street? Where was that? Yeah. Irving Pla ⁓ right. ⁓ yeah, it is still there. I think. Is it? I don't know. I went to see Titanic. I don't know if you've heard about Titanic, but it's a wonderful tribute. Yeah, it's a wonderful tribute to Celine Dion and her entire catalog. So told through a ridiculous tribute.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. No. Ooh. I haven't, but I it sounds like Claudia Bitron did it. That does not interest me in the absolute. That's about the polar opposite thing I'm saying. Sorry everyone. Yeah.
Keith: But it's I I but it's very Ira I mean it's very tongue in cheek and ⁓ it's a it's a retelling of Titanic in a really silly way too. Like ⁓ anyway, but it's on that street. It's like right by Irving Plaza where it I can't remember if it was still there. It's gotta be there. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Interesting that Titanic is in the Zeitgeist 'cause you Claudia Bitron just had that whole show that was about that her remaking the movie and rethinking about it. Now you say there's this sort of send off, take off kind of musical about it. It it's interesting when things I guess it's sort of like a Saturn return for Titanic in like a period of time gotta come back into the
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right, exactly. Well, yeah, and it feels like we're all going down, maybe. Maybe it's like a a relatable
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ Jesus. You know, it's interesting. Like I said that I had s was smoking in in Italy and I was I'm I'm sorry to admit, because my mom is probably gonna hear this, but I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day and it was beautiful. ⁓ and I quit when I got back to America. But I've been acutely aware of how many people are actually smoking now in New York. I feel like
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: People are smoking in New York like they did twenty years ago. Like you walk past any bar, everyone's outside smoking, and an art event, everyone's outside smoking. And I asked someone about it. I'm like, Am I just more acutely aware of it because I just was smoking and quit? And they were like, No, everyone's smoking because the world is on fire and the world is ending. So you might as well, you know, smoke ⁓ while you got ⁓ kind of thing. And it's like sort of the last thing I needed to hear, because then I like, ⁓ maybe I should just
Keith: Mm. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Maybe if everyone's doing it. Yeah. That's like ⁓ did you ever see Little Miss Sunshine? Yes. Remember the character, the grandfather played by amazing actor ⁓ God, what's his name? Alan or Alan, no. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of that. ⁓ where he's
TIMOTHY HULL: You know, pick ⁓ back up again. Yes. Yeah, Alan Alda or No. ⁓ It's like that. It's like that.
Keith: You know, he's over seventy and he's like, I'm gonna start doing heroin, why not? Like I why not now? It's kind of like that. Like, well, yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: I feel like if I do get to be like seventy something in pretty good health, I'll probably pick back smoking up again. I'm like, well why not at that point, you know, like it's so enjoyable and it makes, you know, downtime feel like something is happening.
Keith: Yeah, just like for fun. Yeah. Yeah, at that at that point. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's is it more or less healthy than social media, which is another kind of like time waster kind of, you know, making it feel like something's happening. Yeah. But yeah. So how are you doing? What's you're off now or you're for a while? Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Exactly. Traction. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Yes, my summer it has begun. I was supposed to teach a summer class, but it didn't meet the enrolment ⁓ numbers, which was sort of crazy because it's an online class and usually they fill really fast. But my second summer session class is full, so I will be teaching a like a second summer session, but does mean I have like a month totally off, which I actually have not had a month off from teaching.
Keith: Yeah. Nice.
TIMOTHY HULL: In probably 13 years. Isn't that crazy? Like, cause I've always taught the full semester and then the winter session, and then the spring semester, and then the whole summer session. So like I was almost teaching like a practically like a full year round, which is crazy, you know, like in that but I feel like I've managed temporarily to break myself out of that rat race. And so
Keith: ⁓ my gosh. Wow. Yeah. Mm. You just keep going. ⁓ my god. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yes, I'm I have a month off, which is which feels really really nice. But also doesn't feel that much different.
Keith: Yeah. Are you able to work and are you to work on some
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ yeah, I've been actually really inspired from my Italy trip because I'm making drawings actually of the collages that I had made. So I made all these collages for that Rome show and I was looking at them and thinking, well, they actually would make really good drawings of of the collages. So I've been playing around with more realistic drawings.
Keith: ⁓ cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ nice. Yeah. Hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ using sort of graphite as realistically as I can is to make the collages that look a little bit more like drawing. So that's been really fun. So that's sort of been an inspiration coming from that. And yeah, and I'm cranking out some new paintings because I have the time to do that when I'm upstate. So I feel very enlivened and excited by the different art projects I'm working on. And you know, they're not at this moment they're not going
Keith: Mm-hmm. ⁓ that's cool.
TIMOTHY HULL: To any place or anywhere, they're purely sort of self-generated and coming out of just my own drive to make.
Keith: Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, that's great. That's like the yeah. I've been like working on these paintings that I'm excited about. ⁓ but then I'm also
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, I noticed you posted something new the other day, like a new oil painting. ⁓ what was that of?
Keith: Yeah. It's like different pieces of upholstered ki s chairs and couches and stuff and like floral and ⁓ okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has a ruffle on it, but it was like a chair that had a ruffle. Yeah, yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: I don't know why I got the impression. That's what I think that I yeah, you said like something about the ruffle. So it's like, ⁓ a ruffle I thought it was like on a collar and a shirt.
Keith: ⁓ yeah. No, it's like if you can imagine the most over the top like frilly chair. Just like pieces of that collaged together and then
TIMOTHY HULL: It turns so abstract. It was sort of it it it's in a weird the image is in a weird place between being readable as as like upholstery or f some kind of fabric patterning, but then it's very abstract because it it's all over and it doesn't have a real figure ground it it's not really held in a figure ground relationship.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess that's what I'm kind of trying to do, to make something that looks photo like almost like you can recognize it, but then it sort of dissolves. Like, you know, I'm trying to do both. I'm doing some like material tests though for the next week or two because I've discovered some paints don't work as well as others for what I'm trying to do with the heavy oil. Like, so I realize I need to stop and like do some actual experiments and and see how yeah. So that's gonna put a mm, yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, you realize are you working with oil paint now? You said. So what I what I love to teach because I teach oil painting, and the first class, when they get all their supplies, I ha go through a little exercise where I'm like, okay, pick up each tube and tell me what it weighs. And each tube weighs something different. And they're always amazed by that because you think, ⁓ paints.
Keith: Mm.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ it it's gotta all weigh the same, right? Because it's like one, it's like, you know, 13 ounce or whatever. But each paint tube weighs a different amount because each color, each mineral has it actually a different weight to it. And because you know, these are organic, they're not uniform like acrylic. They're all organic. And so, you know, a tube of white might weigh four times as much as a tube of black. And you think, ⁓ no, black and white, they must be the same, but they're
Keith: Mm. Mm.
TIMOTHY HULL: They're totally different compositions and minerals and and the students are always kind of blown away. And I'm like, well that's like the reality of working in oil paint is there's actually a a a a reality to it. It's not
Keith: It's so cool. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean I think yeah. Is I think about the periodic table. Science girl. Yeah, the cobalt, the cadmium, the like yeah, the different weights. But that's really cool. That's yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. It's it's the periodic table is alive in the elements of pain too. And they react different to temperatures like like in the in the room if the temperature is hot or cold or you know, they they all the paint reacts different to how much medium you put in into it or you know, each they each paint operates in a totally different manner. And I don't think people realize that who work in acrylic or who work or who aren't artists that that each color has its own energy.
Keith: Mm-hmm. I know, it's crazy. Yeah. No. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: and and sort of mineral quality to it, which I think is why I teach oil paint and I think it's such a beautiful medium. You're sort of working with raw earth, so to speak.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I'm excited I'm trying to learn. I did also buy some more like high quality acrylics to kind of also test in acrylic because I'm like, can I even do what I'm trying to do in oil? I mean, I know I can eventually, but I ⁓ yeah. So
TIMOTHY HULL: Well with acrylic you you the only advantage I feel like acrylic is A it dries quickly and B you can get a more stabilized environment for the paints. You know, they they they all react more similarly than oil paint does.
Keith: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think it's also like like somebody like Jack Whitten and Colby Chamberlain had brought this up to me, the writer at one point and we're doing a studio visit, and he was saying the thing about acrylic is that it lends itself to experimentation. ⁓ so you know, and looking at somebody like Jack Witten and seeing the ways that he used acrylic over time and all these inventive things that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do with oil. ⁓ you know, things like scraping into the surface or cutting it up or whatever. And so, you know, it's like I'm I'm very much like an experimenter because I've been working with acrylic, which allows you to do all sorts of things. I've braided it, I've done like anything I can think of, but then I'm like bringing that
TIMOTHY HULL: Were you inspired by the Jack Witten show when you saw it? Were you like, Wow, I need experiment more. I need to be you know, really
Keith: ⁓ my god. I love it. Well, and I also was like so fascinated with his connection to photography, because I'm also connected to photography and he had this thing called a developer. You know, he was like thinking in these terms. So I just felt like so blown away. Yeah, it was amazing.
TIMOTHY HULL: Right, 'cause he was developing the image using a long squeegee, which is very sort of similar to when you're fixing a photograph. Yeah.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Totally. And something also with printmaking, you know, like there's something yeah, I just yeah, he's amazing. So
TIMOTHY HULL: The thing that I was most inspired by Jack Whitten is, I mean, he I mean, let's be frank, like, he wasn't always great at making an image. I mean, there's lots of images he made or paintings that I was like, these are not really that great. But what I did love and what I did think was his genius was his radical and insatiable and incessant experimentation with how to get at images. So really it's like his oeuvre is about failure. It's like there were so many failures, I think there were so many things where I was like, ⁓ that didn't really work, but yo, I really hand it to you for like trying to figure it out. And because most of us don't push the media, you know, we find okay, this is how we make an image, but then we don't push the medium
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: to like its extremo limits, which I feel like Jack Whitten until like the day he died is like, how can I push this medium to the extreme? Almost so it becomes bad or ugly, but I'm gonna do it anyway. And and that and and that was really amazing. And I got a lot of books from that show. I got like a studio diary and I bought ⁓ a book of like different drawings and stuff because I found that his ideas and his process was just like blew my and that's what I've taken from it.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I don't I I don't really I guess that's why I'm like more like a child of Jack Witten than anything, 'cause I don't think like beauty is something that you can you know, you can plan. It's not, you know, I I think like and the and the process itself is beautiful to me, you know. I don't yeah, I don't know. So ⁓ it's just a different expectation of like what you want out of the work, you know.
TIMOTHY HULL: Myself. Yeah.
Keith: So yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. I also really admired that he was, you know, i it's sort of a term that's bandied about a lot, but like a real like artist artist. And what I think of that is, you know, he he didn't really have a big market career for most of his life, but he was still so drawn to just constantly making art and constantly exploring, you know, and he had made sacrifices to have a big loft where he could work and he went to
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: Cyprus, I think it was in the summers and got inspired by antiquity. And he really just lived the artist life no matter what the outside circumstances are. And I feel like that's something I really wanted to learn from him or feel myself is that I I can be an artist feeling like I'm doing amazing, fabulous things, even if I'm not supported by big galleries or a market or whatever. That that's you can operate still in a full and rich way.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Well, I ⁓ you know, one of the ⁓ texts in MoMA said that because he grew up in Alabama, right? yeah, I mean art museums were segregated. Like this was an artist who grew up not being able to go to museums because he was black. So it's like
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.
Keith: you know, that that idea. So he did things like, you know, they said the coal mines. He and his friends would go through the coal mines and so like his whole, you know, ⁓ vocabulary of images and, you know, influence is completely outside what if you grew up going to museums, like what you might expect or what you might, you know, which I yeah, which is really important, yeah, to consider.
TIMOTHY HULL: That reminds me of yeah. Well last yeah, last night I went to a talk with Ken Lum and Alex De Corte at Magenta Plains. And it was really interesting because Ken Lum is a great sort of conceptual artist and also photographer and performance artist. But he's done this series of paintings that are up at Magenta Plains right now.
Keith: ⁓ right. ⁓ yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: And they're all weird text-based paintings. They're very large, graphic, colorful, using text and different manners of legibility. And and Alex was asking him about growing up and studying art. And Ken was like, you know, I I didn't know I wanted to be an artist until I was like at the end of college. He's like, Growing up, we were poor Chinese. We never went to museums. We never went to galleries. I didn't even know.
Keith: Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: You could be an artist. I had no idea that that was like a reality. And so his whole sort of childhood was like, okay, how can I just survive as like this, you know, poor Chinese immigrant? But then when he got to college and was studying chemistry, he took an art class as a as like an assa as like an elective and was like, ⁓ I'm good at this. And this is speaking to me in a totally new and rich way. Let me maybe think about.
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: Being an artist. And you know, now I would say Ken Lum is a pretty celebrated, well-known, established artist. But it's funny how when you you sometimes when you grow up, you don't have to be exposed to art as a child to then come to it later on or be great at it.
Keith: Hmm. Yeah. No, no, it's true, but I mean that's true for so many people, I feel like. So so many people who become great artists aren't don't you know, ⁓ because and then in some ways it's freeing because you don't have those expectations of I think there's just something, you know,
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: This idea of a segregated museum where you can't even attend. I mean to think that you might be a child. I mean, you might be a child interested in art and you're picking up on all these things or you like to draw, but you can't go to a museum. I mean, that's just yeah. So
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, it's why. Well I I w after the talk I went up to Ken who I don't know but I just I just met him and I said that I came to the talk because I found his paintings to be a breath of fresh air in the art world right now because they're very graphic, they're very textural, they're very intellectual, they're t colorful, they Are really against the grain of 99% of what you see in galleries right now. And so I just wanted to support that because he's beating to his own drum and I really appreciate that. He's going against the grain. That's really cool.
Keith: really cool. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I love the palettes. I'm looking at them on my phone. ⁓ I want to go see that.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. I don't know why Alex Descortes in particular was interviewing him. I think they have a Philadelphia connection, but I don't know if they had worked together or studied together or anything like that. But but it was an interesting conversation between the two of them.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. I feel like the cro there are ⁓ a lot of squares and like this palette, this like poppy palette, this graphic. I could see like some some sympathetic, aesthetic ⁓ thing things going on between both of their work. You know, maybe there's some kind of you know, there's definitely some kind of maybe. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, and Ken Lum works also in sculpture and performance, which Alex Descorte also does too. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of connections between the two. But I was also feeling connected to Ken's paintings as well because of the palettes, because of this square size, because of the use of like text or glyphs that are both legible and illegible. So I I wanted to align myself a little bit with what he was up to.
Keith: ⁓ cool. Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Totally. Yeah, that's really cool. Well, I feel like I saw no, did I see any art this week? No. Besides my storage, which is like a shit show. ⁓ Hane and I were ⁓ god. Yes, it's hell. I moved in because it's it's ⁓ 200 square feet and like temperature controlled, and it's like way out. It's like in Livingston's like another 20 minutes for me.
TIMOTHY HULL: Ha ha ha. You have an off site storage.
Keith: But I moved in 'cause it was like two hundred dollars a month. It's now twice that, like in no time. In no time. They're just like I yeah. So that's it's kind of annoying to me 'cause I don't know how expensive it's gonna get. ⁓ but it's totally necessary 'cause I have so many huge like crates and like yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: My goodness.
Keith: Anyway, it's packed. Hein and I were sending pictures of our storage spaces back and forth this week. Hers is like all soft sculpture, like these like pillows kind of and mine is like all crates like almost to the ceiling. ⁓ anyway, so I'm trying to accommodate a big work that's coming back and I'm I was in there measuring. I have to climb on top of things that are like eight feet off the ground and like crawl around and ⁓ anyway, it's hell. It's absolute hell. But
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. I have to admit that it's sort of terrible, but I have destroyed work in the past because I just didn't want to store it. And I was like, I was you know, I sometimes get like a really rigid and disciplinarian attitude with my art where I'm like, listen, you went out into the world, you were in this show, you were in that show, nobody bought you, no one wrote about you, you are a failure, and you've come back. Now I now I'm destroying you. And I've done it. I've totally destroyed pieces that I just felt like
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Ha Huh. ⁓ my god. You better you better earn your keep earn you better earn your pay your rent.
TIMOTHY HULL: That no one cared about, no one resonated with, it came back. Exactly. I mean, I tell my paintings before they go out to a show, I'm like, okay, bye-bye, go out and earn a living. Like, don't come back. Like I, you know, I I believe that sometimes talking to the paintings can help. But I also feel like sometimes you I I don't know, I feel like I need to just let go of something.
Keith: huh. That's so great.
TIMOTHY HULL: That maybe just I don't know, maybe it wasn't good. Maybe it wasn't a great painting and I don't know why it was in the show or why whatever, but like nobody resonated with it and now I'm like, ugh and I don't want to store it. So I'm just like, you know what? Go you're gone.
Keith: Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and why shouldn't we like be why do we have to be like saddled with all of this, you know, ten year old stuff, like our old selves or something? I don't know. It's like I I think the one piece that's coming back is not gonna fit because the crate is too tall for the door.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.
Keith: And so I think it's gonna have to go in my garage, which is not temperature controlled. And this is the first time that I'm putting like an existing work, which I realized when I curated the show at Boski a couple years ago that there were artists that had to re like if it was a historic work, they had to like re-work it or they had to re-like construct it basically because it had been in storage and not like super well protected.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ wow. Yeah.
Keith: So it's like, okay, well, this is a thing that people do, particularly if they don't own you know, if they own it and they have to s put it in some sort of storage situation, like they might have to restore it. So I'm like, Well, if I put it out there and something happens to it, I'll have to restore it. Like if if somebody wants it for something or I don't know, in twenty years if I'm still
TIMOTHY HULL: I now have two registers of storage. I have storage in my studio, which is climate control, but I can only store maybe like twenty paintings in there. And then I have a barn that's from like eighteen fifty, which is almost falling apart, but it's, you know, has a roof over it. And in that barn I store maybe
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: you know, another fifty percent of the work that's much older that maybe isn't as precious or I've had to wrap in like more plastic. But that so those are my like two storage bases. And fortunately I I own them so I don't have to pay the monthly rent because otherwise the you know you get into the problem like you have where that becomes part of your overhead and do you want to expand it or contract it or you don't have really a all that much control over it.
Keith: Mm. Right, right, right, right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've just started taking things that can s withstand any temperature out and putting the things that need to be there in rather than getting because it's tempting just to be like, all right, give me another one, you know, like just to add another storage space. But I've learned that it's a racket because also this comp this company that I'm renting from, if I go another 30 minutes or I go into Pennsylvania, it's the same price, even though you're in the middle of nowhere, literally.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. ⁓ definitely.
Keith: They just s they just charge the same price no matter where you are. It which is like real estate everywhere, I guess, but
TIMOTHY HULL: You know, there's that that gallery upstate called the campus that a bunch of galleries got together and and bought a school. But what I came to realize actually when I was there last year is it's a really genius idea for storing. Like actually they they use the majority of that place is from what I understand is storage. So all those galleries are sharing not just the exhibition spaces, but they're actually really sharing
Keith: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. As storage. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: the the storage space where they can store and so many rooms that are like air conditioned and or heated that are all for storage. So I thought well that
Keith: The storage. Yeah. Our first storage. I was I was wondering about that because there was no air conditioning in the in the actual display rooms. Yeah. Yeah. There is. ⁓ okay. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: No, but the exactly in the actual gallery spaces there's no air conditioning, but in the storage spaces there's air conditioning. And they have a van that sort of every day is going back and forth if they need to bring art from their ga from their respective galleries to the campus or back and forth. So that's an interesting model for like how to sort of crowd share what is very expensive for galleries. A big expensive galleries is storing artists' work. And a big expense for artists is storing.
Keith: Back and forth. Yeah. So Totally. Totally. I was trying to help collectors of mine find storage. They wanted something in like they were curious about Jersey and like could we develop a big storage or some building that's near the train that we could send our like assistants to like come and bring works back and forth and so I help connected them with the landlord and like go buy this like, you know, forty thousand square foot building like on the edge of Newark or you know, so maybe turn it into something. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, one of my fantasies is to take this old barn that we have on our property and renovate it to be a big studio, and then take the studio I have now, which is above a little carriage house, and turn that all into storage. And so then I would have like a big climate controlled storage area that's not in my studio space because I also kind of storing all this work in the space. It feels heavy.
Keith: ⁓ cool. Yeah. Ugh, dream, dream, dream. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, me too. I know. I know. It's really, really annoying. Is that what? I know. Better art market dreams. When the art market. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that everything we have on storage? Do we have anything else to say about storage? I will say, ⁓ last thing, my mom's storage is their garage. And there's literally like a
TIMOTHY HULL: Those are fancy. Exactly. One one day at a time. One day at a time.
Keith: eighteen inch little pathway that you can get into their garage because there she has so many paintings like taking over the entire garage. So yeah, I'm gonna help her with that at some point.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ my god. I don't wanna get into that that that that's depressing to me. Like I've talked about my Aunt Nancy before and she was a painter and she never had a big market and never sold a lot of stuff. ⁓ but she was very prolific and when she died, she had like hundreds and hundreds of big, beautiful paintings, frame drawings, works on paper. And her daughter, my cousin, was like I
Keith: Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: I don't know what to do with all of this. Like, I can't claim the value of it because then I'll have to pay all these taxes. So I have to act like it's worthless. But, you know, there's so many problems you get into with all that that like I feel like you gotta f I know this artist also in my town who is move who's re sort of moving and retiring and closing out his studio. And he sent me an email and he's like, Can you just come over and take whatever you want?
Keith: Yeah, well how did yeah. Right. yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: He's like, I know you like my work and like I you bought some work of mine in the past, but you know, I just need to get I just need to like offload this stuff and I want someone who likes it to take it. So so I'm like, Okay. You know, if that and I feel like that's generous. That's putting it back out into the world and
Keith: To get it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well you Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I think too, like having some kind of sale, like, even if it's just five or ten dollars, but telling people come buy original art for your home. You know, just like people in a suburban area or in a rural area, like we're having like a one day sale of all this original and I do think people need to pay something because
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.
Keith: I don't think people always like to get things for free, especially if it's gonna be hanging in their home or whatever. They don't really get it. We love to trade and like we would totally be about that, but like regular people wanna pay something. So it's like, you know, just come and get something for your home. I know those walls are bare. I know they are. Cause when I looked at houses, I was like, I was shocked by how little art anybody had. It's like just like
TIMOTHY HULL: Mm-hmm. absolutely. Yeah.
Keith: Terrifying. Like wha are you kidding me? So, you know, people should get art for their homes, even if it's yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: You know what what I did which what saved my life is when when we bought our house, it sucked all the money I had to buy the house. So but I needed to renovate this studio, which was this two car garage carriage house, which had a second floor, which needed all new walls, lighting, heating, and I couldn't work in there without any of that, but I didn't have any. Extra money now after buying the house. And so what I did was I had a studio sale where I was like, okay, everyone, I need help to renovate this studio that I that I want to move into at my house. Can you know I'm gonna sell all this work at like really great prices, but it's for this thing. And it really worked. I mean, I raised you know eight, nine, some thousand dollars.
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: Just from selling like a little painting here for $500 or drawing for $200, but it accumulated in a way that I was then able to actually renovate my studio in a way that could keep me working. And so I'm so thankful for a community that can help you do that. And also my own generosity being like, Yeah, this painting in a gallery might be like six thousand dollars, but I'll give it to you for a thousand right now because I just need the money.
Keith: It's amazing. So cool. Yeah. Yes, 'cause I'm d yeah, totally, totally. That's really cool. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: So there's always a deal to be had. But I do think that that that saying, ⁓ I'm having this sale explicitly for this benefit, I think is important.
Keith: Mm. Right, right. That's a really cool. Yeah, maybe I should do that. I wanna build a I wanna tear down my garage and build like or get like a prefab in its place, prefab studio setup. So
TIMOTHY HULL: You should you probably have enough room there to you know, expand even more into your lawn or something to have a slightly bigger
Keith: Yeah, to have yeah. So it will be at least four hundred five.
TIMOTHY HULL: Because I do think that I do think that Gina, having your own studio at your own like homestead is the most sustainable way of being an artist now because then you're already already paying like your mortgage, so you might as well just bundle it into that other than having to pay you know, twelve hundred dollars or something extra for a studio rent, which is amazing.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally. Yeah. So what else is going on? What else?
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, I was so sad to hear about all these artworld deaths. That's been sort of depressing. Like Steven Stewart just passed away, who is of our generation, and I worked very closely with him like 20 years ago. But we did some projects together, and he was such a wild dude. I mean, he was sort of like a real wheeler and dealer type, but he loved the art and he loved getting into a conversation.
Keith: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Mm.
TIMOTHY HULL: And I had been I'd lost contact with him in the past handful of years, maybe last last during COVID, I had spoken to him. But I I'd understood that he had sort of had some hard times and was finding a difficult footing as we all do, a sort of middle age, mid-career. Like, where am I? Who am I? Where is this going? What am I doing? Where you know, Josh Kleining left and right. And I think that ⁓
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: You know, I think it took a toll.
Keith: Yeah, that's really sad. He had had Kansas Gallery in Tribeca, one of the like ten years ago or so, right? Ten, twelve years ago. Bef yeah, before yeah, totally. And I was in a c at least one one group show there. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ really liked him. Yeah, he was really
TIMOTHY HULL: Yes. Yeah, but before when Tribeca felt like a frontier of art, it was like who had He was a bit. Well he had such a great eye and I really I really resonated with him because he I I feel like the art that he liked was both intellectual but very like pop and color inflected. So like, you know, work like yours or maybe like mine or like Ethan Greenbaum you know, like like work that that
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: looks cool, like looks pretty, but also has like a lot of interesting ideas or plays with the image in a unique way. And I feel like Steven was really dedicated to work like that. So it's a loss.
Keith: Yeah. That's really a loss. Yeah. And then ⁓ well, really, really sad. Really just like really tragic. Well, I'm I knew Hilde back when she was in Miami working, I think she was working with Nina Johnson even ⁓ 2012.
TIMOTHY HULL: And how did you feel about Jerry Gagosian? So did you really follow Jerry Gagosan? Were you like a a regular follower? So you knew Hilde before she was Jerry g took on the Jerry?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. And she was just so outgoing and kind and smart. So smart. just so cool. So then when she became Jerry Gagosian, ⁓ you know, I was following along with those brilliant memes. I think at one point I paid five dollars a month to her Patreon. ⁓ yeah, but it's one of those things where
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ wow.
Keith: She became so busy and I think I was really busy also. And then there's the sort of persona in the way a little bit, ⁓ in terms of like getting in touch with her or you know, so we would DM sometimes, but it wasn't, you know. and I think most recently I was just really sad to see sh her sort of she had more of a public kind of breakdown like over the last like year or two. And it and I've been reading so many books, like the Lena Dunham book, or just reading various books about women's lives who where they go off the rails and I don't know, and and they end up fixing themselves. So it was like really rooting really rooting for her, really hoping that it was one of those stories that was gonna come back around and ⁓ anyway, it's just really sad. So ⁓
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, you know, I I never really followed the Jerry Gagoshin account. I always found it to be like a little snarky. I mean, I liked the snarkiness at the beginning and I did follow it at the beginning. But when she became sort of more public about it and it became more of this like high flying jet setting lifestyle art world brand thing, I was like, I don't wanna see that. Like that doesn't interest me.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: Like it's become now like it's kind of became like gross to me. Like I just wasn't I just was didn't think it was smart anymore. I thought like it seemed exploitative of the whole art world ecosystem that wants to be like flying on private jets and going to fancy, you know, Dusty foundation dinners and like all you know. And so I just was like, all right, well this this has sort of lost its edge to me.
Keith: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ and but I do remember I followed her vis-a-vis the Art Daddy because the Art Daddy ⁓ really went after Jerry Gagosian when she was having her public breakdown about like the election or wokeness in the art world. And the art daddy was having like none of that. And and I think that it it got a little out of hand. I do think the Art Daddy was almost like borderline harassing Jerry Gagosian or
Keith: Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: Or exploiting the breakdown, but I also felt a lot of the ways that the art daddy did too. I was like, Yeah, I kind of agree, like, you know, maybe this is a weird, you know, may comeuppance or something, or like, you know, what goes around comes around, like sort of thing.
Keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I didn't see I didn't see any of that. The breakdown I'm talking about is, you know, thinking that she was going to have she was gonna finally be able to sort of make a living or make money. ⁓ and or have these opportunities. And I have no idea what happened to the opportunities or how they didn't work out, whether it was just never going to be, or whether there was some element her of her own involvement. I have no idea. But ⁓ she ended up in the hospital in London. ⁓ this it wasn't about politics or anything. It was very it seemed very personal, like a very personal breakdown. And then I know she took some like blows at people on her way. you know, and said something about a you know, a close friend of mine where I wanted at the time to DM her like, you don't have all the information. You know, this is like like online constantly or even us when we're talking about things, it's like you don't always have all the information about someone. So you it's har it's a good lesson in judging people because you really don't know. And I mean for her too, like I you know, but I At the time I was like and then I thought, let me just leave it because she's obviously going through something and ⁓ but it was much more of an actual like this person is kind of falling apart at like personally and like what ⁓ but there was a lot of resentment like towards the art world, like as though I put a lot of time and effort into this thing. Why can't I make it into something where can make a living? Which, you know, ⁓ yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: That's why I said she was like Josh Kleining. I feel like there's that feeling of like I've been putting in the time, I've been putting in the work. People have called me a genius, people have called me gifted. Why am I still like not able to afford groceries or something? You know? And I feel like
Keith: Mm. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. And and at the heart of that there is a real exploitation. You know, people are very happy to like consume all your content and, you know, get your get their laughs and get a little knowledge and, you know, but then not
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, we're not even.
Keith: you know, financially support you anyway. You know, I don't know. I mean I think that's that's one of the truths about the art world in general that is like very heartbreaking, you know, and consumes a lot of people, unfortunately, you know, disappoints a lot of people and ruins people's lives. And ⁓ so yeah, the lesson of that.
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, because it's sort of like the Faustian bargain. It like sometimes success in the art world giveth, but it also taketh away. You know, like there's
Keith: Right, right. And fame, the certain kind of artworld fame does what fame does everywhere, you know, which can be a trap. ⁓ yeah. So
TIMOTHY HULL: That's what actually spe ⁓ speaking of you know a trap, so to speak, but I went to ⁓ evening of critique at the gallery in Crown Heights and I couldn't stay for the whole thing, but they started off with B. Wirtz and looking at his work and and talking about it, and B was there and he was saying that he's you know, had a long career.
Keith: Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: A shown with big galleries from feature to Metro Pictures and now with Garth Green in. But he was like, I've actually been lucky that I've never been too successful that I had golden handcuffs that made that forced me to make the same, you know, image or the same sculpture like over and over again. He's like, I've been able to continue to work in a way that's always experimenting and always doing something weird new.
Keith: Mm. Mm. That's awesome. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: And no one e necessarily expects me to always be doing the same thing. And and I think it was Florence who said, ⁓ yeah, you know, that's the artist artist. Like that's you know, again back to that term, like you know, that and that's why I think we all love B word so much. Not only is he like a fun, goofy, you know, very kooky person, but he also is just like living his most authentic life all the time.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.
TIMOTHY HULL: And yet has worked with great galleries and has been in had like 50 solo shows and is, you know, is still out there doing stuff. And I get the feeling that he doesn't expect anything from it. You know, in the way that like someone like, you know, Hilde is like, ⁓ I've done all this work, I should be making a living, or Josh Klein's like, I'm famous, why do I have to feel like I can't live here? I feel like B words is like, I don't care. I'm just making my work. Nobody owes me anything.
Keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: I'm just, you know, kooky and weird. And I love that. Like that to me is sort of like I I was really inspired by that. No, I don't think it does.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Does does B t teach? Yeah. Does B so how how does he do it? Does he have a real estate investment?
TIMOTHY HULL: I I got the feeling that his wife perhaps had a more steady job and maybe she was sort of keeping it regularly afloat. But I also get the feeling between having showed with feature and Metro Pictures and Garth Green in and various good galleries, I'm sure he was still selling stuff here and there enough to, you know, keep something going.
Keith: ⁓ yeah. Maybe we need to like we But he's like he's in his seventies. I mean, I feel like we probably have to cut this 'cause we're just speculating about h how he makes money, which is my fault. But yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: I think but I think it's fine because we're speculating. I'm not saying any w one way or another. But I think it's interesting to though to look at someone like
Keith: Yeah. But how how does one who is in their seventies ⁓ put together enough of a life in New York City? ⁓ you can't do it. I'm sorry. I I c you can't, you know.
TIMOTHY HULL: But you know what I love too though is that here he was, like he is in his seventies, and he's been chosen to be in this very young hip show by y much younger artists. And I was like, wow, I I really hope that when I'm in my 70s, there's like 30, 40-year-old artists who are like, ⁓ Timothy Hull's work is really cool. Let's put him in this show. So that's another thing I thought was so inspiring.
Keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mhm. Yeah. ⁓ I think it's really great. I I think I'm just saying if you break down ⁓ the kind of I mean, I know his materials are very modest, so it's like he doesn't write. So that's so maybe there is some trick there with studio space or lack of a need for Yeah. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yes, they're all found up. He did no, he did, Gina, he did talk about that. How how he he's been able to sustain himself also as an artist because his materials are found objects. None of his materiality is expensive. It doesn't need a lot of storage. It all folds down really small. Like he was he talked a lot about sort of keeping it lean. And I think that's probably another way he's been.
Keith: Mm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. Very yeah. Yeah. That's probably a big, yeah, a big reason for it and why he'd be a good model for this time that we're in. Like how can you how can you be really resourceful and have as little expense as possible, you know, to make what you want to make.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.
Keith: That's really cool. Yeah. And they were just critiquing works in the gallery. Was that
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah, so it was an idea that Florian had that was trying to sort of play off with like a little bit of a grad school type models. ⁓ your work is up in this exhibition setting. Let's discuss it. And, you know, I in my fantasy I wished it was a little bit more grad school critical, like really pushing someone on like, well, what's this about? Why are you doing this? What what are you trying to achieve? You know, like a little bit more intellectual pushing. It ended up being a little bit more
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: like you know pra just praising the work or
Keith: You're s you're so tough, Tim. We are the opposite. I'm like a teddy bear. Like I I'm a hundred percent. You're like ⁓ right.
TIMOTHY HULL: Ha ha ha. I don't know. I sometimes I just want to be held to account, you know, or hell or hold someone to account because I hold myself to account. So, you know, I but but I did enjoy listening to the artists talk about some of their ideas or their work or how they do it. It was more the other people who annoyed me who were like, ⁓ this this painting reminds me of a Bach fugue from you know 1781 and you know, just sort of like over overpacking, over intellectualizing.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: Which felt like you're just blowing smoke up somebody's ass kinda.
Keith: Yeah, well I'm not if if you invite me to like critique or go th well, first of all, I think the concept of critique is p potentially on its way out. Do you think I mean I well but I was also thinking about this with like Ajay Curian's project where it very much rejects the idea of critique. Like nobody is in in in any position to tell you, you know
TIMOTHY HULL: I know. I've d ⁓ absolutely.
Keith: about your work from a stance on high, basically. I that's sort of the idea ⁓ you know, I think, ⁓ and also the critique is kind of this old system of like, you know, the master and the master artist teach you know, that kind of dynamic. And it's like it doesn't work anymore, especially when people are making work from their own experience, which may be totally different from anything that you've ex you know, how how do you critique that? You can't, you know.
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, in my teaching, I I we do critiques, of course, like when the students do a body of work, I'm like, okay, we're critiquing it. But I always remind them that to me, and what I'm trying to teach them is that this is constructive criticism. So, you know, you're not just saying, ⁓ I don't like your use of blue. You're maybe saying, I think your use of blue could perhaps be more vibrant. Or maybe if you you know juxtaposed it with more
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: cadmium red here, it could really make your point more clear. You know, like to to say like, you know, sure, the the painting, you know, could use some help. And these these are my ideas and maybe how it could arrive what to what you're saying about it more clearly. And so that to me is like constructive you know, I don't want like a crit where someone's like, This sucks, get out of here, you know.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I I'm honest I'm always just trying 'cause like I've definitely had situations when I'm visiting artists like in grad school or in undergrad, but like in grad school where I walk in and I remember one situation where there was like one little thumbnail sized something. And then I had to like discuss it with the artist for like forty five minutes or something like that. And like so I've gotten very good at like almost becoming like a therapist, like where can we go? Where can I draw something out here? Or even walking, I'll walk into a studio and be like, ⁓ my God, so many issues that I see. But then I have to realize like that's my perspective. And like I I'm gonna tell them to basically make my work. Like my critique is going to guide them towards what I like, you know, if I'm not careful. Like So I have to figure out what they're trying to do and how I might like get in there and ask them the right questions to get them closer to something that eventually would make sense to me, you know. I don't know. But it's like very, very tricky. Like I don't yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: critiques, if I'm asked to do like a Grad critique, ⁓ is I'm into ⁓ the idea defending ⁓ why you're it. Like, why, why, you know, this sounds sort of harsh, but like, why are you wasting your time doing this? Why are you wasting all of our time doing this? Like, what what is your voice? What are you trying to say? What are you trying to get at? Like, what why are you driven to do this? Like, because ⁓
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: As we know, being an artist is not easy. Getting attention is not easy. And so I feel like if you really want to do it, if you really want to make it, if you really want to sustain it, you need to be very clear as to why you're doing it and why you think it's important. And so I often get a little aggressive about like, you know, why why is this important? Like, why should I care about this? And because I'm the public right now.
Keith: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: And like I'm maybe someone who might buy it or someone who might write about it. So like, you know, and that that's when I go into a higher level critique, that's sort of what I want to hear from the artist. Like, you know, almost like def Yeah.
Keith: Mm. Yeah. It's like a defense of it. Well, what ⁓ so you walk into a studio and you really cannot stand the art and you do that, like def tell me what this is about to sort of defend it. Is it possible for someone to give you such a r like a reasoned like defense of it that it brings you around? ⁓ okay. Yeah. ⁓ cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: And Yeah. Absolutely. That happens to me all the time. I feel like I have a visceral reaction to somebody's work. I'm like, ⁓ I don't like this or it I it's not resonating with me. But when I maybe read the press release or I hear ⁓ maybe I go to lecture, hear them talk about it, or they're defending it to me, I'm like, ⁓ I totally see why you're doing this and even though I still might not like it, I'm I'm I'm totally behind you in terms of why you're doing it and I will promote it and
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Right, right, right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you I think that's such a crucial component and also just to like the way that we talk about our friends who are artists or like being in the art world in general is like once I have a connection with the person, sometimes like I don't understand work, then I meet the person and I understand so much more about them.
TIMOTHY HULL: You know, whatever because Yeah.
Keith: And I get it. It's like it makes so much more like some people are walking embodiments of their work in a way or the things that they're fascinated with. I don't know. It just makes sense. So it's like such a crucial part of meeting other artists and like so and then why you end up supporting other artists, why it's like hard to like shit on people, you know, back to what we were talking about last time. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: You know who I really wanted to critique yesterday was ⁓ Julie Moretu. I went to her show at Marion Goodman and I was like, she needs a good critique, you know, because she's definitely an artist who is good and is very famous and very celebrated. But I I felt like a little bit like this show was resting on her laurels a bit too much. And I felt like really depressed.
Keith: Uh-huh. ⁓ yeah. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. ⁓
TIMOTHY HULL: And it it felt it felt joyless in many there was there were two paintings that were amazing. Two paintings that were like, she's a genius, I know why she's great, she's the best. But there were more of the paintings were like, this is profoundly like end-time painting or something. It's like very heavy and dark, and the the the framing substrates were like.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sorry. ⁓ huh.
TIMOTHY HULL: oppressive and the colors were drab and the mark making was like sort of ⁓ mannerist and meaningless and I was like she she needs to kind of have a good little critique here and you know step out of her own monkey house a little.
Keith: Yeah. ⁓ wow. Yeah, no, I saw I sorry, I was coughing that entire time. Sorry. No, I think that's really interesting and really I I went to the first floor when they had it open during that like ch like Tribeca night. The the first floor. Well
TIMOTHY HULL: That's the most depressing room I thought. That was the room that like she's in her own like you said with the monkey house, like she's in her own head of like throwing shit around and going crazy, but it's just a reverberating room. And it's like, can you get outside of yourself for a moment and really see this objectively?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well I had a hard time focusing because I was I was looking at the one painting next to Merrill Streep. So I was like I and she had like glasses on. She looked at me like, Don't you dare say that. Don't you recognize me, you know? So I was like, ⁓ my god, there's Meryl So I'm like, focus, focus. And it was kind of ⁓ a little bit mobbed and then I was too like afraid of crowds to take the elevator to the second floor. So I missed off the show because I was just like, I don't want to wait in an elevator, which is pretty lame. But
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ right. She the only part of the show that really had like joy and fun and like childlike intrigue to it were her drawings. She has a a suite of drawings that are really that I'm like, ⁓ this is why, you know, we always say that sometimes drawing reveals more or drawing is more essential. Like you look at her drawing and you're like, ⁓ she's still got it. There's just the paintings have become too mannerist and too marketable and too much like ⁓
Keith: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ⁓ that's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Interesting. Yeah. I I have my own observation though that I kept thinking about Avery Singer. And I think maybe Julie, both in the display and installation of those works and also in some of the mark making, because she's using like airbrush, even though ⁓ you know, Avery who which came first, obviously Julie Morettu, but like they're they're
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.
Keith: somehow the two of them are some of those works are starting to look or is resonant with each other. I don't know.
TIMOTHY HULL: I felt that way with Jaclyn Humphreys work too. I thought that some of the Julie Maritu paintings had a mechanical quality to them, like almost a silk screening mechanical quality that looked like very Jacqueline Humphreys as well. I didn't so much get Avery Singer, but can you maybe explain that a little bit more?
Keith: Mm-hmm. Mm. Well, just the mark making the air and I think it's partly the airbrush, but the layering of the airbrush, ⁓ which I know some of that has been going on for a while, but the looseness of it or the kind of spray quality of it was starting to remind me a lot more of some of Avery's works, more recent work. ⁓ and then the display, I mean, Abr Avery had done, I don't even know, ten or fifteen years ago a show where the works were kind of displayed in in the space like that on these metal
TIMOTHY HULL: in big titanium frames. I mean, I don't understand the big like I walked in there, I'm like, but why are why these big and if I had a critique with her, I'd be like, Why these big, thick titanium frames?
Keith: I think it's just again, I I I if I'm I have no idea, but like I would say she I think she's seen Avery Singer's installation techniques because this is something but but that's also other people have copied that I think from Avery over the years. So it's like but still I I yeah, it's just one of those things that I picked up on. You know, whether I'm right or wrong.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. So at the end of the day, I feel like I there were some paintings that were really good. The drawings are really great, but I also feel like we could we could have done a a fun critique in that show. Cause I went to the Fred Tomaselli show around the corner and I f and I think that was a James Cohan. And he's sort of a similar generation using a lot of poured resin and mark making and stuff. And ⁓ his work was great. Like I
Keith: A critique. Yeah, that's really great. Yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: I was like, ⁓ he's still got it. He's doing some interesting stuff. There's fascinating experiments with layering. you know, little some of some New York Times collages that I'm like, well, you've seen one New York Times collage from everyone, you've seen them a thousand times. But but I did enjoy the Fred Thomaselli show.
Keith: Awesome. That's really cool. ⁓ I didn't see any art, as I said. I did wanna say one more death this week that I thought was very sad was ⁓ Marjan Satrapi, who is the author of the of Persepolis, the graphic novel and Persepolis two and I think possibly other works. ⁓ I don't know, it just broke my heart. ⁓ she's in her fifties. That is the most amazing graphic novel. Like you know, it's not expensive. You should go get it right now. ⁓ particularly as it relates
TIMOTHY HULL: Right. They made a movie about it too. I think she like illustrated the movie.
Keith: Yes, there's a movie. Yeah, there's a movie too. So you could do that too. But like it's a brilliant you know, graphic novel and it tells the history of Iran in a way that is really relevant to what's going on today. ⁓ you know, so makes you just feel awesome.
TIMOTHY HULL: And I I I was so sad to know that she basically died of a broken heart. Her husband had died last year and she's like, Well, I'm so sad now, I'm just gonna fade away and I mean that's very sad, but it's also very romantic and beautiful.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ Well yeah, it's really yeah. yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ I wanted I I wanted to say add one other thing I saw which I really love was was the Lily Verstoker show, which was at Kaufman Repetto slash Portolamy. ⁓ and I don't know if you know Lily Vander Stoker's work, but it is hilarious. It's like it's like it's like weirdly feminizing, queering Lawrence Wiener's work, so to speak. Like, ⁓
Keith: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ cool. ⁓ nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love her work. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
TIMOTHY HULL: It's like conceptually about like text and like simplicity of image, but it's also sort of Kerry Liebowitz like. Like it's very like ridiculous, wacky words that that yeah, that really make you think. And I I love the show. It's sort of really it hit it was also making fun of like sign making, like those like live, laugh, love sort of sign making techniques and
Keith: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Carrie Leibowitz is the good. Yeah. It's a good connection. ⁓ yes, yes. Such a rich
TIMOTHY HULL: I feel like she was also a feature artist. Maybe she showed a feature back in the day. but I really enjoyed that show. I think that you should people should look up ⁓ Lily Van der Stoker's work or go see the the show and how it was super fun.
Keith: ⁓ that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I would ⁓ I'm gonna do that for sure. I had other things I'm trying to think. ⁓ well, I did you see that the Trump administration, sorry, I just want to bitch about this for a second, that they want to close federal loan access under new earnings test. A proposed Department of Education rule set to take effect on July first would strip federal loan access from graduate programs whose alumni fail to out earn.
TIMOTHY HULL: No.
Keith: Bachelor's degree peers in their field. A New York Times analysis found that Yale's MFA programs in visual arts and music, Harvard's Masters in Museum Studies, and Juilliard's graduate music programs would all fail the test. So basically you're not going what? What?
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. I don't know about Yale's I don't know about Yale's MFA program. I feel like that's like the only program that still seems to mint ⁓ pretty big stars. Sure.
Keith: so you have, I mean, we can count probably on one hand the number of like but but think about every year there's sixty more or whatever it is. Like those are large. But ⁓ back to the original point, which is that if you apply for federal student loan for your master's degree, which I mean, I would not have a master's degree without that.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, sure. Me neither, totally.
Keith: then if you can't out earn what then you won't get money from the federal government. So ⁓ just another another fucking assault.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. I just want to say, I just want to say on that note that I graduated from my MFA program 20 years ago this month. And at the end of this month, I will have finally paid off my graduate student loan 20 years later. So I'm very excited about it.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Which is like it's a it that's awesome. But it's also like it's a loan. It wasn't money. And in fact, I mean ⁓ mine was like thirty six thousand or something. ⁓ and it's I've paid off like seventy five thousand you know, it's so far beyond what it what it originally, you know, they got their pound
TIMOTHY HULL: Me yeah, me too. Yeah. I've like paid it back three times the amount of probably whatever I borrowed.
Keith: Exactly. They've got their pound of flesh. I mean the the only curious thing will be will the actu like this is federal loans, you know, this but this is the government. If he decides to cut off this money, they said it could be up to 40% of enrollment at MFA programs. ⁓ just another assault ⁓ from this absolutely hostile, disgusting administration. So I just wanted to I i I definitely had some sleepless nights, you know, every week there's a new thing, there's the voting rights thing. This week it was this.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.
Keith: This had me like, ⁓ they they think we're garbage. If you can't earn, you know, so what what do we do? We go get business degrees? Do I go like to Stern and then become an artist? I'll just be like, What what anyway.
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, it's funny though, because actually as artists now, like as contemporary artists, I do feel like you need to be business savvy. Like we're like, you know, to to actually be an artist, you don't just have to be talented at making art, but you have to know how to run a small business for small business.
Keith: Well, what do you mean by being be an artist though? I mean, do we wanna talk about being an artist or do we wanna talk about running an art business? You know, 'cause those are two different things.
TIMOTHY HULL: Well, I guess I'm saying like being right, I'm saying ⁓ let me just clarify then that then being a professional artist who's trying to make money from their art. Like I feel like you need to be sort of have an entrepreneurial standpoint of being a small business. Yeah.
Keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. But you also need to have money. You have to have people actually buying the product in general. Like it has to be an actual market marketplace. But like it has to be an actual marketplace that can support that. Like you can't like beat yourself up for not being a savvy enough businessman because like, you know, nobody's buying art. Like, ⁓ you didn't kiss the right asses. What you know, what I don't know. I don't ⁓ you know.
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. That's why I tell everyone I know who has any money, I'm like, buy art, buy art.
Keith: Buy art, create a marketplace where we actually do need to have a little bit of a business because otherwise it's like you can have all the business sense in the world, but like, you know, if the market is not there or I mean, I don't know. So I'm not in the mood to be ⁓ yeah, to be consoled, Tim. but I also the last thing I had was that I read this article on Vice, How to Escape the Twenty First Century, Adam Curtis talks to Dean Kissick. ⁓ and it's Vice magazine. I guess they're back. Okay. I sign up for a free account that I'm a I'm canceling within the month. But so in the Well, it's free, but I won't be free in a month if I don't cancel it. Yeah, but I I screenshot the whole article. So if anybody wants me to DM it to them, I can. So it's basically a conversation about how artists are failing.
TIMOTHY HULL: Wait, Vice magazine still exists? Yeah. If it's free, why are you canceling it? ⁓ okay, cancel it. What's the gist of it though?
Keith: Contemporary artists are failing the moment, basically. They both feel like we're not making the new forms of art that would be up to this reality that we live in, this other you know, this chaotic moment, both with social media and being online and ⁓ yeah. So I mean I
TIMOTHY HULL: Well I think I am. So they can call me up and we can discuss.
Keith: Exactly. Me too. I'm like, I don't think that critique really works. I also need to know I need to I know with Dean Kissick that he has outlined the kinds of work that he finds interesting and that he feels are like pushing things. So that's cool. But like with Adam Curtis, he keeps talking about like the impressionists and stuff. I need to s know what he thinks since eighteen eighty. You know what I mean? I need to know what he means by like we're not living up to because of course artists are gonna make Maybe it doesn't look the way which I think for a lot of people doesn't look the way that they think it will look. They want it to look r they want it to look roboty. And if it does doesn't
TIMOTHY HULL: Right, but in the eighteen eighties, Cezanne could paint Monsant Victor in a funny way and shock everyone by it. You know, he could paint an apple, you know, in a weird tone and everyone would freak out about it and think it's controversial, but we Yeah. I think we've you know, we've sort of upped the ante here.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. And a loose brush a loose brush stroke. How dare you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is interesting because it's a whole conversation about basically how we're fail the artists are failing the moment, which is like, okay, whatever. But also reminding me of this Andrea Frasier conversation where she had there's a great not to hype another podcast, but the Artnet podcast with Ben Davis, Art Angle. There's an interview.
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ I like that podcast.
Keith: Yeah, there's an interview with Andrea Frazier where she talks a little bit about how there's an element of the art world that hates the art world, that hates there's an element of like antipathy always. She can't really put her finger on it, but there's always like a core of like hating itself. Which I think, you know, maybe we embody that in different ways when we're critiquing things or but but this idea of like a whole article about art which basically says that we suck. Like art artist you know, it's just funny. It's like ⁓ Yeah. We're
TIMOTHY HULL: But I get that too because I both like love our podcasts and I also hate it, you know. And I know that there's people who totally are like, ⁓ I'd never listen to to an art podcast. Well, I don't wanna hear people talking about art you know and
Keith: ⁓ huh. Yeah, yeah. No, no, but it's but it yeah, but it's even just this idea of hating the art world. Like hating the art world but being a part of it. And she's like
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. ⁓ well that's that's every famous artist because they that's a very privileged position.
Keith: No, no, but I mean, don't you think you know people who hate the art world but are in the art world? Like
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, and you actually usually they're pretty successful. They're usually represented by a good gallery, they've been in big shows, they are
Keith: ⁓ no. I think it's I often know people who f hate the art world, who are in it, who have all different sorts of careers. I think there is like a there is a tension there that's like anyway, go listen to her interview 'cause she explains it a lot better. ⁓
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. I mean, sure, I get that too, that that there's d I mean, yeah, let me walk that back just a tab because I definitely know people I mean I mean, hell, I struggle with it myself. Like half the time like our world sucks because it's very exclusive, it can be mean, it can be petty, it can be superficial, you know, but it's like Woody Allen said with at the end of Annie Hall, like the with the you know, his brother thinks he's a chicken and he's like, Well, why don't you turn your brother into the institution? He says, Well, I need the eggs.
Keith: I mean that's yeah. Yes. Right, right, right, right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it.
TIMOTHY HULL: And so that's you know, we're we're sort of like we're like patients in the institution, but we don't even know that we are sort of. Anyway.
Keith: Yeah, yeah. Well, ⁓ I I last thing I wanted to say is like thank you to all the ⁓ I've gotten some ideas for categories. I think ⁓ Mahalchik commented that ⁓ for this idea of an award show that we should have ⁓ the the what is it called? The the dr the dress code should be black tie bikini. Anyway, and then my friend Anna was giving me all these great
TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ right. Like black bikini. Yeah, I'm blacked.
Keith: ⁓ well some of these
TIMOTHY HULL: I'd like the dress code to be Donald Duck where it's like a pantless like you just wear like a shirt but you have no pants.
Keith: So my friend Anna was coming up with some categories, messiest studio, smallest painting, biggest painting. ⁓ I came up with must unho most unholy vagina because I've I you know I'm always like kind of kind of seeing kind of seeing like vaginas and art, you know, which then I was like there has to be like a most handsome penis award also. ⁓
TIMOTHY HULL: Clarity Haynes work.
Keith: Dirtiest fingernails, softest hands. These were all categories that she and I were anyway, so if anyone else wants to send us like some funny But you know, like looking at art, like looking at things we've seen this year, trying to find I don't know
TIMOTHY HULL: I love that most handsome penis. That's a really wet vibe. If that's your an idea of an erection I feel bad.
Keith: Right, right. Best er best direction in a painting. That should be a category. ⁓ for sure. Anyway, so
TIMOTHY HULL: Ha ha ha. You know, it's funny that I like Maholchik was was commenting on our stuff, and he was so excited that I mentioned the Picasso Baby performance that Jay-Z did because Mahalchick did a send-up of that at Lewis B. James Gallery in like 2011 or 2012. It was so amazing. He dressed up like Jay-Z. He stood in the gallery all day singing Picasso Baby, and it was such a great happening.
Keith: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally forgot about that. That was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
TIMOTHY HULL: And he was sort of making fun of how the art world had been so obsessed with Jay-Z singing in a gallery space. And I tried to find some photo because I took a bunch of photographs of it, but I was only able to find something online. I don't know where my photographs went, but if anyone has any video of that, you should send it to us and post it.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, totally. I love that. I love that idea. And I think there's like the art world like freaking out about the celebrity of it is is like so funny. But I also have to say, why not Jay Z in a gallery space though? This is something. Don't no, but I'm just saying, I'm just saying show me no, but show me the artist list of the gallery, the artists they represent. And Jay Z is absolutely
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Sure. I mean yeah, at the end of the day also. Anyone can do That would do Sham taught us.
Keith: at the top. Like he is such an artist. Like he is such a creator and such a an intel like he's not, you know, he's you know, he could be in a gallery as much as anybody else could be in a gallery you know, I d and especially talent wise and contributions to art and music and ⁓ lyricism and phrasing and
TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. Well, maybe you could give him an unstretched award for like most under-recognized but overexposed fine artists.
Keith: Jay Z we miss you. Most millennial, ⁓ very most millennial artist. Yeah, I don't know. Cause it's kinda, you know, he's kind of hasn't made music for a while. ⁓ but yeah, are we getting up there time wise? Yes. Okay. All right, Tim. Bye. See you. Bye. Bye.
TIMOTHY HULL: All right. I think we're I think we can call it a day. All right. Bye everyone. Bye Gina.