9 Art Podcasts to Listen to Right Now
Enjoyable, informative, and inspiring, explore these art podcasts both during — and long after — the quarantines and curfews.
Whether you’re jogging, driving, painting, wearing a mask, not wearing a mask, stuck at home or outdoors, podcasts not only help pass the time, but might also teach and connect you to something along the way. Now ubiquitous, podcasts have long been appreciated by artists as they hunker down to work, not only as background noise as they crouch before computer screens or canvases, but also as a way to keep them connected to other creative communities while producing their own work.
As COVID-19/Coronavirus may have increased the time many people spend listening to podcasts, The Blue Review wanted to share some favorites so that they can be explored long after the quarantines lift. Hosted by and featuring mostly artists, the following podcasts are produced for — you guessed it — an audience of artists and creatives.
Plug in your earbuds, get your brushes (or laundry or car audio) ready, and listen in to these podcasts which peruse, muse, celebrate, and come clean about what it is to be an artist and make artwork.
Available on: Artist Decoded website | Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Facebook
Perfect for: listening to while brewing coffee and beginning your workday
Artist Decoded began as a “passion project” by Los Angeles-based visual artist, Yoshino, in 2015. Since then, the podcast has grown exponentially but carefully, maintaining quality over quantity even as it approaches over 160 episodes at the time of writing this article. Like Yoshino, many of the guests are photographers. Both abstract and representational painters, writers, tattoo artists, and filmmakers round out the guest list, and despite their varied media, each produces work which adeptly straddles the line between slightly gritty and luminously beautiful.
Despite the achingly cool roster and ambiance of Artist Decoded, this podcast is ideal listening for anyone who’s not an artist. While methods and media are explored, conversations encompass wide-ranging origins and inspirations with openness and nuance. As his guests operate between grit and beauty, Yoshino operates Artist Decoded with a humble underbelly, ultimately conveying universal concepts anyone can appreciate.
Art Grind with Marshall Jones, Sophia Kayafas, Dina Brodsky & Tun Myaing
Available on: Art Grind website | Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play
Perfect for: much-needed company while working into the wee hours
With often-rotating hosts and high production quality, Art Grind podcast’s title is self-explanatory: artists Marshall Jones, Sophia Kayafas, Dina Brodsky and Tun Myaing take it in turn to talk about the grind of a creative life with an array of artists, gallerists, and collectors. Art Grind achieves two goals immediately and simultaneously. Firstly, it reminds the audience that there’s nothing glamorous or romantic about the creative life, and secondly, it also shares how very purposeful that life can be.
Frequently recorded in an old Manhattan apartment and fueled by various libations, Art Grind provides a birds-eye view into both the gargantuan effort and rich output of established painters such as Vincent Desiderio and emerging artists such as Gabriela Handal. The rollicking, curious, and ardent banter between hosts and guests means that listeners, too, can imagine themselves seated on the floor of that apartment, partaking in late-night discussions about art in New York City.
Disclaimer: the author has previously appeared on Art Grind.
Available on: Artist NXT Level website| Apple | Spotify | Google Play | iHeartRadio | Facebook
Perfect for: learning how to advance your art career
Chicago-based artist and host of The Artist Next Level podcast, Sergio Gomez, is the kind of guy whose formidable brain you’d want to pick over a few beers at your local happy hour. He’s friendly and upbeat, but his loaded résumé belies a fierce determination and work ethic. As part of the Art NXT Level community he co-founded online with his wife, Dr. Yanina Gomez, The Artist Next Level podcast not only introduces listeners to both Gomez’ amiability and acumen, but also to that of his worldwide artist and art-savvy guests.
Available on: Dialogues website | Apple | Stitcher | Google Play | iHeartRadio
Perfect for: an insight into the art world’s uppermost echelons
Dialogues is produced by David Zwirner Gallery, a powerhouse with locations in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong which represents artists such as Jeff Koons and Yayoi Kusama. Dialogues even sounds like the proverbial white cube gallery: sleek, minimal, erudite, exclusive. Dialogues does not necessarily feature David Zwirner Gallery’s star-studded artist roster as much as it allows different guests the opportunity to discuss the art world’s most of-the-moment concepts and movements while acknowledging their past, political origins.
Available on: John Dalton website | YouTube | Apple | Stitcher
Perfect for: hearing how figurative painters actually paint
Hosted by the soft-spoken Irish artist, art therapist, and writer John Dalton, Gently Does It … satiates the need for technical, thoughtful, and far-reaching conversations primarily centering around figurative art and the shop talk behind how to make it. Gently Does It … looks at the bigger picture (no pun intended) of how to produce work over expanses of time and experience, sharing information on tools, process, and personal growth along the way.
Available on: Lo-Fi website | Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook
Perfect for: listening to in the coolest dive bar you know
California-born, Paris-based artist John Wentz hosts Lo-Fi: Sight & Sound podcast, in which he converses with artists, musicians, and filmmakers. Many of these guests have ties to, or originated from, the world of illustration and animation, bridging the gap between what’s traditionally considered “high-brow” versus “low-brow” art. Rather than induce pearl-clutching, the guests — whose work, regardless of media, is frank, skilled, and raw — broaden the scope of these conversations, allowing them to cross into different disciplines and back again.
Wentz lends a punk-rock ethos to Lo-Fi, but not in a chaotic sense. Rather, Lo-Fi celebrates those who just do their own thing. There’s no time for conventional high- and low-brow preoccupations when ardently creating the authentic. True rebels are hard to find, and Lo-Fi demonstrates how, rather than intimidate, they focus, hone their respective crafts, giddily geek out, and generously share.
Available on: National Gallery of Art website | Apple | Google Play
Perfect for: art history and/or museum lovers
Washington, DC’s National Gallery of Art presents all its museum lectures — the total of seven different lecture series featuring an array of prominent curators, authors, artists, and historians — as an audio series with new episodes released every Tuesday. Topics range from cats in the National Gallery’s permanent collection to the long-underappreciated Renaissance sculptor and painter, Andrea del Verrocchio, to photographs of the moon in conjunction with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. That gives just a glimpse of the National Gallery’s breadth of programming. More importantly, it demonstrates how the National Gallery so adeptly proves the relevance of art history and art museums by creating content to pique anyone’s interest.
Available on: The Savvy Painter website | Apple | Spotify | Stitcher
Perfect for: friendly encouragement when facing creative block
Hosted by artist Antrese Wood, The Savvy Painter podcast not only introduces listeners to a wide variety of primarily representational painters, but also often demystifies the entrepreneurship inherent in working as an artist. In addition to varied episodes of the podcast which cover everything from materials to our own definitions of success, Wood proves the effervescent line connecting all The Savvy Painter’s dots as they dart from one innovative guest to the next.
Available on: Suggested Donation website | Apple | Facebook | Player FM
Perfect for: remembering that Renaissance men and women still exist
Quick-witted and wry, painters and hosts Tony Curanaj and Edward Minoff’s Suggested Donation podcast leads listeners through informal, sharp, and dexterous conversations. Many of Suggested Donation’s guests hail not only from the world of figurative and representational art, but from the smaller world of ateliers within. While these atelier origins mean that these guests have years of stringent academic training under their belts, their work — and stories — vary widely.
However, Suggested Donation also focuses on the overlap between visual art and other creative pursuits. Curanaj and Minoff interview Chefs Anthony Mangieri and Nick Anderer, violinist and composter Michelle Ross, and filmmaker Bill Plympton, amongst others. An especially pertinent episode features artist Scott Waddell, who combined visual art with video to create precisely the type of online classes now rendered necessary by COVID-19/Coronavirus.
Whether these podcasts increase your appreciation for art, help pass long hours at your own easel, or encourage you to create something for the first time ever, they all prove a diverse and diverting introduction to various figures, ideas, and communities within the art world. Notably, they bridge the pre- and post-COVID gap of time and lifestyle, providing a silver lining: that, because of the expedited virtual connection of our new world, previously distant voices and experiences and creations are now only as far away as your headphones.
Lauren Amalia Redding is an artist and writer living in Naples, Florida. She relocated to the Gulf Coast from New York City to co-found H&R Studio with her husband, the sculptor Brett F. Harvey, in 2018. You can learn more about her work by visiting www.laurenredding.com.
