ARTLAWS (Alex Zoppa and Robyn Rosenfeld)

In the late 90’s, JT LeRoy – a male teen sex worker turned-novelist – became an overnight literary sensation.  Publishing three bestselling books, LeRoy’s electrifying work revealed a subversive American culture that had never before been explored.  Immediately, LeRoy was celebrated by Hollywood and the Literati.  The only problem was... JT didn't actually exist.  In 2005, a 39 year old woman by the name of Laura Albert was outed as being the real author.  Albert had employed her then sister-in-law Savannah Knoop to don a wig, fedora and dark sunglasses and portray the elusive author who was rising to fame.  Ever since New York Magazine declared it “the greatest literary hoax of the millennium”, Albert has been misunderstood by many.  As she completes her soon to be released memoir, we sat down with the author to discuss how trauma and survival informed her early work, and also how our evolving cultural understanding of gender identity has shifted the interpretation of JT LeRoy's legacy.   

A note to our listeners:  This episode contains mature language and sensitive subject matter including child sexual abuse, negative body image, and eating disorders.  Discretion advised.

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April Gornik is an American Artist  known for her dynamic and powerful landscape paintings.  Gornik’s large scale luminous paintings evoke moments of transience and calm, as well as volatility and eruption.  Yet, her vivid canvases are never literal, but rather imagined and emotional spaces.  While Gornik focuses on the light and colors of the landscape, her evocative use of contrasts brings a sense of aliveness and psychological drama to her work.  Gornik’s fascination with light distinguishes her art, and she describes light as “the beating heart of your eyes''.

April Gornik’s work is included in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
 
We spoke in depth with April about her unique creative process and artistic journey -- with her professional career beginning in New York City during the dizzying, male-dominated heights of the 1980’s art boom.  A longtime resident of Sag Harbor, Long Island, we also learned about April's recent efforts to revive the local Cinema, as well as co-found The Church, a non-profit artist residency,  creative center, and exhibition space.

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Eric Fischl is one of the most influential painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Inspired by his own middle-class upbringing on Long Island, Fischl’s provocative  paintings expose the underbelly of  American suburban life while piercing through its veil. Through startling scenes of grief, adolescent sexuality and political malaise, Fischl is committed to expressing what often remains hidden and unspoken behind society’s mores.

During his meteoric rise in the 1980s, in an era when art eschewed figuration and the human body, Fischl embraced it… His paintings boldly explore the body in all of its movement, gesture, and form.  By imbuing his large scale canvases with a psychological intensity, Fischl’s work invites us to examine our own relationship with taboos, internal conflict, and complacency.

Fischl's paintings, sculptures and drawings have been the subject of numerous solo and major group exhibitions around the world, and his work is represented in major museum collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and MoCA in L.A.  His memoir “Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas” was published by Crown in 2013.

A longtime resident of Sag Harbor, Long Island, Eric’s recent venture has been to renovate  and transform a local church into an artist residency, exhibition space and creative center known fittingly as The Church (https://www.thechurchsagharbor.org/).

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David Levinthal is a New York–based photographer whose work explores the relationship between photographic imagery and the fantasies, myths, events and characters that shape the  collective American consciousness.  

Refining a personal photographic style and vision, Levinthal utilizes toy figures and structures as subject matter for the creation of a surrogate reality.  Levinthal has endeavored to create a 'fictional world' that simultaneously calls into question our sense of truth and credibility.

Levinthal's photographs of soldiers at war, cowboys and Barbie dolls reference and reexamine the iconic images and historical events that have shaped postwar American culture.  Through his expansive series such as Hitler Moves East, Modern Romance, Wild West and History, Levinthal’s photographs also reveal the false memories and stereotypes that lurk beneath the surface, challenging viewers to confront the stories we tell about ourselves and our country.    

Levinthal is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his photographs reside in the permanent collections of  New York's The Museum of Modern Art,  the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and  the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris,  the Art Institute of Chicago, LACMA, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, among others.

In 1997, The International Center for Photography in New York presented the first retrospective of his work titled David Levinthal: Work from 1977 – 1996.  The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, organized the most recent retrospective, David Levinthal: War, Myth, Desire, in 2018.  And In 2019, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs to showcase seventy-four color photographs. 

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Kathleen Turner is an award-winning American actress and director, celebrated for her acclaimed work in film, television and theater.  With an over forty year career, Kathleen's bold and brave choices as an artist has led to a groundbreaking body of work that has changed cultural perceptions of how women are portrayed on the screen and stage.  

Always insisting on playing by her own rules, the two time Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee has created some of the most iconic performances in history.  Kathleen Turner's extensive filmography includes her quintessential debut performance as Matty Walker in Body Heat.  Her other memorable films include Crimes of Passion, Romancing the Stone, Prizzi's Honor, Peggy Sue Got Married and War of the Roses.  

 On the Broadway and London stages, Kathleen is known for her  intrepid performances,  including such starring roles as Maggie in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, both  for which she received Tony nominations.  Additionally, she originated the role of Mrs. Robinson inThe Graduate for the London and New York stages.

We spoke intimately with Kathleen about her drive to challenge herself and  her passion for reinvention , overcoming demons and struggles,  her commitment to activism, which means just as much to her as her art,  and why she’ll never quit.

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Vera Mulyani is considered the world’s first Marschitect.  She is the Founder and CEO of Mars City Design, a global  innovation platform  whose purpose is to research, conceptualize, and design eco-sustainable cities for life on Mars.  Mulyani’s concept of urbanism on Mars also advocates a self-sustaining lifestyle on Earth.

Growing up in the polluted slums of Jakarta with the trauma of civil war as her brutal reality, Vera relied on her imagination as a means of survival and vital escape.  Her persevering dreams  of a bigger world and brighter future led her, against all odds, to Paris where she enrolled at the Beaux-Arts as an undergraduate and later studied Architecture, engineering and Urban Design at France’s prestigious Ecole d'Architecture de Nantes where she received her graduate degree. 

Vera is also a filmmaker, and has written and directed three award winning films – two of which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.  She also cast both Emmy award winning actress Julia Garner and Oscar winner Jon Batiste  in their first on-screen roles.  In addition, Vera has  exhibited her paintings and photography in galleries around the world. 

* Vera is featured as part of REBEL YELL – a new series from ARTLAWS that features young emerging artists who are changing the face of our cultural landscape.

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Susan Davis is the Founder & President of DESERT X,  a site-specific, contemporary art exhibition that is held in the Coachella Valley of Southern California every two years. 

Since 2017, DESERT X has pushed the boundaries of art beyond the gallery walls to present work that engages with the public in desert environments, through unique installations created by acclaimed artists from around the world.

While responding to and amplifying the dramatic range of land and seascapes within  the desert environment, Desert X is also a visual articulation of the critical issues facing our world today -- including conservation, climate change, segregation, false historical narratives,  and indigenous land rights.

Since 2020, Susan Davis has expanded Desert X beyond California – producing two biennial exhibitions in the striking landscapes of the AlUla region of Saudi Arabia.  With Desert X returning in 2023, we spoke with Susan about the process of creating a site specific endeavor of this enormous scale,  the responsibility of art to spark crucial dialogue  and why she always welcomes a little controversy. 

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ISABEL VINCENT is an award-winning writer and investigative journalist and the author of the new  book "Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich."  The book uncovers the amazingly true story of Ida and Louise Cook -- two British opera fans who masterminded their own plan to rescue dozens of German and Austrian Jews from a terrible fate.

Vincent began her career in the 1990's as a foreign correspondent for the  Globe and Mail, covering the conflicts that led to the Kosovo War.  Since 2008, she has worked as an investigative reporter for the New York Post with a focus on exposing corruption, fearlessly pursuing the truth in an age where truth is under attack.

Some of Vincent's other books include "See No Evil: The Strange Case of Christine Lamont and David Spencer"; "Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas"; "Gilded Lily: Lily Safra: The Making of One of the World's Wealthiest Widows" and her moving culinary memoir "Dinner with Edward",  which along with “Overture of Hope”  have been adapted for the big screen. 

Vincent's writings have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Independent, and many other international publications.  She is also the recipient of numerous prestigious honors, including the Canadian Association of Journalist’s Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism and the National Jewish Book Award.

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GABRIEL GONZALEZ is a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and leader of a new break-out collective of world class musicians embodying the truth of the Los Angeles Latin experience –  La Verdad.  Since 2015 Gonzalez has also been a lead singer for Boogaloo Assassins, the famed 12-piece Latin Boogaloo, Salsa, and Latin Soul band with whom Gonzalez  is about to release a new album.

Since the beginning of his career as a child performer in Mexican films, Gonzalez (also known as Gabrielito) established himself as a notable actor and singer on both stage and screen.  In addition to appearing in Allison Anders’ classic indie film Mi Vida Loca, Gonzalez also toured with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning musical In the Heights.
 
This ARTLAWS podcast interview was recorded live at the Circo De Los Muertos concert at Sofitel Los Angeles in Beverly hills.

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KIKI SMITH is one of the most influential visual artists in the contemporary world.  Since the 1980s, Smith has created a prolific and provocative body of work that explores embodiment and the natural world.  Utilizing a broad variety of materials and mediums – including sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing and textiles – Smith’s unique style draws on mythology, folklore, fairytales and religious iconography, while also exploring the human form in all of its frailty and mystery.

We had the privilege of speaking with Kiki Smith on the eve of the unveiling of her rare and momentous public work  – a monumental mosaic installation inside the new Grand Central Madison train station in New York City, commissioned by the MTA . This work includes five individual large scale mosaics depicting several Long Island landscape scenes including River Light, inspired by the way the sunlight hits the East River; The Water’s Way rendered in stunning shades of indigo; The Presence, which shows a deer among striking  gold reeds; The Spring featuring  fowl surrounded by forest during  springtime growth;  and The Sound which showcases Long Island’s waterway in a magnificent 28-foot wide mural.

Smith has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions worldwide including over 25 museum exhibitions. Her work has been featured at five Venice Biennales and in 2017 was awarded the title of Honorary Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts in London.  In 2006, Smith was recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the “TIME 100: The People Who Shape Our World.” Her numerous awards include the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (2000), the Nelson A. Rockefeller Award (2010), the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts (2013), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the @intsculpturectr (2016).  Kiki is also an adjunct professor at NYU and Columbia University.
 
We join the artist as she walks through the Lower East Side of Manhattan on a late afternoon.

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Nancy Baker Cahill is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist whose hybrid practice focuses on systemic power, consciousness, and the human body. As a new media artist, Cahill creates immersive and interactive  experiences, video installations, and conceptual blockchain projects rooted in the practice of drawing. Her monumental augmented reality artworks extend and subvert the lineage of land art, often confronting the climate crisis,  social issues,  and civics. Nancy’s work calls for a more equitable future for all, as realized early on in her career  with her collaborative art series “Exit Wounds” in conjunction with the non profit Homeboy Industries led by Father Greg Boyle. https://homeboyindustries.org/

Cahill is Founder and Artistic Director of 4th Wall, a free AR public art platform exploring site interventions, resistance, and inclusive creative expression. Her geolocated AR installations have been exhibited globally and have earned her profiles in the New York Times, Frieze Magazine, and The Art Newspaper, and she was also included in ARTnews’ list of 2021 'Deciders'.  

Cahill's work has been exhibited internationally at museums and galleries, and her solo exhibition ‘Slipstream: Table of Contents’ was recently acquired by LACMA.  In 2021, she was awarded the Williams College Bicentennial Medal of Honor and received the City of Los Angeles’ Master Artist Fellowship. She is a 2022 LACMA Art and Tech Grant recipient and this year, she’ll have her first solo mid-career retrospective at the Georgia Museum of Art. 

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Derek Ahonen  is an internationally acclaimed playwright best known for his gritty, volatile, and darkly humorous work.  As co-founder of The Amoralists, the trailblazing New York City theater company, his aim was to write and produce raw theater with absolutely no moral judgement, while expressing the American condition in a completely honest way.  And now, Derek has written and directed his first feature film, The Transcendents (based on his play).  In our hilarious, off-the-cuff conversation, we riff on everything from the necessity of gallows humor, the pitfalls of notoriety, and the joys of revenge.

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When a former child music  protege from Glendale meets a mesmerizing singer-songwriter from Glasgow,  an  extraordinary synergy takes place and a multitalented music couple is born -- none other than Paul Cantelon and Angela McCluskey. Angela is the Grammy nominated artist best known for her ubiquitous hit “Breathe” from her high profile collaboration with Télépopmusik.  Paul is the son of an evangelist from Glendale who made his violin debut at Royce Hall at the age of 13, and is now an award winning film composer celebrated for his stunningly intimate film scores, such as Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  Together they formed the Wild Colonials in the early '90's -- an LA-based alternative rock band that fused folk-tinged melodies with unconventional instruments. In our in depth conversation we learn how these two bohemians from completely different worlds, embarked on a romantic and creative partnership that still burns as bright as it did that afternoon in London when they first met. 

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When singer-songwriter Esthero (Jenny-Bea Englishman) released her trip-hop masterpiece Breath From Another in 1998, she was only eighteen years old.  Leaving behind her idyllic countryside home in Ontario to pursue the burgeoning music scene in Toronto, Esthero penned an album that would change the face of music.  With two acclaimed solo albums to follow and a number of high-profile collaborations with artists like Kanye West, Andre 3000, Black Eyed Peas, Mos Def and Sean Lennon, Esthero has managed to navigate an ever-shifting music industry for over two decades, all while staying true to herself.  In our intimate conversation we explore everything from her vulnerability of being a young woman in a male dominated music industry, to the thrill of working with will.i.am, to how she took on Spotify.

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Brooklyn based performance artist Narcissister is infamous around the world for her shocking and transgressive performances, which the New York Times dubbed "avant porn".  Growing up as a mixed-race child in La Jolla, the artist experienced hate crimes and discrimination first hand.  Feeling like the ultimate outsider, she began to look inward and recontextualize the world around her.  With her identity shrouded behind a plastic mask, Narcissister currently creates work that confronts oppression, tackles taboo subjects and challenges cultural notions of race, gender, and sexuality.  She's accomplished this across multiple platforms -- from museums and galleries to nightclubs and experimental art spaces.  She's even appeared on America's Got Talent.

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Los Angeles based photographer and visual artist Melanie Pullen is best known for her breathtaking and startling series High Fashion Crime Scenes.  In this extensive photo series which has evolved over fifteen years, Pullen recreates grisly true historical-crime scenes, while outfitting her "victims" in haute couture -- 13 million dollars worth.  Melanie takes a forensic approach to her work with extensive research, that for this series included visits to the LA Coroner’s office. By incorporating iconic high fashion labels, like Prada and Gucci, Pullen highlights not only America’s cultural obsessions with true crime and consumption, but the ways in which our modern media exploits women and violence.  

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For over 20 years, Casey Spooner has pushed boundaries at the intersection of art, spectacle, and entertainment.  When he first joined forces with his art school friend Warren Fischer in 1998, little did they know their multimedia project FISCHERSPOONER would capture the attention of the world.  Making their debut at an East Village Starbucks, this outsized-glam duo soon found themselves topping the charts and accepting invitations to world renowned galleries and museums like the Guggenheim, Pompidou, and MoMA.

Casey has always been a visionary artist whose work moves fluidly between music, film, photography, performance, and design, and now he’s  emerging as a solo artist with a new body of multimedia work entitled SPOONERHOLLYWOOD.  Inspired by the pioneers of early filmmaking, SPOONERHOLLYWOOD is a conceptual artist studio with an eye towards the future, his mission being to build an empowered independent and financially self-sufficient creative class.  And like everything else he does, he is steps ahead of the art and music worlds.

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Hailed as the “Punk Ballerina” by Vanity Fair, legendary dancer and choreographer Karole Armitage is the Artistic Director of the New York-based Armitage Gone! Dance Company. 

After rigorous training in classical ballet, Armitage began her professional career as a member of Balanchine’s Grand Theatre de Geneve. Soon thereafter she started exploring modern dance when she joined Merce Cunningham's company, performing leading roles in his landmark works.  In the mid-80’s, she established her first dance company in New York City -- The Armitage Ballet. As both dancer and choreographer, Armitage began combining classical, modern, and street influences with a bit of punk, rock-n-roll, and rap mixed in. She quickly became notorious for her radical and avant-garde work. 

Armitage has directed and choreographed groundbreaking ballets internationally, and for several years she served as Director of MaggioDanza, the Ballet of Florence, Italy. Armitage also choreographed two Broadway productions -- Passing Strange and Hair -- which earned her a Tony nomination.  In addition, we learn how she penetrated the Harlem Ball Culture and brought her experience to choreographing Madonna’s Vogue tour. 

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Many people know the multi-talented Martin Mull as a celebrated TV and film actor and comedian, as well as a musician and writer.  But what some people don’t know is that, first and foremost, he is an artist -- a respected accomplished American painter, whose work is embraced and lauded by the artworld,  and resides in museums and private collections worldwide including, The Whitney, The MET and LACMA.  Renowned artists from  Richard Prince to Eric Fischl to  David Salle, consider Martin Mull a contemporary  American master.  

Since the 1970's, Martin Mull has been a ubiquitous presence on the big and small screens - from Norman Lear’s groundbreaking series “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and “Fernwood Tonight” to "Arrested Development", “Roseanne”, “Two and a Half Men”, and “Veep”, as well as films like “Mrs. Doubtfire”,  Robert Altman’s “O.C. and Stiggs”, “Mr. Mom”, and “Clue.”  

With a Smithsonian American Museum show and a major monograph on the horizon for 2023, we join Martin Mull LIVE at his studio in Los Angeles.

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Zack James is the founder of Animeme Studios and creator of one of YouTubes' most successful and longest running animated series YO MAMA -- a channel that's garnered over 8 million subscribers across all platforms and over 2 billion views. 

Considering the longstanding success of the franchise, many people are unaware that the show's creator is an autistic man who was born with non-verbal autism.  He was never supposed to speak -- let alone, pioneer such phenomenal new media success.  Originally gaining popularity as "Outback Zack", Zack started off as a YouTuber who published viral videos out of his grandparents’ trailer.  Sensing an opportunity on the growing YouTube platform, Zack combined an early love for cartoons with his own boundary-pushing comedy to create one of the internet’s most successful franchises, now celebrating its 10th year anniversary.  

And now, Zack is confronting tech giants like YouTube and Facebook.  As algorithms continue to shift in favor of the corporations, Zack is fighting to ensure that they become more transparent and that the future of digital media is inclusive of all voices. 

[*Note:  This is our first episode of REBEL YELL, a new series from ARTLAWS that highlights artists and creators who are pushing boundaries in media, and changing the face of our digital landscape.]

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Moisés Kaufman is a Tony and Emmy nominated playwright and director, best known for his revolutionizing  plays that sensitively probe questions of culture and sexuality.  As co-founder and Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project, Kaufman has been one of the most important voices in American theater over the past three decades. 

Born in Venezuela to Orthodox Jewish parents, Kaufman came to New York in 1987 to study experimental theatre at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.  It was during this time of great social upheaval that Kaufman began to consider new ways in which stories could be told on stage.  By exploring and bending traditional formal elements, Kaufman set out to define a new theatrical experience.  This  exploration led to his two groundbreaking debuts -- "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde" and "The Laramie Project". 

While Kaufman’s work is experimental in nature, his productions have always reached wide audiences and attracted top talent, including Jessica Chastain, Jane Fonda, and Robin Williams.   His Broadway credits include “The Heiress”, “33 Variations”, and the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning “I Am My Own Wife” .  A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, presented by President Barack Obama in 2016, Kaufman continues to push boundaries on stage while tackling society’s crucial issues. 

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Today in Paris marks the unveiling of the infamous Christo and Jeanne-Claude's posthumous dream project -- "L‘Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped”.  Artlaws is thrilled to present a special event interview with celebrated artist and photographer Simon Chaput who knew Christo and Jeanne-Claude intimately, as both friend and colleague.  After meeting the artist couple in New York in 1983, Simon quickly became an integral part of their life and  their work. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were an unparalleled artistic duo celebrated for their magnificent, monumental, and ephemeral environmental installations often unprecedented in scale -- such as "Running Fence" down the California coast, "The Gates" in New York’s Central Park,  and "Wrapped Coast" in Australia.  Also known for wrapping architecture and natural elements in fabric -- such as “Surrounded Islands” in Miami and the “Wrapped Reichstag” in Berlin -- their poetic public works transcended traditional boundaries of painting, sculpture, and architecture.  What stands behind each work has always been a powerful call for freedom and beauty. 

 "L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped" -- a project first conceived by the artists sixty years ago -- has today been fully realized.  We spoke with Simon leading up  to and en route  to this unprecedented  event. 

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Joep Beving is a Dutch composer and 21st-century music phenomenon, known worldwide for his gorgeous and haunting compositions which he often refers to as "simple music for complex emotions.”  Joep has reenergized the world of modern classical music  and proven that it’s never too late to embrace one’s creative passion.  His first album "Solipsism", which he humbly wrote and recorded at age 38 in his kitchen, was self-released with the hope of a few listens.  Instead, it became an overnight viral sensation.  Over the following five years, Joep's penetrating and deeply moving songs gained more than 320 million streams (and rising).  "Solipsism" was soon followed by the acclaimed albums "Prehension", "Conatus" , "Henosis" and "Trilogy".

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