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ART FICTIONS is fortnightly programme, created by artist Jillian Knipe. Each guest artist selects a piece of fiction, which we both explore, then use as a lens through which to view their artwork. We delve into the book‘s themes, context and characters, which opens up and steers a rich conversation about the artist‘s practice. The podcast bounces back and forth between art and text, all the while focussing on the ideas which govern both. It is a way of talking alongside art, rather than directly at it, getting close and personal with the origins of artistic ideas. Follow @artfictionspodcast Instagram for images of works and links, and see the podcast notes for all the references mentioned. Support via patreon.com/ARTFICTIONSPODCAST.
Episodes
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
Guest artist HELEN JOHNSON
joins JILLIAN KNIPE for this final episode of Series 5, to discuss her work via 'The Birds' by Tarjei Vesaas. Published originally in 1957, then by Penguin Random House in 2019, this short novel describes the relationship between Hege and her younger, mentally challenged brother Mattis. With a sense of non-judgemental simplicity and acute sensitivity, we join the siblings as they negotiate everyday life in partial isolation and on the edge of something happening.
HELEN and Jillian's conversation encompasses lightning, tenderness, siblings, gullibility, hiding, tapestry, holding, frustration, anguish, excavation, metaphors, equality, masking, knitting needles, dream worlds, shattered trees, portals, body punctures, art therapy, white supremacy, honest thieves, cartography lines, blinding flies, Oedipus complex, intergenerational privilege, psychotic structure, architectural blueprints, birthing shit, monetising colonialisation, not being othered, the weight of the work, creating a space for healing, writing being like a drawing, and a lot of Lacanian psychotherapy - a real learning experience !
HELEN JOHNSON
helenjohnson.net
'Opening' Pilar Corrias Savile Row til 6 Jan 2024
'Agency' Pilar Corrias 2019
'Warm Ties' ICA 2017
ARTISTS
Aleksandra Waliszewska
Aliza Nisenbaum
Bridget Riley
Christina Quarles
Denzil Forrester
Fred Williams
Georgiana Houghton
Joy Labinjo
Judy Watson
Katie Pratt
Laura Owens
Maja Ruznic
Marcus Coates 'The Directors' Artangel
Melanie Jackson
Nicole Eisenman
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Paola Balla
Rosie Mullan
Shanti Panchal
Yhonnie Scarce
AUTHORS + BOOKS
Darian Leader 'The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression' 2008
Jackie Wullschläger 'Monet: The Resless Vision' 2023
Jennifer Higgie 'The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World' 2023
Karl Ove Knausgaard
National Gallery of Australia 'Know My Name: Australian Women Artists Since 1900' 2021 Part 1 2022 Part 2
CURATORS + ART HISTORIANS
Helen Molesworth 'Dialogues' David Zwirner
Sarah McCrory
THEORISTS + ANALYSTS + ACTIVISTS
Anna Freud
Donald Winnicott
Jacques Lacan
Joy Shaverien
Melanie Klein
Meriki Onus
Sigmund Freud
Shirley Sharon-Zisser 'What Would a Lacanian Art Therapy Look Like'
Walter Benjamin
Wilfred Bion
GALLERIES + ART INSTITUTIONS
Glasgow International
ICA Institute of Contemporary Art
Kunstverein in Hamburg
Kingsgate Project Space
Latrobe University
MCA NSW Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
NGV National Gallery of Victoria
Pilar Corrias
SeMA Seoul Museum of Art
Tate Galleries
Wednesday Nov 29, 2023
Wednesday Nov 29, 2023
Guest artist ELEONORA AGOSTINI joins PELUMI ODUBANJO to discuss her art practice via 'Boxes', a short story featured in 'Elephant and Other Stories' 1998 Collins Harvill. Written by Raymond Carver and originally published in The New Yorker, the story explores connections, disillusion, powerlessness, worry and loss within a mother and son relationship, as well as the distance between listening and hearing.
ELEONORA and Pelumi's discussion encompasses immortality, microcosmos, waitressing, belonging, mothers, self representation, the grid, family frictions, bitter endings, creepy observation, archival images, being deeply uncomfortable, hiding in bushes, multiple layers of meaning, the complicated teenage years, difficulty bringing closure to relationships, connections between pictures and performance, and not wanting to be the dictator of the image.
@eleonoraagostini
eleonoraagostini.com
Foam Talent 2024-2025
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 2019
'A Study of Waitressing'
'A Blurry Aftertaste' 2018
'Laying with Strangers'
'Welcome Sir'
'How to Stand in Front of the Camera'
'How to Stand in Front of the Client'
'Notes for my Clients'
'The Steps'
@pelumi.odubanjo
ARTISTS
Olukemi Lijadu
Ragnar Kjartansson
WRITERS
John Cheever
Raymond Carver
GALLERIES & INSTITUTIONS
Barbican
Borough Road Gallery 'With Monochrome Eyes' 2020
Palais de Tokyo
Royal College
Friday Nov 10, 2023
Friday Nov 10, 2023
Guest artist MELANIE JACKSON joins artist JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her art practice via 'Corey Fah Does Social Mobility' by Isabel Waidner. Published in 2023 by Hamish Hamilton, part of Penguin Random House, the novel explores binaries, boundaries and borders, freeing us to imagine other ways of being within the context of award winning social mobility, cyclical history, and watching reality TV.
MELANIE and Jillian's discussion encompasses shame, humility, apology, gratitude, wormholes, reconfigured animations, cultural disruption, synthetic biology, persistent amnesia, complicated truths, brutalist architecture, unsustained caretaking, industrial metaphysics, winged penises, synthetic biology, false blaming, clashing ideologies, idealistic social housing, nano scale engineering, vulvas on horseback, ridiculing the middle class, colonialisation of language, pig fat in ice cream, what art can do as an experience, and the way histories and future technologies bounce off one another.
MELANIE JACKSON
@melanie.jjj
melaniejackson.net
'Rouge Flambé'
'Deeper in the Pyramid | Share of Throat'
'Spekyng Rybawdy'
'The Urpflanze'
ARTISTS + CURATORS + ACADEMICS
Esther Leslie
Ezra Lloyd Jackson
Kirsten Cooke
Nicole Eisenman 'Bambi Gregor' 1993
Olukemi Lijadu
Pelumi Odubanjo
BOOKS + MAGAZINES + WRITERS
Brian Massumi 'What Animals Teach Us About Politics' 2014
Charles Darwin 'On the Origin of the Species' 1859
Eileen Myles 'Afterglow: A Dog Memoir' 2017
Franz Kafka 'The Metamorphosis' 1915
'Frieze' magazine
Goethe 'Die Urplanze' ('The Metamorphosis of Plants') 1829
Isabel Waidner ' Sterling Karat Gold' 2021
Jo Orton
John Lahr 'Prick Up Your Ears' 1978 (film 2007)
EXHIBITIONS + INSTITUTIONS
Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth
Banner Repeater, London
Block 336, London 'Spekyng Rybawdy' 2022
Grand Union, Birmingham
Matt's Gallery, London 'Mattflix'
Max Mara Prize
Jerwood Drawing Prize
San Mei Gallery, London 'Rouge Flambè' 2023
Wellcome Collection, London 'Living with Buildings' 2018-2019
Wellcome Collection, London 'Milk' 2023
Whitechapel Gallery, London
FILM + TELEVISION
'The Nasty Girl' 1990
'Top Boy' 2011-2023
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
Guest writer and filmmaker JULIET JACQUES joins artist and writer JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her creative practice via 'Variations' 2021 by the one and only Juliet herself. Published in 2021 by Influx Press, this book of short stories portrays the mixed, messy and moving lives of transexual women transexual men, non binary, gender queer, cross dressers and inverts, around London, Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, Brighton, Belfast, Cardiff and Norwich.
Juliet and Jillian focus on 'Standards of Care' and also discuss humour, poverty, divorce, testosterone, rainbow capitalism, fake tits, ink blot tests, electric shock therapy, alternative Miss World, punk rock gender play, friendship in the face of prejudice, making objects that cannot be sold, itchy balls of wool for breasts, fresh meat advertising slogan, interest in post communist countries, the importance of questioning how people pay the rent and the disappointment of greater understanding not necessarily bringing about greater tolerance.
JULIET JACQUES
julietjacques.com
'Monaco' Toothgrinder Press 2023
'Variations' Influx Press 2021
'Trans: A Memoir' Verso Books 2015
'Transgender Journey' 2010-2012 The Guardian
'Suite 212' 2017-2021 Resonance FM
'Revivification: Art, Activism and Politics in Ukraine' 2018
ARTISTS
Boris Mikilov
Cecilia Sjoholm
David Goymer
Deborah Tchoudjinoff
Garth Gatrix
Hatty Buchanan
Iain Hales
Laura Moreton-Griffiths
WRITERS
Susan Stryker 'Transgender History' 2008
MUSIC
Genesis
Joy Division
Man Enough to be A Woman (Jayne County)
New York Dolls
NME magazine
Sex Pistols
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Siouxsie Sioux
The Fall
The Roxy
Wayne County and The Electric Chairs
FILM + TV
Adam Curtis 'Can't Get You Out of my Head' series 2021 BBC
Bill Grundy 'Today' 1968-1977
Derek Jarman 'Jubilee' 1978
Hattie Jacques 'Carry On' series 1958-1992
Oksana Kazmina, camera and editor
Josh Appignanesi 'Female Human Animal' 2018
EDUCATION + INSTITUTIONS
ICA London
Somerset House Studios
The Royal College
POLITICS + MOVEMENTS
Black Lives Matter
Femen 2008 Ukraine founded by Anna Hutsol, Alexandra Shevchenko, Oksana Shachko
Gay Liberation Front
Margaret Thatcher for Section 28
Revolution of Dignity 18-23 Feb 2014 Ukraine
ReSew - Kyiv based feminist sewing cooperative
Viktor Yanukovych
Friday Sep 29, 2023
Friday Sep 29, 2023
Guest artist ANNA CLEGG joins curator and critic VANESSA MURRELL to discuss her multi-disciplinary art practice via 'My Loose Thread' by Denis Cooper. Published in 2002 by Canongate Books, this claustrophobic novel circulates around teenage Larry who is wrestling with the point of his own existence and explores teen depression, moral vacuity and the confusion of love.
Please be warned that in following the content of Cooper's text, the programme contains references to violence and suicide.
Anna and Vanessa's discussion also encompasses psychedelics, obsession, faux Nazis, feeling violated, animal stickers, unwavering sensitivity, stupid imagery, internal rhyming, Santa Claus, swimming through mud, looping back on oneself, eyes being gummed shut, the value of confusion, dark and disturbing worlds, begrudging awareness of the reader, not being able to fathom the logic of decision making, writing through an idea rather than creating a story, and the steampunk weaponisation of ice skates.
Please!
*rate and review
*support production through patreon.com/ARTFICTIONSPODCAST
*follow us on instagram @artfictionspodcast
*contact us on artfictionspodcast@gmail.com
Recorded at Cubitt Community Radio by Andi Armishah
Music GRIFFIN KNIPE
Production consultant LORI E ALAN
Logo JOANNA QUINN of BERYL PRODUCTIONS
ANNA CLEGG
relevant-confluences.com
'Half Truths' curated by Vanessa Murrell til 30 November 2023 at Unit 2 Cassia Building 97-101 Hackney Road Shoreditch London E2 8ET
ARTISTS
David Musgrave 'Lambda' 2022
James Turrell
John Baldassari 'Wrong' 1967
Joseph Cornell
BOOKS + MAGAZINES + WRITERS
Artforum magazine
Barry Pierce 'Another Magazine'
Beatrice Forster
Brett Eastern Ellis
Denis Cooper 'The George Miles Cycle' series 1989-2000
Denis Cooper 'I Wished' 2021
Elliot Jeffries
Frieze magazine
George Bataille 'Story of the Eye' 1928
Hervé Guibert 'Ghost Image' 2014
Interview magazine
Kathy Acker
Katja Kemnitz 'Too Much Love' on Tumblr
Nour El Saleh
Paul Auster
Roland Barthes 'An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative', 1975
Spin magazine
Tao Lin 'Leave Society' 2021
Tom of Finland
Victory Burgin 'Remembered Film' 2004
Vivian Sobchack
William Burroughs
MUSICIANS + FILM
Brooke Shields
Claire Denis, director and screenwriter
Larry Clark 'Bully' 2001
NLE Chopper
Terence Stamp
Xaviersobased
GALLERIES + ORGS
Chelsea School of Art
Greengrassi
Nicoletti Contemporary
Split Gallery
Wednesday Sep 13, 2023
Wednesday Sep 13, 2023
Guest artist OLUKEMI LIJADU joins curator and PHD researcher PELUMI ODUBANJO to discuss her multi-media art practice through the prism of 'The Stranger' (aka 'The Outsider' aka 'The Foreigner') by Nobel Prize winning writer Albert Camus. Published in 1942, the novella tells of an indifferent French settler who, soon after his mother's funeral, commits the senseless murder of an unnamed Arab man on a Algerian beach. Heralded in the west as a classic text which explores the absurd, their exchange questions the mono-critique which underlies this status, through their personal and uniquely individual experiences. For Olukemi, this is being Nigerian born and raised, where she was educated in the British system, going on to study philosophy at Stanford, USA. While Pelumi is British with Nigerian heritage.
Olukemi and Pelumi's discussion also encompasses psychoanalysis, philosophy, elusive racism, European critique, American critique, contradictory affection, self knowledge, segregated Algeria, compilation of memory, disregard for women, disregard for black people, anonymous Arab characters, ancestors speaking in the first person, the presence of absent women, who can make claims of objectivity, who can make claims of the absurd, women fading from the novel as male desire for them fades, the assumption that one must divorce one's positionality from how they engage with work for their opinion to be valid, the black woman as photographer and therefore narrator, as well as the radicalised and colonised body.
Please support the production of this podcast via https://www.patreon.com/ARTFICTIONSPODCAST
Contact Art Fictions via artfictionspodcast@gmail.com
Follow Instagram @artfictionspodcast
OLUKEMI LIJADU
olukemilijadu.com
insta @kemlij
contact@kemkemstudio.com
'Guardian Angel' commissioned by ICA 2022
ARTISTS + EXHIBITIONS
Atong Atem
Kahlil Joseph 'BLKNWS' 2018 ongoing
Theaster Gates
Wura-Natasha Ogunji
'A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography' at Tate Modern til 14 Jan 2024
'Genetic Automata' by David Blandy and Larry Achiampong at Wellcome Collection til 11 Feb 2024
BOOKS + AUTHORS + FILM
Frantz Fanon
Fred Moten 'Black and Blur' 2017
Harper Lee 'To Kill a Mockingbird' 1960
James Baldwin 'The Fire Next Time' 1963
Jane Austen 'Pride and Prejudice' 1813
Lola Olufemi
Paul Gilroy 'The Black Atlantic' 1993
Saidiya Hartman 'Lose Your Mother' 2006
Saint Omer 2022 director Alice Diop
Timothy Ogene 'Seesaw' 2021
Toni Morrison
MUSICIANS
Aretha Franklin
Bob Marley
Christopher Williams
Frankie Knuckles
Lee Scratch Perry
Rokia Traoré
Whitney Houston
GALLERIES + INSTITUTIONS
Sanford University
Institute of Contemporary Art
Tate Modern
V.O Curations
Friday Jul 14, 2023
Friday Jul 14, 2023
Guest artist RORY PILGRIM joins author and critic ELIZABETH FULLERTON to discuss his musically inspired, community-based art practice through the prism of 'The Bell' by Irish British writer and philosopher, Dame Jean Iris Murdoch. Published in 1958, this funny and sad novel explores religion, human frailty and who has the right to a voice, set within the confines of a lay community.
Please be warned that in following the content of Murdoch's text, the programme contains references to sexual abuse and to suicide.
Rory and Elizabeth's discussion also encompasses unheard voices, sunken voices, historical voices, awoken voices, shutting down voices, empathy, songwriting, drawing, poetry, kissing, dancing, stories, transformation, spiritual striving, moral dilemma, social practice, closet homosexuality, transformative moments, nuns getting naked and writing off people who are too complicated. They also delve into the toxic politics of speech, wrestling with faith, music as a first language, pathways of self destruction, the stress of being part of communities, suppression leading to the harm of others, the desire and courage to learn and to listen, experiences shaped by nuance and interconnections, and ways in which direct democracy can be built on consensus and intergenerational dialogue. And together, they question: how can you be completely yourself within a group, how can we imagine new forms of law through storytelling, and how can art play a civic role in transforming lives and developing networks of care.
Please support the production of this podcast via patreon.com/ARTFICTIONSPODCAST.
Contact Art Fictions via artfictionspodcast@gmail.com or instagram @artfictionspodcast.
RORY PILGRIM
rorypilgrim.com
insta @rainbowsofgorse
'Turner Prize' at Towner Eastbourne 28 Sep 2023-14 Apr 2024
'Rafts' 2020 The Migros Museum of Contemporary Art in Zurich, EVA International 31 Aug – 29 Oct 2023 Limerick city of Ireland, 49 Nord 6 Est Frac Lorraine in Metz of France
'The Undercurrent' 2019
'The Resounding Bell' 2018
ARTISTS
Abba 'The Visitors' 1981
Barbara Hepworth
Evelyn Taocheng Wang
Helen Cammock
Ilona Sagar
Jane Jeffcot
Mel Brimfield
Ragnar Kjartansson 'The Visitors' 2012
Robyn Haddon
Sands Murray-Wassink
Sonia Boyce
Susie Green
BOOKS + AUTHORS
Lucy Lippard 'Mapping the Terrain: New Genre in Public Art' 1994
Suzi Gablik 'The Re-enchantment of Art' 1991
Toni Morrison 'Beloved' 1987
Toni Morrison 'Song of Solomon' 1977
Toni Morrison 'The Bluest Eye' 1970
GALLERIES + MUSEUMS + ORGANISATIONS
Auto Italia
Chisenhale Gallery
Green Shoes Arts
Interfaith Sanctuary, Boise, Idaho
Serpentine Gallery 'Radio Ballads' 2022
Site Gallery
Friday Jun 30, 2023
Friday Jun 30, 2023
Guest artist ANNA BARHAM joins artist JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her art practice via 'Companion Piece' by Ali Smith. Published in 2023 by Penguin Books, the novel explores language, meaning, relationships and contemporary politics in what may be seen as a way of bringing a form of conclusion to Smith's urgently written then quickly published, seasonal texts: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.
ANNA and Jillian's discussion encompasses disfluencies, purity, transcription software, unfolding meanings, easy solutions, social spaces, silent conversations, showing off, undermining binary, performing language and dog eyebrows. As well as the body in the digital, pushing language around, stories being questions, and the pain of a pain within another body.
Please support the production of this podcast via patreon.com/ARTFICTIONSPODCAST.
And you're welcome to contact the team directly on artfictionspodcast@gmail.com and follow what's happening on Instagram @artfictionspodcast.
ANNA BARHAM
annabarham.net
insta @banana_harm
apria.artez.nl/zyx
'Magenta Emerald Lapis' 2009 The Tanks in Tate Modern til 10 Sep 2023
'Stilled Images' Tube Gallery in Palma Mallorca til 6 Aug 2023
ARTISTS
Laura Owens
Lindsay Seers
Moyra Davey
Nicola Bealing
Sophie Ruigrok
William Blake
WRITERS + BOOKS
Ali Smith 'The Accidental' 2005
Ali Smith 'How to be Both' 2014
Anna Barham 'Return to Leptis Magna' 2010
Anna Burns 'Milkman' 2018 voiced by Brid Brennan
Bridget Crone
Cherry Smith
Claudia Rankin
Elizabeth Fullerton
Gertrude Stein
Gustave Flaubert 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony' 1874
Nick Cave
Jennifer Higgie
Russell Hoban 'Ridley Walker' 1980
Judith Butler
Lisa Robertson 'The Baudelaire Fractal' 2020
Lisa Robertson 'Thresholds: A Prosody of Citizenship' 2018
Lisa Roberton 'Cinema of the Present' 2014
Plato 'Cratylus' 360BCE
GALLERIES + ORGANISATIONS
Banner Repeater
bookshop.org
Chelsea College
Flat Time House
Large Glass Gallery
401 Contemporary
Friday Jun 16, 2023
Friday Jun 16, 2023
Guest artist MIKHAIL KARIKIS joins poet and art critic CHERRY SMYTH to discuss his art practice via 'Human Acts' by Han Kang, 2016 published by Granta Books. Set in 1980 South Korea, the novel tells the gruelling story of a violently suppressed student uprising and the inevitable fallout from the original trauma.
MIKHAIL and CHERRY's discussion encompasses trust, courage, coalminers, eco-activism, protest and pearl-divers. As well as chance encounters, female superheroes, community collaboration, violent suppression, active listening, self censorship, activist imaginary, heteronormative language, acoustics of resistance, Greek working class, repercussions of trauma, our relationship to the earth, sounds to engender change, giving over artistic power, speaking on behalf of the dead, sound as a sculptural material, a tsunami of screaming, plus being out of tune with ourselves, our social context and the environment.
Please support the production of this podcast via patreon.com/artfictionspodcast.
And you're welcome to contact the team directly on artfictionspodcast@gmail.com and follow what's happening on Instagram @artfictionspodcast.
MIKHAIL KARIKIS
Greek-British artist based in London & Lisbon, working in video, sound and performance.
mikhailkarikis.com
@mikhailkarikis
'Because We Are Together'
National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens 28 Jan - 8 Oct 2023
'The Weather Orchestra' 2023
'Ferocious Love' 2020 Tate Liverpool as recommended by Laura Cumming in 'The Guardian'
'I Hear You' 2019
'No Ordinary Protest' 2018
'The Chalk Factory' 2017 Aarhus Denmark, commissioned by European Capital of Culture
'Sounds from Beneath' 2011-2012
CHERRY SMYTH
'If the River is Hidden' co-authored with Craig Jordan-Baker
'Famished'
ARTISTS + MUSEUMS + PRACTITIONERS
Ceri Hand
HOME Manchester
Mathilda Bevan
Tate Liverpool
The Granary Gallery
Thelma Hubert Gallery
The Showroom
Whitechapel Gallery
BOOKS + AUTHORS + WRITERS
Alison Branagan 'The Essential Guide to Business for Artists and Designers' 2011
Hartmut Rosa 'Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World' 2021
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Guest artist ROSIE GIBBENS joins VANESSA MURRELL of DATEAGLE to discuss her art practice via 'Life Ceremony' by Sayaka Murata, 2022 published by Granta Books. This off-kilter collection of short stories brings a grotesque whimsy to fables of cultural norms, including society rituals that develop when the human species is endangered .
ROSIE and VANESSA's discussion encompasses ritual, nothingness, meatarianism, shit and vomit . As well as ribcage tables, mocking Freud, recycling flesh, consuming oneself, anatomical Venus's, muscle suits, pointless products, human hair jumpers, an alien point of view, dried stomach lampshades, humans resembling cockroaches, eating Spongebob figurines, and to borrow Rosie's words, it's all kinda dark and kinda beautiful .
ROSIE GIBBENS
rosiegibbens.com
@rosiegibbens
ARTISTS + CURATORS
Becca Pall-Fry
Helen Chadwick
Marcel Joseph
Mike Stubbs
BOOKS + WRITERS
Albert Camus
Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World' 1932
Angela Carter
Barbara Creed 'The Monstrous Feminine' 1993
Julia Kristeva
Megan Milks 'Slug and Other Stories' 2021
Perfume
Steven King 'Carrie' 1974
FILM
'Alien' 1979
'Evil Dead II' 1987
'Ex Machina' 2015
'Hellraiser' franchise
'RAW' 2017
'The Human Centipede' 2009, 2011, 2015
GALLERIES + EXHIBITIONS
GIANT 'Body Poetics' 2023
Museum of the Home
Pictorum Gallery
The Bomb Factory