The Felix Podcast

During the opening day of Felix, we ran into a rare sighting: a retired gallerist voluntarily working at an art fair. While Blum & Poe founder Jeff Poe was filling in for Kirk Nelson at the La Loma gallery booth (or more precisely, hotel room), he took a few minutes to drop by The Felix Podcast. Since his departure from the art world in 2023, he said, he thinks the market has at least righted its course. His dream of opening a totally demented gallery in his former Malibu home, however, was sadly lost to wildfire, and he still laments the fact that no one's properly reading Murakami anymore. Still, Poe seemed happy to be there—I think he misses the art world to be honest. But as he told us, "it's not easy." He's still got a lot of processing to do.

Even A-list Hollywood collectors get waitlisted sometimes. On this episode of the Felix podcast, Josh Brolin and his CAA agent, Joel Lubin, discuss the challenges of collecting, plus the question of what separates bad art from great art.

Veteran Los Angeles art collectors Jarl Mohn and Dean Valentine go way back, having known each other since their executive days in the television industry. Since the '80s, Jarl has headed MTV, VHI, E! and NPR, while Dean was president of Disney Network Television followed by UPN. On this episode of The Felix Podcast, the two get into art philanthropy, their shared history of collecting, how their tastes and approaches may differ, and which gallerist Dean thinks invented the phrase "taking interest."

"35 years of my life I gave to this stupid art world and I'm left with literally nothing." With middle finger raised, artist Frances Stark posted these words to Instagram and quickly went viral, raising questions of how much a conceptual artist can really be herself in an increasingly financialized art world. In this episode of The Felix Podcast, Stark addresses the post as part of a far-reaching conversation about the metrics of artistic success and the waning appreciation for authenticity. Watching the next generation of artists appease and emulate the collector class, she says, feels a lot like being "trapped in the VIP." Also in this episode, Janelle's dispatch from Art Basel Miami Beach includes a review of Beeple's latest work, "Regular Animals," 2025, a piece she describes simultaneously as a less good version of Sun Yuan & Peng Yu's "Old People's Home," 2007, art without art history, and her own worst nightmare. She, Dean and Frances Stark launch into a debate about the tech oligarchy's aesthetic sensibilities (or lack thereof), the difference between "bad art" and "not art" and the modern-day estrangement from the realities of life and death.

Do you believe in omens? In this episode of the Felix Podcast, groundbreaking Los Angeles artist Joey Terrill recalls the sense of foreboding he felt on the eve of the 1980s, a decade of catastrophic loss as the AIDS epidemic ravaged queer communities all over the world. He goes on to describe his lifetime of activism and how it shaped his art-making, a multidisciplinary practice of reclamation, emotional clarity and uncommon wit, now in its sixth decade. Facing today's epidemic of far-right extremism, the artist offers a sound piece of advice to anyone who's wondered what they'd do in similar times of crisis: "You don't have to wonder anymore. The time is now." Also in this episode: Janelle and Dean review the blockbuster "Monuments" show on view at The Brick and MOCA Geffen, reflecting on the power of art as a tool of political persuasion. Hours before Maurizio Cattelan's "America" hits Sotheby's auction block, Janelle also contemplates the golden toilet's reappearance with a similar sense of foreboding, citing the piece as an omen of cultural decay.