EP 036: Catherine Opie

Few have had such an impact on contemporary art as American photographer Catherine Opie. Her decades of work have helped redefine our conception of American identity, landscape, and culture. In this episode of Image Culture, William Jess Laird talks with the artist about her recent work photographing the sites of Confederate monuments throughout the United States and its relationship to Catherine's early photographs.In collaboration with Lehmann Maupin, Opie kept a travel log of her recent journey that can be seen at https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/viewing-room/catherine-opie Stay in touch!@csopie@[email protected]@william.jess.laird@sjlev 

This week I’m sharing a conversation with Dan Thawley, Editor in Chief of A Magazine Curated By. The magazine is unique in the landscape of fashion publications. The project was started in 2004 with the concept that each issue would be guest curated by a fashion designer, who would be given free rein over the content of the magazine.“Each issue celebrates a designer’s ethos: their people, passion, stories, emotions, fascinations, spontaneity, and authenticity.”The magazine presents an opportunity for designers to get beyond just fashion, and show the broader context of their work. The reader is invited to see the world of collaborators, references, and inspirations that contribute to a designer’s perspective. We get to understand the unique point of view of each designer who curates an issue, and, as you get to the final pages, you realize that you’ve had a truly intimate experience.I’m talking to Dan on the occasion of the release of A Magazine Curated By’s 21st issue, curated by Lucie and Luke Meier, the creative directors of fashion house Jil Sander. In our conversation Dan and I talk about his 10+ year history with the magazine, how he became Editor in Chief when he was just 20 years old, and the process behind the scenes of working with the designers. Over the years, Dan has developed a unique perspective on how visual culture influences clothing design.A Magazine Curated By has a great website where you can get a peak into iconic past issues with designers such as Martin Margiela, Thom Browne, Yohji Yamamoto, Simone Rocha, Jun Takahashi and many more. You can find this archive at amagazinecuratedby.com or on Instagram @amagazinecuratedbyDan Thawley is on Instagram @danthawleyI want to thank Dan Thawley, and the whole team at A Magazine Curated By, as well as the Lucie and Luke Meier for putting together such a beautiful, timely issue.Get your copy of A Magazine Curated By Issue No 21 online at amagazinecuratedby.com .Our show is produced by Sarah Levine and our music is by Jack and Eliza. Find us on Instagram @image.culture or @william.jess.laird

On the show today I’m sharing a conversation with fashion designer Scott Sternberg, who founded the cult classic label Band of Outsiders in 2004, and, most recently, a new brand called Entireworld in 2018.We go back through the origins of Band of Outsiders, looking at Scott's idiosyncratic way of creating clothes, to see how this hugely influential brand was created. Scott tells me that the ethos of Band of Outsiders was an idea of making preppy clothes that were about preppy clothes. This sense of meta-narrative and playfulness in design always gave Band of Outsiders a unique point of view.Scott’s new project Entireworld focuses on the basics. He talks about approaching the brand as building a system for dressing, starting with the essentials, socks, underwear, and t-shirts. The brand's monochromatic sweats in myriad of bright primary colors have been a quick hit. It's an interesting opportunity to hear Scott reflect on his 11 year arc with Band of Outsiders, and how he's applying those lessons to Entireworld.You can follow Entireworld on Instagram at @entireworld and visit them online at theentireworld.com . Scott is on Instagram @scott.sternbergOur show is produced by Sarah Levine, and our music is by Jack and Eliza.You can find us on Instagram @image.culture  and @william.jess.lairdWe'll be back next week!

Artist, choreographer, and dancer Madeline Hollander has a unique way of looking at the world. While creating her performances she never invents new movements. Instead, she’s always pulling from what she observes in the world. She has the amazing ability to isolate the ways we move our bodies in very specific contexts and use these movements as the building blocks for a sequence. For instance, she talks about the specific way our body twitches when we’re playing a pinball machine, the ways we’ve learned to interact with a touch screen, or even the set of movements required to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Beyond that, she also looks at the way our movements manifest themselves in larger systems, such as traffic patterns in New York or the motion of tug boats along the Hudson River. These things have their own ebbs and flows that she samples in her work and applies on a human scale.One of the most interesting aspects of Madeline’s practice is its diversity. She can be found staging performances with LA Dance Project or showing an installation of programmed car tail lights at Bartolami Gallery or even serving as the moment director on Jordan Peele’s latest film Us.Her way of understanding human movement is something that crosses traditional boundaries within the art world. The sensitivity of her eye for body language and gestures coupled with her background in traditional ballet makes her a unique voice working today.You can see more of Madeline’s work at www.madelinehollander.comHer installation Heads/Tails can be viewed at www.bortolamigallery.com/exhibitions/heads-tails/You can find more information on Madeline’s work and performance at The Whitney at https://whitney.org/watchandlisten/44000

This week I’m talking to the artist Sara Cwynar, whose work, in both photographs and films, examines capitalism and the aesthetics of desire. Sara’s new show Marilyn is currently on view at The Approach in London. Due to Covid-19, all works in the show, including Sara’s newest film Red Film, are currently available to be viewed online at theapproach.co.uk until April 30th. You can find more work at saracwynar.com & on Instagram @cwynars

On the show today is the artist Serban Ionescu whose work blurs the line between sculpture and design. His newest work, the large scale “Chapel for an Apple” will debut this summer. You can see more of Serban’s work at www.serbanionescu.com .

This week I’m talking with the furniture, object, and interior designer F Taylor Colantonio. F Taylor’s current project, The Primavera Playlists, is a music-sharing project through the global lockdowns of Spring 2020. You can find the playlists, along with more of F Taylor’s work at https://ftaylor.co/pages/primavera as well as on Instagram @ftaylorcYou can find Image Culture on Instagram @image.culture and William @william.jess.lairdThanks for listening!

On the show today I’m talking with writer, curator and critic Jarrett Earnest, whose 2018 book What it Means to Write About Art assembles his conversations with thirty of the most influential American art writers. Jarrett’s interviews with figures ranging from Rosalind Krauss to Dave Hickey, Roberta Smith to Kellie Jones, and Jerry Saltz to Hal Foster trace a path through art criticism from the 1960’s up to the present moment. His subjects remind us of the diversity of thought that has defined modern art criticism. It’s truly a rare thing to find a book that offers such a plethora of ideas about how we think about and relate to art.You can find more of Jarrett’s work at www.jarrettearnest.com and on Instagram @jarrettearnest

My guest today is the painter Israel Lund. Israel is interested in images, the way they are reproduced, transmitted and passed through digital and analog systems. His early experiences as a teenager making zines and posters for local punk shows introduced him to a visual culture that thrived on the copy, and motivated him to introduce CMYK screen printing techniques into the realm of painting. The aesthetic of his work falls somewhere between abstraction and a glitchy computer screen. Through it all, there is a constant examination of how the information of an image is determined by the system it’s put through, be it a Tumblr page, a photocopier, or one of Israel’s screens.I’d like to thank Israel, as well as Olivia Smith at Magenta Plains and David Lewis. I’d also like to send a special thank you to Alex Bacon who wrote an excellent piece on Israel’s work in The Brooklyn Rail that I referenced frequently in preparation for this show.You can find that article HERE:Remember you can see my portrait of Israel in his studio at williamjesslaird.com/imageculture as well as on Instagram @william.jess.laird and @image.cultureOur show is produced by Sarah Levine. Our music is by Jack & Eliza.Thank you so much for listening.Check out Israel’s Tumblr page at https://israellund.tumblr.com

My guest is Virginia Lee Montgomery, whose new solo show Pony Cocoon is up now at False Flag in Long Island City though March 24th. The show is titled after her new film, following the birth of a Luna moth from a disembodied blonde ponytail, a frequently used symbol in Virginia’s practice. Her films are diffused with these repeated visual motifs. Dripping honey engulfs an object; a power drill bores a perfect hole through the surface of an image; a narwhal’s horn pierces the Arctic water. Images become like recurring characters through her films, which unfold like a surrealist mind-map attempting to make sense of free-associative thought. Concurrent to her art practice, Virginia works as a graphic facilitator, meaning she travels the country diagramming the flow of ideas and concepts for a variety of corporate clientele. The influence of this work is clearly felt in the way she edits her films, taking seemingly disparate ideas and finding the ways they’re interconnected.We’d like to thank Virginia Lee Montgomery as well as Edwin Lewis, Alexander Heffesse, Jon Huddleson, Whitney Smith, and Mel Hyde at False Flag. You can see my portrait of Virginia in her show at www.williamjesslaird.com/imageculture as well as on instagram @william.jess.laird and @image.cultureYou can see Virginia Lee Montgomery’s work at www.virginialeemontgomery.com and you can find the press release for Pony Cocoon at www.false-flag.orgThis show is produced by Sarah Levine and our music is by Jack and Eliza.