Bad at Sports

• Bad at Sports Episode 923:Jerry Gagosian aka Hilde Lynn Helphenstein Part 1

  At NADA Miami 2025, Bad at Sports' Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, better known to most of the art world as meme-lord and art-world agent provocateur Jerry Gogosian. In a conversation that swings between dead serious and totally unhinged, Hilde traces the unlikely origin story of Jerry: a near-fatal tick bite in Hudson, NY; weeks in the ICU where she went blind, deaf, and lost the use of her hands and feet; and the eight-month bedridden period that led her to start making art-world memes "six or seven a day" just to stay sane.  She explains how Jerry Gagosian—a name cheekily mashed up from Jerry Saltz and Larry Gagosian—became an anonymous voice for the insiders, registrars, assistants, and "world's oldest interns" of the art world. Positioned "at the cutting edge of stating the obvious," Jerry's memes mined the absurdities of art fairs, galleries, power, and self-seriousness, often circulating so widely that even Arne Glimcher at Pace blasted one to the entire staff. For Hilde, the memes were "fast food," while the deeper writing and podcasting they spawned became the real work. The episode also dives into Hilde's hatred of artspeak, her love of Pixar movies as real art, and the gulf between what artists claim their work does in press releases and what's actually visible in the work. She riffs on turning incomprehensible exhibition texts into literal film scripts, skewers academic pretense, and praises the raw "holy" feeling of walking into a gallery without any language or theory at all.  In the second half of the conversation, Hilde talks about going to business school at NYU Stern after years inside galleries and the market. Learning macro- and microeconomics, statistics, and reading things like Enron's 10-K filings gave her a new lens on the art world as a distorted, unsustainable luxury market in a broader service-and-finance-based U.S. economy. From there, she and the hosts push into the hard questions: oversupply and under-demand for art, MFA pipelines, self-censorship, the moral theater of "perfect" artists, and why she believes most art schools should probably be consolidated or shut down. Hilde Lynn Helphenstein / Jerry Gogosian https://www.instagram.com/jerrygogosian/ Jerry Saltz https://www.vulture.com/author/jerry-saltz/ Larry Gagosian https://gagosian.com/ Arne Glimcher https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/arne-glimcher/ Ben Davis https://news.artnet.com/author/ben-davis Kenny Schachter https://www.artnet.com/artists/kenny-schachter/ Magnus Resch https://www.magnusresch.com/ Barbara Kingsley https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-kingsley-5b6b2411/ Delvin Duarte https://www.instagram.com/delvinduarte/ Keith Boadwee https://www.keithboadwee.com/ NADA Miami https://www.newartdealersalliance.org/ Art Basel Miami Beach https://www.artbasel.com/miami-beach Pace Gallery https://www.pacegallery.com/ Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) https://www.moca.org/ NYU Stern School of Business https://www.stern.nyu.edu/ San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) https://sfai.edu/ SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) https://www.sec.gov/ Enron (corporate reference) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron Vancouver Art Gallery https://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/ Pixar https://www.pixar.com/ Up (Pixar Film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/ Inside Out (Pixar Film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/ Soul (Pixar Film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2948372/ The Diving Bell and the Butterfly https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401383/ John Wick https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2911666/

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• Bad at Sports Episode 922: Andi Crist

  Recorded at the Stony Island Arts Bank / Chicago Architecture Biennial tailgate In this wild, funny, and unexpectedly heartfelt tailgate episode, the Bad at Sports crew — Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews, Ryan Peter Miller, and Jesse Malmed — sit down with sculptor and arts worker Andi Crist in front of the Stony Island Arts Bank during the Chicago Architecture Biennial. The conversation moves fluidly between jokes about heated bamboo floors, fake Uber snacks, soggy bottoms, and bees swarming the microphones — but at its core, the episode is an unusually generous portrait of an artist who's spent years inside the hidden labor structures of museums, galleries, and fabrication shops. Crist discusses her debut solo museum exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Live Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths. She traces her evolution from preparator and art worker to exhibiting artist, unpacking how years of installing, patching walls, and fabricating for others shaped her own deeply self-aware sculptural practice. Her work twists familiar objects — especially extension cords, wet floor signs, and museum benches — into uncanny, absurd, and often poignant ceramic sculptures. A major highlight is Crist performing, in full BBC British-schoolmarm mode, the ChatGPT-generated Jane-Austen-style text she inscribed onto a handcrafted wet floor sign. The hosts derail repeatedly into laughter but also probe serious questions about labor visibility, materials, usefulness, and what it means to "gussy up" the hidden structures of the art world and present them as art. Throughout the episode, Crist reflects on her Southern-to-Chicago shift, her years of preparator culture, the pleasures and irritations of coiling cords, the aesthetics of infrastructure, and her dream of sneaking her replica Art Institute bench into the museum permanently. Her practice sits at the intersection of devotion, mischief, and craft — a perfect "match" for Bad at Sports tailgate chaos. Andi Crist https://andicrist.com/ EJ Hill https://ejhillart.com/ Jamila James (curator; formerly ICA LA, currently at Carnegie Museum of Art) https://cmoa.org/people/jamila-james/ Justin Witte (Director/Curator, Cleve Carney Museum of Art) https://cod.edu/academics/arts_communications/departments/art/faculty/witte.aspx Cleve Carney Museum of Art https://theccma.org/ Stony Island Arts Bank https://rebuild-foundation.org/arts-bank/ Chicago Architecture Biennial https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/ The Art Institute of Chicago https://www.artic.edu/ UIC School of Art & Art History https://artandarthistory.uic.edu/ Columbia College Chicago — School of Visual Arts https://www.colum.edu/academics/school-of-visual-arts/ Mary Berry (Great British Bake Off) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Berry Prue Leith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prue_Leith Great British Bake Off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off Hobby Lobby https://www.hobbylobby.com/ Michaels https://www.michaels.com/ Play-Doh Fun Factory https://shop.hasbro.com/en-us/product/play-doh-fun-factory/ (representative product link) Far Side (Gary Larson) https://www.thefarside.com/ Let Me Google That For You (LMGTFY) https://letmegooglethat.com/

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• Bad at Sports: Episode 921 – Lori Waxman

  Recorded live at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago / CAB Tailgate In this live MCA tailgate episode, the Bad at Sports crew — Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, Brian Andrews, and Jesse Malmed — sit down with Chicago Tribune and Hyperallergic critic Lori Waxman to dig into the past, present, and uncertain future of art criticism.   Lori Waxman speaks candidly about being one of the last remaining "paper critics" in the Midwest, the strange privilege and responsibility of writing for a general audience, and the realities of practicing criticism in a media ecosystem that has largely abandoned it. The conversation moves between the lightly chaotic and the deeply reflective: the team discusses accountability, gatekeeping, democratization, descriptive vs. evaluative criticism, and the uneasy role of critics in shaping a city's cultural memory. A major portion of the episode is devoted to Waxman's long-running performance project "The 60 WRD/Min Art Critic," which she describes as part-service, part-performance, part-publishing experiment — one that temporarily gives a community something most cities no longer have: a local critic writing about local work. From describing her process of writing in public (fully clothed), to fielding questions about dead artists, visibility, taste, and how critics navigate their own spreadsheets, Waxman opens up her practice with humor and clarity. The episode also includes reflections on Chicago's art ecology, journalism's collapse, how artists use reviews, and what it means to keep going when the platforms keep disappearing. Names Dropped — With Links Lori Waxman 🔗 https://loriwaxman.com/ Duncan MacKenzie 🔗 https://badatsports.com/author/duncan/ Brian Andrews 🔗 https://badatsports.com/author/brian/ Ryan Peter Miller 🔗 https://ryanpetermiller.com/ Jesse Malmed 🔗 https://jessemalmed.net/ Dan Attoe (artist) 🔗 https://www.danattoe.com/ Jerry Gogosian (Instagram art-world persona) 🔗 https://www.instagram.com/jerrygogosian/ Tali Halperin (artist/curator; Chicago-based) 🔗 https://tlihlprn.com/ (closest authoritative source) Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) 🔗 https://mcachicago.org/ Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) 🔗 https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/ Masthead Brewing / Mast Brewing 🔗 https://mastheadbrewingco.com/ Chicago Tribune — Arts 🔗 https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/visual-arts/ Hyperallergic 🔗 https://hyperallergic.com/ Other People's Pixels (artist website hosting) 🔗 https://www.otherpeoplespixels.com/ Documenta 🔗 https://documenta.de/en WLPN-LP 105.5 FM Lumpen Radio 🔗 https://lumpenradio.com/ Bad at Sports 🔗 https://badatsports.com/ The 60 WRD/Min Art Critic 🔗 https://60wrdmin.org/ Mavis Beacon (reference to "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing") 🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Beacon

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• Bad at Sports Episode: 920 Tony Lewis

  Recorded live at the CAB6 × MCA Tailgate This episode was recorded as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB6) activation on the plaza of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where Bad at Sports staged a series of open-air interviews, community dialogues, and tailgate-style broadcasts. Artists, architects, students, and the public intersected in a shared social space designed for porous conversation. Episode 920 features Tony Lewis, whose practice has shaped Chicago's contemporary drawing discourse for more than a decade. In this conversation, Tony Lewis joins Bad at Sports for an unscripted outdoor interview on the MCA plaza during the Architecture Biennial. The discussion moves fluidly between Lewis's formative years in Chicago, the evolution of his drawing practice, his relationship to language systems (notably shorthand), and the material intelligence behind works that incorporate rubber bands, graphite, or constraint mechanisms. Lewis reflects on mentorship, studio discipline, the importance of failure and patience, and the way drawing becomes a long-term conversation with materials. He speaks candidly about the Chicago art ecosystem, the emotional dimensions of his practice, and the shifting sense of scale and intimacy in his recent work — including his Louis Bag series and large graphite constructions. The episode captures an artist thinking in real time about endurance, attention, vulnerability, and artistic friendship. ·       Drawing as a full-body practice: constraint, tension, rubber bands, architecture of line. ·       Language + shorthand: transcription, coded systems, linguistic compression. ·       Chicago as a site of artistic maturation: community, humility, seriousness. ·       Material intelligence: graphite as dust, weight, pressure, residue. ·       Patience and endurance: long timelines for developing works. ·       Professional evolution: moving from iconic early works to quieter, more intimate forms. ·       Artistic friendship and trust: collaboration, studio visits, long-running dialogues. ·       Shorthand Drawings / Gregg Shorthand–based works ·       Rubber band constructions & torn-grid drawings ·       Graphite floor drawings / powder dispersion works ·       Louis Bag series  ·       Wall-based large graphite sheets under tension NAMES DROP-ed  ·       Tony Lewis - https://massimodecarlo.com/artists/tony-lewis ·       Kevin Beasley (referenced indirectly in relation to material practice) - https://caseykaplangallery.com/artists/beasley/ ·       Nate Young - https://www.moniquemeloche.com/artists/36-nate-young/works/ ·       Theaster Gates - https://www.theastergates.com/ ·       Michelle Grabner - https://www.michellegrabner.com/ ·       Kerry James Marshall - https://jackshainman.com/artists/kerry_james_marshall ·       William Pope.L - https://www.miandn.com/artists/pope-l ·       Rodney McMillian - https://vielmetter.com/artists/rodney-mcmillian/ ·       Amanda Williams - https://awstudioart.com/home.html ·       Rashid Johnson - https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/2830-rashid-johnson/ ·       Charles Gaines - https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/21845-charles-gaines/ ·       Torkwase Dyson - https://www.torkwasedyson.com/ ·       Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) - https://mcachicago.org/ ·       Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) - https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/ ·       Shane Campbell Gallery - https://www.shanecampbellgallery.com/ ·       School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) - https://www.saic.edu/   Image Sarah Hudson

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• Bad at Sports Episode 919: Kohler, Throckmorton, and Grabner

  This week, Bad at Sports hits the road and heads north to Sheboygan and Kohler, Wisconsin — where art, industry, and community collide. We drop into the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) and the Kohler Arts/Industry Residency program to see how a small Midwestern town sustains one of the most ambitious intersections of art and manufacturing in the country. Michelle Grabner and Jodi Throckmorton. From toilets to terracotta, brass casting to bathroom design, Kohler has been quietly incubating radical artistic practice for decades, embedding artists in its factories while JMKAC builds a civic platform for art environments, vernacular traditions, and contemporary experimentation. We talk with artists, administrators, and community members about what makes this ecosystem work — and why Sheboygan might just be the weirdest, most wonderful art town in America. John Michael Kohler Arts Center @jmkacKohler Arts/Industry Residency Kohler Co. @kohler   Name-Drop Jodi Throckmorton  - https://curatorsintl.org/about/collaborators/7932-jodi-throckmorton Michelle Grabner - https://www.michellegrabner.com/ John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) — https://www.jmkac.org/ Kohler Arts/Industry Residency — https://www.jmkac.org/arts-industry/ Kohler Co. — https://www.kohlercompany.com/ Art Preserve (JMKAC's satellite museum) — https://www.jmkac.org/art-preserve/ Arts/Industry Alumni (sampled in conversation): Beth Lipman — https://www.bethlipman.com/ | @beth_lipman Ann Agee — https://www.annageestudio.com/ Jeffrey Clancy — https://jeffreyclancy.com/home.html Ashwini Bhat — https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/ashwini-bhat-reverberating-self/ Pao Houa — https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/pao-houa-her-the-imaginative-landscape/ Lily Cox-Richard  — https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/water-sprouts-and-remains-an-unfolding/ Sheboygan community — https://www.townofsheboyganwi.gov/  

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