Interviews From Yale Radio / Artists, Curators And More

William J. Simmons is a writer and curator based in Los Angeles and New York. This is his third interview in this series, the second interview can be found here, and the first interview can be found here.

Matthew Ronay Matthew Ronay (b. 1976, Louisville, KY) lives in New York. In 2016, his work was the subject of a solo-presentation at the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, with a fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue published on the occasion. He has exhibited extensively at major institutions worldwide, including: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville; Kunstverein Lingen, Germany; University of Louisville, KY; Artspace, San Antonio; Serpentine Gallery, London; Sculpture Center, New York; Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London. Ronay participated in the 2013 Lyon Biennale, curated by Gunnar Kvaran, and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. His work is included in numerous major public collections, including: ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark; Astrup Fearnley Muset for Moderne Kunste, Oslo; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville

Ariana Page Russell creates images that explore the skin as a document of human experience, using her own hypersensitive flesh to illustrate the ways we expose, express, adorn and articulate ourselves. Her fascination with skin and the body are inspired in part by her dermatographia, a condition in which one’s skin temporarily welts when lightly scratched. Dermatographia also connects her to people all over the world via her images and writing. She's been making art with and inspired by her skin for about 20 years. Russell is a Los Angeles based artist whose work has been exhibited in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dublin, Belgium, New Dehli, Toronto, Australia, Bolivia and Venezuela, amongst other places. Her work has appeared in Art in America, the Huffington Post, Wired, The Atlantic, VISION Magazine: China, The Indian Express, Women's Health Magazine, and the monograph ‘Dressing’ published by Decode Books. She was featured on ABC News 20/20 and was invited to give a TEDx Talk at University of North Caro

Jessica Piazza is the author of three poetry collections and a children’s book. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Jessica now lives in Los Angeles where she is a writing professor at the University of Southern Californiaand a book club facilitator for Literary Affairs. She co-founded Bat City Review and Gold Line Press, and is the 2019 recipient of the Amy Clampitt Residency Program award. To learn more, visit www.jessicapiazza.com. The books  mentioned at the end of the interview are: Bree Rolfe, Who's Going to Love the Dying Girl / Unsolicited Press, 2021, and Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun / Knopf, 2021. The books pictured below by Jessica Piazza are Interrobang / Red Hen Press, 2013, This is not a sky / Black Lawrence Press, 2014 and Obliterations / Red Hen Press, 2016.  

Margaux Williamson is an artist from Toronto, born in Pittsburgh. Her first book of paintings, I Could See Everything (Coach House Books) accompanied shows at Frith Street Gallery in London, and Mulherin+Pollard in New York. Her full-length movie, Teenager Hamlet, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and now lives on UbuWeb. And a YouTube video she made in collaboration with the band Tomboyfriend, dancing to the end of poverty, was praised by Playground Magazine in Madrid as "Finally, a generation using YouTube the way God intended",  Her text projects, including How to Act in Real Life, have been commissioned by museums, festivals and anthologies. Her work has been covered by Frieze, the New York Times, Canadian Art, Vogue, The Believer, and  elsewhere. She has been artist-in-residence at MacDowell in New Hampshire, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and the Klondike Institute in the Yukon. Her most recent work was an on-line show with White Cube, March 2021. Branches / 63 x 90 in /

Anna Conway, New York, 2019 Anna Conway (b. 1973) first came to prominence in the 2005 group exhibition, Greater New York, at MoMA PS1, where her meticulously rendered paintings announced the arrival of a singular talent. Her stylistic development has emerged from spectacular and unpredicted encounters with natural forces beyond normal human experience, to a more anthropological and psychological exploration of the human condition. Conway’s paintings are a testament to the continued relevance and fascination of the centuries-old tradition of realist painting—an archaic practice, which seems to grow only stronger with every passing year. She has exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe, and is the recipient of numerous accolades, including: the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2014); the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2011 and 2005); and the William Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2008). Anna Conway, Fishing for Minnows on the Back of a Whale, 2021. Oil on panel 45 x 6

Photo courtesy of Mizuyo Aburano/Woodstock School of Art Polly M. Law is an artist, bricoleur, and mythologenist living and working in the Mid Hudson Valley of New York.  She explores attachment in both the literal and spiritual senses, humans and nature are her vehicles. Bricolage and monoprinting are her media which she exploits ignoring the boundary between art and craft- especially the traditionally feminine hand-crafts. She has been a craftswoman, illustrator- advertising and editorial, bricoleur, and printmaker. She turned her interest in language into a book: "The Word Project: Odd & Obscure Words- Illustrated," featuring over 100 of her "word-dolls." Ms. Law has an abiding interest in semiotics, the symbolism inherent in everyday objects; and an abiding and futile anxiety about entropy. "Numen I/ Greenman" 9"x9" Bricolage "Greenman D" 13.5"x11" Monoprint

Screen Capture from Class Demo Video Paula Rebsom describes herself as an Artist, Mother, Educator, and Trickster. All of these identities inform her interdisciplinary visual art practice which includes making sculptures from wood and fabric, site-specific installations, and image-based work using motion-sensor cameras. She’s always had an interest in science, specifically wildlife ecology, and applies elements of that into her work. Born and raised in Southwest North Dakota she spent a great deal of time exploring nature and learning to sew and craft. Much of her work after grad school was situated outdoors and used motion-sensor cameras to document animal interactions with site-specific installations. Becoming a mother 6 years ago radically shifted her practice. No longer able to spend extended periods of time in remote locations, she returned to sewing, making quilts in order to process the raw emotions she was experiencing as a new mother. She is currently returning towards more image-based surveillance

Paula Matthusen is a composer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. She has written for diverse instrumentations, such as “run-on sentence of the pavement” for piano, ping-pong balls, and electronics, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker noted as being “entrancing”. Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space—real, imagined, and remembered. Awards include the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fulbright Grant, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers’ Awards, and the 2014 - 2015 Elliott Carter Rome Prize. Matthusen is currently Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. The book mentioned is Edges & Fray by Danielle Vogel, published by Wesleyan University Press. LOOM • ROOM • HARP has it's own web site here: https://loom-room-harp.space/ one thing five times from Paula Matthusen on Vimeo. between systems and grounds, with Olivia Valentine. Photo by Olivia Valentine. More info at https://betweensystemsandgrounds.com

Photo by Anastasia Blackman Sébastien Léon is a French Los Angeles-based creative director, designer, and multi-media artist who has shown internationally with cultural institutions (Palais de Tokyo, the Park Avenue Armory, the New Museum, the Palazzo della Triennale, UCCA), and developed ambitious artistic projects with brands (Audemars Piguet, Krug, Samsung, Audi). Sébastien Léon’s work brings to life ethereal physical environments and sculptures that are at once tangible, familiar, and yet unmistakably abstract. His designs, typically relying on tubular metallic structures, are strongly influenced by his immediate environment. His decade in New York translates into collections inspired by the world of construction sites, and his move to California morphs into designs drawn from insects, rock formations, and the ocean. Léon is the founder of acclaimed experiential studio Formavision, and the recipient of the FGI Rising Star award for his design work for Atelier d’Amis, the furniture company he co-founded

Clement Page, was born in Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom, and moved to London in 1990 where his formative experience as an artist took shape. In early 90’s London as well as making his own work, Clement founded a studio complex in an abandoned hat factory in Bethnal Green, curated artist led exhibitions, wrote and published art criticism and gave artist lectures at Tate gallery, Sotheby’s, Goldsmiths and Ruskin school of art. In 1996 Clement moved to New York City where he witnessed the emergence of the Chelsea gallery district and had a studio on the bowery. In 2006 he moved to Berlin and now lives between Berlin and Bristol in the UK. Clement works with painting, film, and installation. Currently Clement is working on a monograph of his work with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Sacha Carddock, to be published in 2023. His recent ‘mirror paintings’ will be exhibited at HSBC gallery London and Santa Lucia galerie, Berlin in the coming year. His films from the Goetz Media Art collection, Munich have been shown at Pina

Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle have been creating multi-media art projects about love, sex, and queerness together for 20 years. Annie was a sex worker from 1973 to 1995, and morphed into a feminist performance artist and sex educator. Beth was a sculptor and installation artist and became a University art professor. She’s taught at University of California Santa Cruz for 27 years. These days the duo make environmental films through an ecosexual gaze, they produce symposiums, do theater and performance artivism. Their Ecosex Manifesto launched the Ecosex Movement. They are making a new film about fire for which they got a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021. A new book, Assuming the Ecosexual Position—the Earth as Lover (University of Minnesota Press) chronicles their epic love story and art/life adventures.

Claudio Zulian is a visual and sound artist, film director, writer and musician. He holds a PhD in Aesthetics, Science and Technology of the Arts from the University of Paris-Saint Denis (France). He is a resident in Barcelona (Spain). Many of Claudio Zulian's works are articulated around the notions of body and territory, often ironically dialectised. An example of this is one of his latest works Vallès: making pasts, making futures, a series of video installations whose exhibition was on view at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona  in 2019, curated by Valentín Roma. Another example of the study of these concepts was the exhibition Double Self-Portrait (2019), at the Espai Souvenir gallery in Barcelona. Previously, these themes had given rise to other works such as those included in the exhibition Enthusiasm (2012) at the Bòlit Centre d'Art in Girona and in ACVic or Political Poetics (2008) at CaixaForum in Barcelona. Complementing these two notions, another of the central issues in his works is h

In collaboration with the fluid processes of photography, Holly Murkerson’s work makes visible an emergent space where body and environment bleed into one another. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Murkerson is a Co-Director of the artist-run gallery, Adds Donna. Past exhibitions include 65Grand, Chicago; Comfort Station, Chicago; Rainbo Club, Chicago; Heaven Gallery, Chicago, Apparatus Projects, Chicago; Rockford University Art Gallery, Rockford, IL; Roots & Culture, Chicago; Julius Caesar, Chicago; Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago; Neiman Gallery at Columbia University, New York. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center, The Ragdale Foundation, and Oxbow School of Art, as well as the recipient of grants from The Illinois Art Council and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The book mentioned in the interview is Having and Being Had by Eula Biss.  One and one make three, 2020 Unique silver gelatin print, 20 x 16 inches Two halves make a hole, 2020Unique silver gelatin prints mounted on archiv

Ryan Takaba is a material artist whose sculptures, tableaux, and installations are centered around a study of scientific reason and the power of belief, incorporating thematic materials -flowers, ash, wax, and water. He exhibits his work throughout the United States and has participated in residencies at the European Ceramic Work Center -Netherlands, The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen -China, and was awarded a residency through Blue Star Contemporary to live and work at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin -Germany. He earned an MFA in Ceramics from Kent State University and a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Hawaii. Ryan currently lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. The books mentioned in the interview are Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik and The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. The Atlantic article mentioned can be read here. A Relationship with Flight 2020-2021 Glassine Paper, Ivory Roses, Basswood, Incense Ash, Helium, Latex, Pillar Wax, Wick, Steel   235” * 341” * 120” A Relationship with F

kara lynch is a time-based artist living in the bronx, ny – born in the momentous year of 1968. kara completed the MFA in Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego and has been a research fellow at the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, University of Texas Austin and the Academy of African Studies at Bayreuth University in Germany. She is an emerit@Professor of Video and Critical Studies at Hampshire College. In 2020 kara was awarded a Tulsa Artist Fellowship and joined Gallery of the Streets as a principled artist collaborator. Her art practice is re-memory, vision, and movement. It manifests as poetics, process, and conjures autonomy for Black and Indigenous people across Diaspora. Through low-fi, collective practice, and social intervention lynch explores aesthetic/political relationships between time + space. This artist’s practice is vigilantly raced, classed, and gendered – Black, Queer and Feminist. Major projects include: ‘BlackRussians’ – a feature documentary video, ‘Th

Lola Clavo (Barcelona 1983) is an independent director-producer that often navigates the boundaries between documentary and fiction. A graduate in Film Directing by ESCAC (2007), she lived and worked in London for over 10 years, where she also graduated MFA in Film Making by Goldsmiths University of London (2012) on a full scholarship by Obra Social “La Caixa” Foundation. Her work has a strong social component, questioning gender roles, the representation of the body, femininity and sexuality. Her filmmaking philosophy is close to that of DIY, although always loyal to a theory and structure base learned during her years at film school. She’s been awarded several prizes, mostly related to the representations of sexualities, and screened work internationally. Clavo co-founded in 2012 the art collective Exotica Loom, along with multidisciplinary artist Mariana Echeverri, where they develop curatorial and experimental film projects.  In 2006 she finished her fist documentary “La Plaza” (2016), an autobiographic r

Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer is a poet and installation artist in St. Louis. She is the author of the poetry collections Well Waiting Room (Fordham University Press, fall 2021) and Cleavemark (BOAAT Press, 2016) and the children's book The Cloud Lasso (Penny Candy Books, 2019). Her poems and art have appeared in Bomb, Bennington Review, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, Iowa Review, AGNI, Washington Square, At Length, The Offing, Denver Quarterly, LIT, Colorado Review, and on PoetryNow and the Poetry Foundation website, among others. She frequently collaborates with other artists, most recently with Cheryl Wassenaar on the installation The Cabinet of Ordinary Affairs at the Des Lee Gallery. Her work can be viewed at stephanieschlaifer.com. “The Archive of the Interior,” from The Cabinet of Ordinary Affairs. A collaborative, multimedia installation with Cheryl Wassenaar. Installation view, The Cabinet of Ordinary Affairs. A collaborative, multimedia installation with Cheryl Wassenaar. Installation view, The

Montana Ray is a poet, translator, and scholar. Her first book of visual poetry, (guns & butter), was described by Cathy Park Hong as a mix of “Apollinaire with Pam Grier.” She holds an MFA and a PhD in comparative literature from Columbia University, where she wrote her dissertation on settler longing in the work of Cuban and feminist artist Ana Mendieta. Ray is at work on a narrative nonfiction book, To thicken it, which explores the relationship between "the South" and Central and South America through genealogies, monuments, and cultural performances; you can read her creative nonfiction in The Point, BOMB, Narrative Magazine, and The New Inquiry. She also translates from Spanish and Portuguese mainly feminisms of the 1970s. "Crazy Desire: chronicles of the AIDS ward," Asymptote Magazine, 2020. Photograph by Leonora Calderón. "Os Confederados: 'Family and History' in the Plantation Americas," The Point, 2020.

Emily Skillings is the author of the poetry collection Fort Not (The Song Cave, 2017), which Publishers Weekly called a “fabulously eccentric, hypnotic, and hypervigilant debut.” Her poems can be found in Poetry, Harper’s, Boston Review, Granta, Hyperallergic, jubilat, and the Brooklyn Rail. Skillings is the editor of Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works by John Ashbery, which was published by Ecco/HarperCollins in 2021. She is a member of the Belladonna* Collaborative, a feminist poetry collective, small press, and event series. Skillings received her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts, where she was a Creative Writing Teaching Fellow in 2017. She currently teaches creative writing at Yale, NYU, and Columbia and lives in Brooklyn.