There have been many articles and conversations about how music can impact a visual artist creatively. Kandinsky lived off a diet of Wagner, while Paul Klee had a passion for Bach, and Marc Chagall’s whimsical style came partially from years of creating sets and costumes for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942) and Henri Matisse’s Jazz Suite (1947) make no secret of their influence.
However, today artists can also find inspiration and affirmation in podcasts.
While not entirely new – Adam Curry and Dave Winer are credited with the invention of podcasting in 2004 – there has been an energised pick up in recent years of podcasts toned for the visual arts sector.
112 million Americans are said to have listened to a podcast, with 42 million listening weekly. In Australia, this year’s figures saw1.6 million Australians downloading a podcast in an average month, with regular listeners consuming around six hours of podcasts per week.
What do artists want from a podcast? Is it professional advice, arts news or gossip? There’s a podcast for every need and desire.
This is our list of the best 25 podcasts for visual artists:
1. The Hyperallergic Podcast
NY-based Hyperallergic is describes itself as ‘sensitive to art and its discontents’. While the online blog and magazine started in 2009, it was only last year that it launched its podcast series, hosted by co-founder Hrag Vartanian. Here you will find conversations such as Joseph Pierce on Why Academics Must Decolonize Queerness to Shary Boyle’s Exploration of the Fantastic and Political Lives of Clay extending Hyperallergic’s signature activist distruptor style.
2. Bad at Sports
Started in 2005 by Duncan MacKenzie, Richard Holland, and Amanda Browder, the Bad at Sports B@S team describes itself as ‘curious investigator, an archivist, oral historian, and occasionally as a provocateur. We produce content that lies somewhere on the Venn diagram of art, journalism, intellectualism, and all the naughty bits’. It has turned into a massive production team, with presenters moving between artists, curators, critics, dealers and other art professionals. It is a weekly podcast on contemporary art out of Chicago (USA).
3. The Conversation Art Podcast
Having produced over 250 podcasts, The Conversation Art podcast is another long-term project out of America, the passion of artist Michael Shaw who started it in 2011. It became part of the podcast network Cultural Bandwidth in 2018. It takes a more performance-like approach to conversation, as opposed to traditional interview Q&A, moving between the artists studios, galleries, the fringes with frank conversations.
4. Art Guide Australia Podcast
Tiarney Miekus is a Melbourne-based writer who produces the Art Guide Australia podcast. A core feature of the series is a suite of Conversations with Curators, as well as a roll out of conversations with artists about their making.
5. 99% Invisible
Ever wonder who the model was of all New York’s art deco buildings? Produced by Radio Tonic our of Oakland (California, USA), 99% Invisible takes the premise that good design should be invisible. It is about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about – the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.
6. The Modern Art Notes
Hosted by charismatic critic and historian Tyler Green, The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a weekly, hour-long roll out of interviews with curators, artists and the like, produced since 2011. While the program is typically studio-based, it has taped live-audience episodes at stalwart American venues such as the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art.
7. The Lonely Palette
Tamar Avishai believes that art history belongs to us all – and his mission is to return art ‘to the masses, one painting at a time’. In each episode of The Lonely Palette, Tamar picks a painting and interviews unsuspecting museum visitors about it. They dive into the subject matter, movement and social context surrounding each work.
8. Art for Your Ears
‘When I studied art history in university, my favorite part was, well, basically the gossip. I loved hearing why artists did certain things,’ says Danielle Krysa. Art for your Ears was launched in 2015, and is a weekly podcast that extends Krysa’s blog The Jealous Curator. Each episode is just long enough for you to listen while drinking your morning coffee, or during a weekend run, or while working in the studio. Ultimately it’s a chance for all of us to get to know these successful artists, who also happen to be regular people with hilarious stories, before they’re in the art history books.
9. NAVA: in conversation
It was a natural next step that Australia’s national peak body for Visual Artists turns to producing podcasts in conversation with them. NAVA: in conversation is a monthly podcast series between artists, curators and organisations discussing the critical issues and ideas within our sector.
10. ArtCurious
The ArtCurious Podcast, takes a new spin on art history. ‘This isn’t like a college lecture, droning on about archaic art terminology (like chiaroscuro or contrapposto) or the importance of linear perspective (um, okay). We’re interested in the juicy stuff: did Van Gogh actually commit suicide? Was a British painter actually Jack the Ripper? And how did the rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael produce one of the best works of art EVER?’ says host Jennifer Dasal.
Photo by Scott Lahn
11. Art History Babes Podcast
Four fresh Masters drink wine and discuss all things visual culture … and they have done it 130+ times. Need we say any more? A fun podcast that chews on opinions and culture in one huge bite.
12. Talking with Painters
The premise is simple. Talking with Painters is a podcast where Australian painters talk with Maria Stoljar about their life and art. It is local, and it is real.
13. Savvy Painter
Savvy Painter is a weekly podcast for artists who mean business. Host and artist, Antrese Wood dives deep and talks to experts in the business of art – often looking at lessons learned and what habits top artists have in common. Wood is a former Director of video games for Disney, who moved to Argentina and started this podcast.
14. Raw Material
Raw Material is an arts and culture podcast from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Each season focuses on a different topic, featuring voices of artists working in all media. Like most podcasts with a big museum, big support network behind them, Raw Material is rich in material and beautifully produced.
15. The Collective Podcast
The Collective Podcast with host Ash Throp is a cool alternative if you’re interested in dipping behind the creativity’s façade to the individuals at the helm. With over 200 episodes produced, Throp offers a range of conversations with artists, creative directors, illustrators to game designers and programmers, about their work, the struggles they face and how they achieve proper work-life balance.
16. Starving Artist
Podcast veteran Honor Eastly, and creator of Starving Artist, presented a short-run podcast about art, money, and how to combine those things. While it launched and wrapped up in 2017, it remains a fantastic resource to answer the question: ‘How the hell do you make this lifestylework?!’ Eastly asks successful artists really nosy questions about their financial situation … in the hope to find the ultimate truth. When it launched in March 2017 it debuted at #1 on iTunes in Arts, and #10 on iTunes overall, with over 10,000 downloads in the first week.
17. Artsy & The Art Newspaper
Do you enjoy your daily arts news diet? Then The Artsy Podcast is your go for an American bent, or the UK version, The Art Newspaper which is more a global art news wrap. Both offer a yakka about everything from the latest market news, scandals, conservation news, blockbusters and artist protests, among other things.
18. Wowee!
Wowee! is a Melbourne-based podcast that brings together creative communities – a kind of sit down with a cuppa podcast with hosts textile designer Esther Sandler and illustrator Penny Min Ferguson. It has been described as feeling like ‘listening in on a conversation between creative friends’. Wowee! is recorded and produced by Jono Gilmour.
19. The Thriving Artist
While it sounds kind of bland, The Thriving Artist podcast is all about providing business insight for working artists. Created by the Clark Hulings Fund for Visual Artists (USA) it is a great tool if that is the path you are wanting to head down. Relish the insightful interviews with artists, collectors, and gallerists on the idea of visual art as a business.
Tai Snaith and Atong Atem in conversation 2018. Photograph Theresa Harrison, courtesy the artist and ACCA
20. A World of One’s Own
With a nod to Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’ from 1929, artist Tai Snaith has conducted a series of conversations with mid-career and emerging women and non-binary artists whom she admires. The podcast grew out of Australian Centre for Contemporary Art’s lauded exhibition Unfinished Business, and soon became a compelling podcast in its own right. It’s super intelligent, and yet Snaith has a relaxed and humorous approach that keeps it easy listening for our times.
21. The Sculptor’s Funeral
This podcast is not everyone’s cup of tea but it certainly takes the specialisation of a themed podcast to a deep level. Perhaps the only podcast dedicated to figurative sculptors living and working today, The Sculptor’s Funeral moves between tech talk, news, interviews and art history and is hosted by Jason Arkles, who lives in Florence (Italy).
Bonus:
The Art Show is hosted by Ed Ayres and appears in podcast form almost immediately after the ABC Radio National show has aired … and because of that it has a more ‘radio feel than say a theme podcast. In other words, it may not be the freshest or innovative in medium, but it certainly is fresh on national arts news.
