The Lives of Contemporary Artists: Recent Episodes
Timmy Black
All we hope to get is 47 seconds of your attention so arts podcaster Timmy Black keeps it ...... oops .... time's up
The new Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a spectacular tour-de-force. Listen to Timmy Black's insightful observations.
Podcaster Timmy Black extends a gracious invitation to the editors of The New York Times
The letters of artists can be extremely revealing. This episode celebrates the latest innovation in the epistolary arts.
In this short tribute to all our terrific podcasters, Timmy reserves his highest praise for a marginalized peer.
With questionable motivation, Brooklyn artist Spark Boon keeps the art of figure drawing alive
Through the work of Carmalite McKenzee, Timmy examines the strange alliance of disheveled ivy leaguers and J6 conspiracists
Timmy speaks to a pair of Maltese documentary filmmakers about an exciting yet doomed new project
Our annual holiday episode includes sophisticated suggestions for intelligent gift giving .... or something like that.
If you're at a loss at understanding the economic and social aspects of contemporary art. you're not alone. In this episode Timmy Black sheds less light than usual on this timely subject.
"Do no harm" is fine for physicians but do we really need artists to be so benign? Timmy takes our tinkerers to task.
For those long hot, humid nights or for those long hot humid days, or for those idle moments during your exciting and exotic vacation, here a are few seasonal reading recommendations.
Somewhere between bondage and divestment, Timmy manages to sum up youth culture and its relationship with real world events.
Cheerfully delivered prophecies of despair close out another banner year for this unusual podcast.
The Lives of Contemporary Artists' producer Bozman Arcadia offers a short appreciation to all our devoted listeners.
Timmy tempts fate as he mingles pop tunes with Middle East politics on this timely and tragic episode.
Timmy discusses the Shock of the Ordinary and the aesthetics of negativity with his typical lack of insight.
Is it time to reassess the last reassessment of the canon of art history? Timmy Black might be tired of the question but he still figured out how to make a podcast episode about it.
The tricky topic of the unreliable brushstroke is imperfectly examined in this important and timely episode.
These days, many artists are doing amazing work that is politically engaged. Timmy explores this trend and focuses on a few inspiring examples.
Could art and technology be the product of an arranged marriage on the verge of annulment? Timmy Black weighs in.
The work of Norwegian artist Sophia Lagrimar inspires a few thoughtful New Year's resolutions.
Timmy plugs an amazing new t-shirt enterprise, Dead Poets Hard Wear, by interviewing its brilliant CEO. Find it at deadpoetshardwear.com
The necessity of networking for artists is made clear in this important episode. The how's and why's are surprisingly simple and easily applicable. This is required listening for all ambitious artists.
Timmy takes a tour of a very prestigious art school on the east coast and comes away transformed.
Celebrating the publication of Micah Carpentier's Song of Songs, Timmy interviews the editor of this important book, artist Dahlia Danton.
Art critics provide an invaluable service and are the subject of unjust resentment. Timmy attempts to correct this cultural transgression.
Sometimes our prejudices taint our aesthetic judgments. In this episode Timmy has some tips on how to avoid jumping to conclusions.
An important essay on life's purpose and the artist's journey. Essential listening for all young creative people starting out on their careers.
Imagine Pablo Picasso, Faun Roberts, Harold Bloom, Orestia Shestov and Timmy Black entering a bar.
The internet and social media have been maligned for too long. It's time to offer a clear rebuttal.
It can't be said enough. Artists must cultivate their networking skills! Here's a short roadmap for the successful schmooze.
Art as a form of mysticism has a new and unusual advocate as Timmy Black addresses the most comfortable environments for reading.
Timmy meets an old and dear friend. They go to a bar to have a drink. The old friend talks about art. Timmy stops and thinks ... but not for too long.
Artists need to set good examples for impressionable children. Unfortunately, podcaster Timmy Black is doing just the opposite.
School is back!! Join podcaster Timmy Black in celebrating our under appreciated teachers!
How to impersonate a smart person is one indispensable skill in our age of relentless self-invention. In this episode, Timmy offers tips on how to punch above one's weight
A careful consideration of the rugged art of sculpture is long overdue (& continues to be so).
The art world is Building Back Better and if that's not the only stale phrase Timmy has appropriated for his backhanded purposes, listen to this terrific new episode for many more of the same.
However difficult it is to be an artist it is infinitely more difficult admitting that you are not. A few essential career tips from Timmy Black.
There's great wisdom to be found among our elders. Timmy Black pays tribute to one who is a national treasure, a sage and a charmingly petulant visionary.
It's graduation time and Timmy Black would never allow this modified milestone to go unchecked. Here he gives some notes on the perfect commencement speech.
Deviating from his typical format, Timmy trips on the laces of propriety as he conducts a live interview with lewd artist.
We've reached an auspicious milestone in this, our 100th episode! Join Timmy with his retrospective tribute to the lives and The Lives of Contemporary Artists.
Had he been enrolled Timmy Black would have surely been expelled from the Frankfurt School. Listen as Timmy gives corruption a good name.
A practical guide to grant writing is offered here with a haunting musical soundtrack written and performed by Timmy Black's youngest offspring, Fat Tony Black.
The reservoirs of untapped art scavenged from unsung streams is the subject of Timmy Black's nearly incoherent soliloquy. You might have to listen to it twice just to make sure you weren't hallucinating.
Podcaster Timmy Black posts a lengthy, discursive 'Help Wanted' ad and pretends it's an episode.
One wonders how someone as singularly untalented as Timmy Black managed to elbow his way into the cauldrons of high culture. The answer lies in the verbs.
Disheveled values, fluid priorities and the fear of finding himself on the business end of a severe professional backlash, Timmy Black proposes incoherence as the safest route for artistic commentary.
While the entire nation is reckoning with the consequences of a 'post-truth' world, Timmy Black makes an astonishing confession.
Arts podcaster Timmy Black offers a few discordant notes on the meaning of Christmas during these difficult yet hopeful times.
Even hardened, cynical, grizzly artists types can appreciate a perfumed scrub now and again. Timmy tells of his own creature consolations during this umbered times.
In a break from bitter and contentious political jeremiads, Timmy returns to the lofty irrelevancies of art and artists.
In a rare departure from his traditional bailiwick, Timmy pays a small tribute to Democracy.
In accordance with the social convention of avoiding all discussion of politics and religion, Timmy changes the subject.
Custodians of our collective cultural estate bare a tremendous responsibility that they often take, according to Timmy Black, far too seriously
The quiet decline of western civilization has scarcely been noticed as we further cede our free will to our pandemic babysitters - (or something like that). The twisted world of Timmy Black twists further!
After some informal market research, Timmy takes a new, livelier approach to podcasting and goes after some low hanging fruit in the process.
During these difficult times, Timmy Black offers a mellow lament on the place art occupies in all our hearts and minds.
Knowing little about a given subject has never deterred Timmy Black from vehemently expostulating. This episode is no exception and no better than prior episodes.
Timmy finally wakes up to the worldwide woke phenomenon with a first-class ticket on Zoom.
In an attempt toward personal expiation,Timmy confesses some sins, both real and imagined.
Timmy takes the gloves off but keeps the mask on with this rollicking bit of regressive punditry.
Major world events have caught up with Timmy Black. He can no longer continue to indulge in irrelevant irreverence. Here's a temporary hiccup addressing some issues that really, really only slightly almost matter.
In what might very well be Timmy's strangest podcast, this episode defies both paraphrase and sense. (Best listened to while slightly inebriated).
Timmy reassesses the sober solipsism of a faded French art star and becomes strangely reassured.
Timmy takes some time to trim some insurgent bristles while rediscovering his early, crude attempts at podcasting.
Though his face is masked, his mouth is working overtime. Timmy tells us how artists are responding to the global pandemic.
Timmy responds with uncharacteristic thoughtfulness to our new precarious present. (kinda)
Timmy finds an artist who can awaken the Golem within while oddly stirring our senses into reluctant self-congratulation. Find here the inspiring story of a true contemporary alchemist!
Timmy tosses his plugged nickel into the current political soup in this penetrating analysis of the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
Find out why Gaius Maecenas had an adjective named after him in Timmy's tale of beneficence and belligerence.
Timmy's career takes an unexpected turn after a fortuitous encounter with a messenger of the Lord.
Timmy shows no fear as he tackles one of the art world's most sacred palette pushers - the titan of the delicate tonality, the Los Angeles legend, the formally untouchable and inscrutable painter, David Schoffman
In our annual end-of-year episode, Timmy invites his family to share their thoughts on the unstable state of something resembling art.
Timmy takes to airing some fairly soiled briefs in public as he try to devote some time to the lost passion of geography.
Some artists go to great lengths to polish their credentials and burnish their brand. Timmy talks of one such specimen whose CV is extremely hard to beat.
Find out how you can get a Zabar's Brunch Basket sent to you courtesy of Timmy Black and The Plausible Deniability Project™!
Timmy's search for the sources of creativity are strangely sidetracked by his ranking of today's best living painters. (How can someone be SO wrong while being SO right at the same time?)
Apologies can be vacant and insincere and one suspects that Timmy Black is a sublime master of the form. In this episode the great philosophers are invoked in order to puff the 'contrite' chest of this virtuoso buffoon.
According to Timmy Black, the intersection of art and technology is an arranged marriage, void of romance but full of neat little gadgets!
Timmy inadvertently reveals the real source of his motivation with this moving piece of unsubstantiated gossip
The rage for inclusion and the noble cult of diversity has never been far from the Timmy Black agenda. In this episode we examine an under-represented artistic constituency and find a few rare gems on the way.
Timmy continues to pursue his dogged crusade for the inclusion of heretofore neglected geniuses into the canon of art history. In this episode he includes new, astounding details about the life and work of Faun Roberts.
In our most controversial episode to date, Timmy introduces the brilliant feminist art historian Orestia Shestov and her special form of militant advocacy. Roberts is the foremost authority on little known American expatriate painter Faun Roberts. Find out here about yet another marginalized genius!
In a state of reckless and inebriated professional disloyalty Timmy decides to expose the art world's most closely guarded secret!
Timmy losses his way as he rhapsodizes on stale romances and erstwhile lovers. There seems to be a point to all this, though like many previous episodes, the point seems lost in the telling. We recommend that TLoCA #55 be listened to with very good headphones either in the bath or on public transportation.
Despite his obvious ethical shortcomings, Timmy reluctantly finds himself in the position of "Thought Leader." Never one to shirk a responsibility, our formally carefree podcaster exercises his newfound authority with both good cheer and good advice.
In the current episode Timmy talks about the perils of California Affirmative Vibrations (CAV). He's quick to point out that in the hands of a decent artist, the regional mellow good cheer (RMGC) can serve as an effective counterpoint. Fiber/Performance artist Kella Shiv is such an artist. Reviewing her latest exhibition, Intermediate Porn, Timmy sheds new light on a few tired ideas.
In which Timmy indulges in a short meditation on how artists need to value all manner of quixotic and improbable financial schemes.
This unedited episode was released without our consent on an independent platform. Rather than take legal action to suppress the broadcast we have decided to release it ourselves. Be advised that the interview, in its raw, unedited form does not, in any way, reflect the editorial position of our "official" podcast. Thank You - T.B.
What goes through the mind of an art model? Timmy does a little investigating and has uncovered a body of information.
Timmy declares war on our flabby forms of expression and pays tribute to one notable creative warrior.
Only Timmy can draw a connection between gum disease, poetry chapbooks and ocean gazing (and we're not sure how strong a connection it really is).
The age of amateurism has its advantages and Timmy is determined to find out what they are!
Timmy softens up and explains why he's grown so emotionally attached to his loyal and loving listeners. This one is a real tear-jerker ...
For the first time ever!! Timmy Black Live!!! In a live recording in front of a devoted audience of relatives and skeptics, Timmy delivers the performance of a lifetime!!
Artists may be irrelevant but they stubbornly and consistently situate themselves on the vanguard of the real estate business. Case in point: Southern California.
A visionary glimpse into the wet dream our collective future needn't be an exercise in voluntary disillusion. It can also fill us with swells of optimism! Guess where Timmy Black takes it?
To some, Art is something akin to a theology. To certain artists, devotion to one's work is a sacred rite ..... To others, however, it's an elaborate grift. Timmy asks us all the difficult question: "Which one are you'?
Timmy discusses how sugary baked goods in the shape of rodents can inform the work of our most influential artists. Indeed, the unique Southern California lifestyle remains intimately connected to the rapid development of contemporary art.
The vital importance of networking as a critical component of any artist's toolbox can never be understated. Learn a few useful tips to help boost your career!
The ineffable powers of positive thinking have met their match with host Timmy Black. Can the notoriously skeptical curmudgeon be moved and inspired by motivational speakers? Maybe ...
Is Timmy's contrition sincere? Is "language" a verb? Should art history be revised to include Shaker cabinetry and Borough Park yarmulka crocheting? These and other critical questions are addressed in this timely and timeless episode.
"Identity" today is what rock n' roll was in the fifties! In this powerful and timely episode Timmy Black remembers the amazing Moroccan feminist visionary Sheer Li Mabrouk. If you're not yet familiar with her work ... you should be ...
The business of art is an often neglected yet necessary aspect of one's studio practice. In this episode, Timmy Black shares his valuable insights into commerce and creativity.
The enduring consolations of cheerlessness might seem, on the surface, as an impertinent contradiction but then again, the geography of the world of ideas is mapped in riddles.
What little prestige is still attached to the artists' profession is tenuously held by the thin filaments of flagrant denial. In this episode we discuss how this little bit of humiliating magic works.
The ugly impulse for vengeance is wickedly examined by the normally mild mannered moderator. Listen as Timmy goes for the jugular and proves that while the pen is mightier than the sword, the podcast provides the unkindest cuts of all.
In this age of digital reproduction one is best advised to cover one's tracks. Timmy delves into the tricky issues of originality and how honesty may be receiving an unexpected vindication.
While the general public aspires toward the condition of the creative class, artists, wallowing in the shallows of crippling self-doubt create more than pretty pictures in order to stay somewhat stable.
Love may hurt but there's nothing like heartache to stoke the creative engines. Combine that with naked, shameless ambition and you get art, both timeless and untrustworthy.
Painting may not be dead but it is definitely on life-support. This grand tradition isn't getting any help from two unconventional artists who use language in very provocative ways.
Timmy Black has, for once, done his homework. Hear how obscure artists and their powerful stories compete with the giants of the conventional historical narrative.
Professor and performance artist Oreastia Shestov shatters the glass soapbox with her maximalist Minimalism.
The beauty of brevity and its cultural implications are barely touched upon in this brief and superficial episode
Our search for significance follows a banal path of shocking predictability. Is there a remedy for our lack of gravitas? ...
Can disruption and innovation serve two masters in this age of commodified ideas? Is there still a reason to care?
Tina Black sits in for her husband Timmy and offers a uniquely feminist perspective on the Lives of Contemporary Artists
The grand subject - Death and Immortality - are tackled and tickled while lesser themes go toying with our emotions.
Uncovering formally marginalized women artists is the subject of this extremely timely and important podcast
Cults of self-absorption and their intersection with artistic genius in the life of the Cuban master, Micah Carpentier
Why artists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, insist that they are somehow special.
Reggae meets the Renaissance where we meet an odd watercolorist, adrift but nonetheless prolific.
Gossip or character assassination, this profile of French artist Currado Malaspina sounds like a pack of lies.
Where Los Angeles artist David Schoffman meets an unlikely kindred spirit - the Cuban master Micah Carpentier