NYC Arts Radio, Season 1, Episode 1, "Creating Communities"

Hosted by visual artist Allison Malinsky Vilalta and sound designed by John Wiggins, New York City Arts Radio (NYC Arts Radio) is a series of topic based conversations about what it is to be a visual artist, made for lovers of art and those who are intrigued by its mysteries.

NYC ARTS RADIO  - SEASON 1, EPISODE 2: “THE STUDIO: PART I”
Wednesday, 30 Nov. 2016 20:00:00 GMT
(NYCARTSRADIO2016.11.30.001.002)
Copyright (C) NYC Arts Radio (2016).  All Rights Reserved. Pages 1-12

THE STUDIO: Part I - This conversation, with the New York City based artists Pablo Jansana and Alberto Borea, focuses on the artist’s studio and the process of creation.
						TRANSCRIPT: 
AMV (Allison Malinsky Vilalta) (Narration and Host): 

INTRO: 

NYC Arts Radio covers stories about what is it to BE a visual artist. 

Generations of paintings and photos allow a very limited and purely visual view of the artist’s studio — even still, we pour over those legendary images of studios occupied by;  Jean Arp, Francis Bacon, Balthus, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brancusi, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Eva Hesse, Donald Judd, Frida Kahlo, Agnes Martin, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, or Cy Twombly — to name a few.  Through those images we are trying to gain some knowledge of what the artists were like, their surroundings, culture, habits — really, their studio experience.

What was it like to BE there?!   Public access to the sacred studio experience is limited, in NY there’s Donald Judd’s SoHo studio/home and Jackson Pollock’s East Hampton Springs studio with the splattered floor.  But, the ideal is to be invited into the studio of a contemporary artist  — as a collector or curator — to be able to participate in the experience while adding your part to a new history.

This episode, the first part of STUDIO, we go inside two studios to open the lid onto the theme of what the contemporary studio experience involves.  The conversation is between myself and two very different multimedia artists, Pablo Jansana and Alberto Borea.  They are both transplants to NYC, this is no coincidence as this is my RE-inauguration show of  NYC Arts Radio, since my own fairly recent move to Barcelona, Spain.

Also, considering the current conversations on immigration, I dedicate this show to my fellow artist immigrants.  Throughout, in the form of an  audio Commonplace Book, I’ll refer to life of two of my favorite painters, from the same generation, who sought refuge in NYC, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston.   Their inclusion is an effort to show the extreme comparisons between the current situation and the good old days when NYC lofts were abundant and inexpensive.

Every artist has a different making practice.  Some use studios and then there are other variations, like the ‘institutional critique’ of artist Daniel Buren.  Buren personally rejected the use of a studio as part of his process, his work is made in the world-at-large.  
That way, he is able to create in the space in which the work will ultimately be shown, and therefore be closer to the ultimate “truth” of the art — which is the thesis of his 1971 essay, “The Function of the Studio.”

I don’t reject his thesis, but the studio is indispensable to most, a basic necessity.  Quote “Adding to de Kooning’s anxiety was his unfinished studio.  The studio had always been his touchstone.  Without one, he was essentially homeless.” 

However, because Buren so accurately describes the function and physical qualities of the studio,  I have included those passages.

and that is where we begin: 

“What is the function of the studio?
1.  It is a place where the work originates.  [the studio is the unique space of production]
2.  It is generally a private place, an ivory tower perhaps.
3.  It is a stationary place where portable objects are produced.”

The Studio: Part I

My conversations with Rene were many, but this conversation, from early 2013, was the only one we agreed to record for this show focusing on his poetry, paintings, and life at the Chelsea Hotel under new ownership.  

					PARTIAL	TRANSCRIPT: 
AMV (Allison Malinsky Vilalta) (Narration in bold): 

Mentors are hard to come by; one who takes you in, spends time with you and teaches you something that may one day become useful.   Recently, I attended a brilliant show called Fabulous You at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery in Brooklyn.  The concept of the exhibition was for the gallery artists to select work from their mentor, or peer, and to exhibit it next to their own.  The show reminded me of all I have learned from my mentors and precocious contemporaries over the duration of my own career.  We alone have the power to chose our own mentors and bosses, as a surrogate for the examples we want to follow and one day pass on to other eager rookies.  This episode is dedicated to those who intend to insight curiosity and cognitive knowledge in others, especially in this unstable chaos of fact vs. fiction and post-truth.

Today, I would like to celebrate one of my friends in particular, Rene Ricard.  At one time he was my boss, and during that year he became a mentor to me, a commanding influence by imparting his taste, unsurpassed wisdom and opinion of all things.  

From a life fully lived, he was mercurial, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, truly informed (he read and read and to absorb concise facts on all historical periods —  he read museum catalogues from cover to cover, which is an act I now practice and promote).  He was an underground Warhol movie star, art critic, painter, and poet.  He is credited with launching the career of Basquiat for whom, in 1981, his essay The Radiant Child was published in Artforum.  He had no room for BS, but he was generous, and above all - with information, he taught me his first person history of New York and more.  

Rene enlightened me on the finer details of general world history — mostly through art, including social etiquette and the ways of life over greasy steak and cheese sandwiches he liked to share before starting the days work at his Midtown studio.  He brought me along to parties of NYC Painting Gods and Goddesses I had admired since my own teenage move from New England to New York City, like Rene’s own.  

My friend Rita Barros, whom Rene lived with and is spoken about later in this show, had arranged visiting me in Granada Spain, where I was living between 2011 and 2012; Rita, Antonio, Rosario and Rene made the trip from Lisbon.   Rene was unforgettably excited to interact with the art, tromp-l’œil, architecture, food and everything in between.   He made an arresting performance for the begging Gypsy’s in front of the Cathedral, where Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand are set in their tombs.  If I recall correctly, as my memory will never be what his was, Rene was wearing his recently purchased heeled Flamenco dancing shoes.  

Back in 2013 after years of dinners and delicious conversations at Rita’s apartment in the Chelsea, we agreed to record one of our conversations in his Chelsea Hotel studio.   Rene passed away less than a year later.

At the time of the conversation, and unfortunately still today, there was severe discontent in the Hotel.   Artists who had been living there for over 40 years were being appallingly harassed by what can only be considered slumlords, trying to drive out the tenants with whatever means possible to free up space in the historic 222 West 23rd Street building.  The plan of the new owners was to convert it into a luxury hotel however, some still have the New York fighting spirit.

I learned a great number of things from Rene, chiefly to have a fucking opinion and express it with all that you have while being prepared to back it up with authority; facts, and experience.   Just listen and absorb….

NYC Arts Radio

You will survive this: A conversation with Rene Ricard

Each episode of NYC Arts Radio investigates artists’ relationship to one topic through its many facets.  With each episode listeners, both artists and layman alike, gain a sense of the far reaching entirety of art and its many dimensions in NYC and beyond.  
	Separate interviews are held with individual artists, and people beyond the limits of the art world, on the same topic.  Later, corresponding interviews are strung together to make one episode or multi-part episodes.  
	Unlike typical artist interviews, NYC Arts Radio episodes are not solely focused on specific art projects, exhibitions, or finished products.  On NYC Arts Radio each exchange with an artist is meant to extract a deeper explanation of their practice and the relevant topic.  The role of accompanying, or multi-layered, interviews is to enlighten varying relationships to that art topic, and to further express facts or opinions.  All interviews are mixed with narration, by host Allison Malinsky Vilalta, into tightly edited tracks with sounds and music by sound designer, John Wiggins. 
	The goal of NYC Arts Radio is to construct each episode so the audience feels, through transmission, that they are experiencing a collective artistic way of being, and therefore a relation to what it is like to be a visual artist.

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