THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: Yoko Ono is doing an installation in New York of her Wish Tree series.
Liz Scully: What I find about this not particularly exciting is it’s been done to death, so I don’t know whether it’s been done to death by events and weddings and things where people tie a wish to something. That’s the problem with conceptual art. It can get cheapened so easily.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. You know what? I’m changing my mind about this. I’m starting to feel like it’s more like a wedding thing rather than art.
Speaker3: It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast, an art world insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, my friend. How’s your book coming?
Liz Scully: Slowly. The speed, speed, speed of my brain. Very slow. But Candace is doing a cracking job.
Miriam Schulman: Of course she is.
Liz Scully: How’s yours? More importantly, how is the retreat? Was it fabulous?
Miriam Schulman: It was fabulous. But I did get into a little spat with the inn owner because she was very controlling about the breakfast. So her ideal plan is to delight and surprise everybody each day with what she decides to make. But of course, that doesn’t quite work out. When you have women who are gluten free or vegan or low cholesterol low. I’m describing the book Retreat people, by the way, and so I’m vegetarian, but for some reason she didn’t like there was one day where she just gave me an egg white omelet and I was looking over at this one, had avocado French toast, and that one had regular French toast. And I was like, well, can I have a piece of toast? And she said, we don’t have any toast. I was like, well, how did you make that over there? Right. So like, we were trying to figure out that she only make just enough for the people who were there. Did she not want to accommodate my diet? Was she confused that I was gluten free and was pissy that I, like, suddenly wanted the bread that maybe she thought I didn’t want? I don’t know, but the next day I had gluten so all was well. Like that was the book retreat, which has nothing to do with writing books. But maybe that will be a good story. I don’t know.
Liz Scully: Also, like our heritage is, there must be food and lots of it and when we want it. Thank you very much. None of this measly.
Miriam Schulman: Measly met my mother. She says that she knows people like that who will only make just enough for the people who are there. And so she thinks that truly, she did not have a piece of toast for me. But that would never have happened in my house when I was growing up.
Liz Scully: No. Definitely not. No.
Miriam Schulman: No way. All right. So I do have an agenda. Let’s see. I knew.
Liz Scully: It.
Miriam Schulman: Of course. Hello. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast. This is episode number 333. Today’s guest has been here before. But just in case you forgot, she has spent 20 years working on big Hollywood films. She’s won an Emmy, and her work is multi-oscar nominated. Damn, girl. She’s a business strategist and a mastermind evangelist. She’s all these other things which have already made those jokes about. So I won’t repeat the jokes. Welcome to the inspiration place, Liz Scully. Hello, how are you? And welcome to my show. Officially.
Liz Scully: I’m thrilled to be back. Thank you for having me back.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so the reason I invited you, this is the second time I’ve done this format. I like your idea of formats on your podcast, the Business Book podcast. We should always slip that in for you, right? Yeah.
Liz Scully: Thank you very much. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: I like the way you have like different formats. So this format I’ve only done once before where I invite somebody and who is not necessarily an art history maven or whatever, but just art interested art, curious art adjacent, which you are those things as a filmmaker, you are an artist as far as I’m concerned.
Liz Scully: I spent a long time at art school as well. Yes, yes.
Miriam Schulman: So there’s that. And the idea is to then say, hey, look at this weird thing in the art world that I read about. Let’s talk about it. That’s the agenda today. Are you ready? And the guests are never prepared ahead of time for these articles.
Liz Scully: So ready and so unprepared all at the same time. Yes, that’s part of the fun. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: Because then we get your true reaction. Not like a practiced. All right. So I’m going to share my screen. There will be a video version of this. The first one. Oh, this was in the New York Times today. This one does not have a picture, actually. Okay. I read in the New York Times today that a gallerist needed a liver transplant.
Liz Scully: Okay.
Miriam Schulman: And one of her artists donated half of his liver to her. Oh, yeah. Cool.
Liz Scully: I didn’t apart from anything, I didn’t realize you could give away half your liver. I thought it was a sort of all or nothing kind of thing.
Miriam Schulman: No. That either. I thought you could only get harvest livers from dead people, but apparently he donated. I think it was 58% of his liver. Or maybe he was left with 58%, I forget.
Liz Scully: That’s amazing. That’s so kind. And does it speak to the connection between the gallerist and the artist, or is the artist doing it as a piece, an event, A thing. How interesting.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, I love that. That is a really good question. Okay, so these are questions that other journalists asked. Like were you guys close? And like, no not really. But we have, you know, this relationship because you do get an intimate relationship when you discuss your art with somebody and the direction it’s going in. And I think he just thought it was a very brave thing for her to even ask. And his mother did try to talk him out of it.
Liz Scully: That is the role of a mother, that that is what that is. She’s doing a job that is.
Miriam Schulman: So the question is, Dear Liz, would you ever donate any of your organs while you’re alive? Like a kidney?
Liz Scully: Well, I’m not using it, so yeah, I guess so, but I’m actually my sister and I have talked about this a lot. My sister is a drinker. I am not a drinker. Not a drinker. And she has always maintained she has first dibs on on one of my kidneys. Obviously not both of them, but that’s not a good thing for either of us.
Miriam Schulman: While you’re alive or after. I mean, like, what’s.
Liz Scully: While I’m alive? I like to think I’m sort of keeping it warm before I heard the meantime. But until about 30s ago, I didn’t know you could give away half your liver. Does it grow back? Do you end up with two whole livers? Should we need more information?
Miriam Schulman: Google.
Liz Scully: Oh, please.
Miriam Schulman: We need to ask Google. Like right now. Not ChatGPT, because we’ve already discovered we can’t trust that. Let’s see. Let’s pick up. Let’s Google Scholar. What’s your favorite robot? Google scholar.
Liz Scully: Ooh, I’ll take anything at this point, because I’m still shocked by the fact you could grow a new liver or more liver or. Okay. Give away some.
Miriam Schulman: I’m going to use perplexity just because I don’t know. I like the interface, but it’s not as trustworthy as Google Scholar. Um, if you lose or donate part of your liver, will it grow back, is the question. Okay. Yes. If you donate or lose a portion of your liver, it will grow back. The liver has a unique ability to regenerate itself. After donating part of your liver, it will eventually return to close its original size.
Liz Scully: So not only can you save someone’s life with half your liver, but you’ll get what will grow back will be a reduced size, so it’s a weight loss plan as well. Potastic it’s a gift that keeps on giving. Superb. There. I don’t know if you.
Miriam Schulman: Ever saw this series just dissolve the about on Netflix. Okay, so the husband asks his wife if because he witnesses somebodys wife had donated an organ like I think it was a kidney, this liver donation for an a live person I think is very advanced. Only in New York City. But you know, okay, so he had witnessed that this guy’s life was saved because the wife donated the liver. And actually, that may not have been the relationship, but somebody donated the liver. So he goes home and he asks his wife, would you do that for me? And she goes, I don’t know. I think I’m still using it. So what he said, but you have to. She says, yeah, but I might need the other one. So that was the plot.
Liz Scully: So can we go back to this gallerist? So with the new liver, when they recover, what we know for certain is that artist is going to get the best agent work from that gallerist for the rest of their life. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: 1,000%, because in that article it doesn’t say that. But in the article here they are shown like installing his latest show. Right? Of course.
Liz Scully: Yes, yes. That they will be pushing that. Work hard. This man saved my life. It’s amazing.
Miriam Schulman: Right? Like. And we will reduce the commission, but not all the way. So when we come back, we’re going to talk about immersive experiences that are happening in the art world. But first these words. All right my friend. So I have a very important question to ask you. Have you planned 2025 yet? Well, I always plan the following year before January 1st. Not in great, great detail, but at least I have my broad brush strokes all laid out, and I actually have already done that for 2025. I would love to guide you through my process for planning out the year, so that you can make sure that all of your important art promotions are on autopilot. This will be a beautiful way for you to close out 2024 and embrace the year ahead. Now I will be doing this live on December 12th. So if you’re listening to this when it goes live, you can save your spot to join us. Go to SchulmanArt.com/Goals. And if you’re listening to this, after that, we are going to make the training available for you to watch on demand. So if you want to get all of 2025 planned out and have great clarity on what you need to be promoting in the New year, I hope that you’ll join us. SchulmanArt.com/Goals. Okay, and now back to the show. So let me preface the next part. So I’ve been talking about my trend predictions for 2025. In the arts. And one of my top five trend predictions is More immersive Experiences. I forget when this podcast is coming out in relation to the Trend Prediction podcast. I’m pretty sure it’s after so we will link to that episode. Yes. Okay, so in 2025, Yoko Ono is doing an installation in New York of her Wish Tree series. Let’s take a look. So the idea is people do wishes and they attach it to the tree. And because she is 92 years old, they’re going to have 92 trees for this New York exhibition.
Liz Scully: First of all, she looks amazing for a woman in her 90s. Do you think she has.
Miriam Schulman: The portrait filter on?
Liz Scully: I could tell. She looks astounded, but really, she hasn’t fundamentally changed since she was 16 or so. To be honest, not really. Since her 40s? No.
Miriam Schulman: And she doesn’t look like someone who’s had work done either. It’s kind of like true, graceful aging.
Liz Scully: Yes, yes. Also, those Japanese jeans look always look seem to age extremely well.
Miriam Schulman: It’s a it’s a good diet.
Liz Scully: Yeah. True. So I’ve never really got on with Yoko Ono stuff. I’ve seen quite a lot of it, and it always leaves me a bit cold. But you cannot fault her for the fact that she has been prolific since, well, the mid 50s. The early 60s were years.
Miriam Schulman: She’s 92.
Liz Scully: Exactly. So she’s prolific. She’s working. She’s influential. Do I like it? Yeah. Well, how do you feel about it?
Miriam Schulman: I like the idea of it. I do, I really and I do like these immersive experiences. Like, I really like I don’t know if you know the artist Yayoi Kusama. She also does immersive experiences like botanical gardens or her infinity room. So I like the idea that it’s art that you interact with.
Liz Scully: So yes, and I went to one of those infinity rooms. There’s one in London that I think I had to I had to sell a kidney actually, to buy the ticket. It was incredibly difficult to get in there. But I guess what I find. I guess what I find about this not particularly exciting, is it’s a lovely idea, but it also feels like it’s been done to death. So I don’t know whether it’s been done to death by events and weddings and things where people tie a wish to something. Are we ripping off Yoko’s original idea? And we’ve just sort of ruined it over the years? Oh, well.
Miriam Schulman: That’s a good question. How long has this installation been happening? Let’s ask Google Which tree? History. Okay. The series developed after an installation of one tree in Finland and grew into a mini forest, and Ono felt a continuing, continuing social need. Wikipedia. Which means it’s true. Sort of 1996.
Liz Scully: There you go. Well, it’s been co-opted by every nauseating wedding. And if your wedding had this, it was lovely. I’m sure it was lovely. But everybody else, they’ve sort of. And I think that’s the problem with conceptual art. It can get cheapened so easily.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. You know what? I’m changing my mind about this. I’m starting to feel like it’s more like a wedding thing rather than art. I think you’re right.
Liz Scully: I’m not saying.
Miriam Schulman: This to people. Please you, by the way, because I am happy to disagree.
Liz Scully: So that’s not you, I know that. I know that, but I’ve certainly been to some beautiful historical sites where they have something like this where you can tie a wish onto something. Nice idea. Yeah. You know, in the.
Miriam Schulman: Original.
Liz Scully: 90, like, you know, it’s a while since you’ve had a new idea, maybe, I don’t know, but whatever. It’s like. I’m sure it’s lovely to be there. Is it good art? Yeah, not at all. Yeah. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. All right, moving on then. Next is. And listeners, we would love to know what you think too. So leave a comment on the blog. This is episode 333. So SchulmanArt.com/333. Or you can DM me or leave a comment on Instagram. I’m at Schulman Art Schulman Art or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you. All right, next is the world premiere of doom, which I can’t show you because it’s a world premiere and it’s a performance piece from Anne Imhof, I think. Or Imhof, what do you think?
Liz Scully: I would say I’m off. Surely that doesn’t mean I’m right. But that’s what I’d say.
Miriam Schulman: Dyslexics trying to pronounce a weird name. Who won the Golden Lion? Which is the top prize for installation of Faust? This piece, I think what I wrote down is referring to doom is about apathy, activism, and resistance. And so now we can’t really see the piece that’s being released. But I can show you who this chickadee is and what is she all about? Mhm.
Liz Scully: It’s a lovely photograph of her. Although you might want to go and eat something. She looks very slender.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Let’s describe it for people who can’t see it now. Although do you know most people watch podcasts. Did you hear that?
Liz Scully: I do. Understandable. Understandable.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. We’re going to interrupt this art thing to give you some business news. I cut this out from. Because I do get physical papers. You don’t. You listen to everything. Wow. Okay. So this is and it’s not focusing because I have the portrait filter on my face. Suddenly we’re all watching long videos of people talking, and it says YouTube is now number one for podcasts, not iTunes.
Liz Scully: Interesting. That is interesting because because I’m only 86 episodes into my my show. I have all the videos I intend to do stuff with it. Haven’t done it yet. Maybe this is what I need to tip me over.
Miriam Schulman: This is what you might need to hear. The other business marketing thing you need to hear is that you know, with the generations however you want to divide it, Gen Z and younger or millennials and younger or I don’t know how you want to divide it up, but the younger folks that are not our age like they’re on TikTok and YouTube. The older folks are on YouTube and LinkedIn. What is everybody on YouTube? And I know from my own behavior. My husband and I actually canceled all of our streaming platforms, and when we watch TV, we turn on YouTube.
Liz Scully: Yes, yes, I know it’s the modern way, really, isn’t it?
Miriam Schulman: Definitely. And also what I realized up until November 5th, I was watching podcasters on YouTube. I didn’t think of them as podcasters. I thought of them as progressive news media. But that is exactly what it was. It was just people talking about what they think. And I was watching the video of it. That was my that was my consumption habits. I have, by the way, I have unsubscribed from all of them since then because I decided I didn’t want that in my life anymore.
Liz Scully: How very abstemious, I like it.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Okay. Moving along. All right, so let’s describe this woman for people. And by the way, her art is performance art. Therefore her body is very much a part of the art. So it’s not about us just picking on a woman and describing her appearance because she’s a woman. It’s because she’s a performance artist who is in all of her pieces.
Liz Scully: Yes. And she’s very striking. She has long, dark hair, very pale skinned body. And in the picture we’re looking at, she has long dark hair. No top on it would appear. And then sort of. Do you think they’re sort of jogging kind of exercise trousers but quite loose. So she’s got very black hair, very white skin, very black sort of lower half. And then she’s in this kind of cavern like sort of basement area filled full of beautiful candles of the church, altar variety. But she also looks like she could be inside the New York subway somewhere down in the bowels of something. It’s a very striking image. If it was like a still from Stranger Times, you wouldn’t be surprised. So it’s a very big space, and she’s this very slender, kind of willowy figure in there, and she’s got one arm up, so she looks like she only got one arm and she’s got something in her hand. It’s it’s very intriguing. It looks like one of those beautiful fashion spreads.
Miriam Schulman: Except we also need to mention the underarm hair, too, because that’s very prominent. Yes.
Liz Scully: That’s true. Yes. Another dark area for sure. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: Yes. And unbrushed hair. Like not not. It’s not just that it didn’t. She didn’t have a blowout. But it’s like it has, like, this very tangled witchy.
Liz Scully: Um, yes. It’s a very bewitching image all round. Yes.
Miriam Schulman: So all her pieces are videos? I don’t know if that’s her, by the way, because.
Liz Scully: She looks completely different in that picture. If it is.
Miriam Schulman: Is this her?
Liz Scully: And the reason we are not sure if it’s the same person is in these pictures. The person who may or may not be the artist has a very, very short haircut.
Miriam Schulman: I think it was because there’s more than one picture with that shaved head look.
Liz Scully: So she goes from almost waist length hair Yes. Shaved completely.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, wait wait wait. This one has the shaved head and somebody else. And now we’re not sure.
Liz Scully: But the pictures are beautiful. Because often I find with installation art, the pictures sort of document. They’re not necessarily beautiful in themselves, but these are very striking, and they look like a mix between news reportage and beautiful fashion layouts.
Miriam Schulman: I believe she’s a Berlin based artist and I’m very intrigued by that. Look at this. So she is an artist and choreographer, and she won Venice’s top prize at the Biennale that year. And gee, I don’t know what she’s doing here. Very interesting. Okay, my friend, let us move on to the next art piece of news, by the way. So when I heard that her next piece was about apathy, resistance and activism. I first thought, of course, went to. What does she think about Israel?
Liz Scully: And I asked, I’m interested. I’m interested in apathy and resistance. They seem to be at odds with each other. How could you be apathetic? Could it be a.
Miriam Schulman: Commentary on others apathy?
Liz Scully: And we see, you know, that makes a lot more sense.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so I was very nervous about this artist. I was centering on my own platform. Where does she stand? And this is what the robots told me, as if my current knowledge there’s no publicly available information detailing Anne Imhof’s personal views on Israel. So there we go. So she’s a German visual and performance artist. She’s known for her works explore themes such as power dynamics, individualism, and societal structures. While her art often delves into complex and provocative subjects, she has not publicly expressed specific opinions regarding Israel. So there’s that. Did you see the substance yet? Did I tell you to go see it? And have you seen it?
Liz Scully: I don’t like horror. I’m quite squeamish. I’ve heard. It’s amazing.
Miriam Schulman: It’s amazing. To me, it was. The whole movie is performance art.
Liz Scully: Interesting.
Miriam Schulman: The only violence is Demi Moore’s self violence. Like the. Yes. I ruined the ending. The character kills herself at the end. Like that’s the only person who dies in the entire show. So it’s more like horror. Satire, I would say, than like a horror movie. It’s body horror. Yes.
Liz Scully: See, that’s your problem there. So? So I’m the sort of vegetarian that is squeamish to the point of I used to eat a lot of dried fruit, and then one of my, one of my friends said this apricot, this dried apricot, it’s a bit like an earlobe. And I was like, it is. And I didn’t eat them for about three years so I could sit through. A squeamish body does fall.
Miriam Schulman: Off in the movie. So like there is that also.
Liz Scully: Like an apricot. That’s right.
Miriam Schulman: Now our whole audience is going to eat apricots.
Liz Scully: Sorry about that. I apologize, but.
Miriam Schulman: In terms of like performance art, I just thought it was amazing. But people are polarized whether they love or hate it. It’s like it’s it’s not a met reaction. So I went with my friend Lynya Floyd. She hated it. And she’s a very smart woman. She hated it. And I was like, oh no, but it’s a it’s a commentary on ageism and what women’s do to their bodies and what lengths we’re willing to go to maintain youth. And, and it’s surrealism, and it’s like watching a Dali painting, like, I like I was all into the film, the facts and the angles and the camera shots, and to me that was the whole thing. When we come back, Liz and I are going to discuss the American premiere of Monkey Off My Back. But first these words. All right, my friend. So I’ve been talking to all month long about the trends and what is ahead for 2025, but how does that relate to you? What have you have planned for 2025? Would you like my help with that? If so, you can join me live Thursday, December 12th, where I’ll be helping you plan out your biggest promotions for the year as well as your secondary promotions.
Miriam Schulman: You can have my help plotting out your promotional calendar. I’d love to see you live. If you can’t make it live, you will get so much out of the training and you’ll get to see other people plan out their training and you’ll have a complete step by step workbook for plotting out yours. Let’s not do random acts of marketing anymore. Let’s make 2025 count and make it your best year ever. To save your spot, go to SchulmanArt.com/Goals. And now let’s get back to the show. Back to our regularly scheduled program. Okay. The next and ultimate news bit that we’re going to be talking about is the North American premiere of Monkey Off My Back, or The Cat’s Meow. And because it’s the North African premiere, you actually can look at this what this is. Whereas with The last artist, it was the world premiere. Okay. So let’s let’s look at pictures and discuss. Right now we’re looking at a floor that looks like a mondrian painting.
Liz Scully: And it looks like there’s a sort of dance performance going on on top of it.
Miriam Schulman: Yes. And the dancers in this shot that we’re looking at right now are all in bathrobes, but none of them match.
Liz Scully: It’s very striking. I have to say. We’re now looking at a picture of a woman in or not or not a woman. Oh, yes. A person. A human of some description, with a jaunty hat and a sort of feather and sort of tool outfit of some description, with their hands on their hips, looking very determined and sassy at the same time. And there stood in the middle of the distilled painting, looking like a bit like a still from a fashion runway model.
Miriam Schulman: Yes. Okay. And I think you can get tickets to this. Yes. All right. And now I’m getting memes from monkey off my back that have nothing to do with the actual event.
Liz Scully: How do you feel about this? Does this make you want to go and have a look?
Miriam Schulman: Yes it does. Doesn’t mean I like it, but it makes me want to go have a look.
Liz Scully: So is it a modern dance performance? Is that. Is that what it is?
Miriam Schulman: Okay, I’m going to click into one of these articles because I did not do my homework. Only, only you were supposed to come unprepared. I was supposed to come very prepared and obviously I haven’t.
Liz Scully: Outrageous.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. Monkey off my back or the cat’s meow. All 17 dancers and actors in the huge rectangular main room of the former Walworth. This is a dyslexic trying to read without practicing. Yeah, I did read my own audiobook, though. Liz, what are you going to do?
Liz Scully: I’m going to read a few very short chapters and then comment on them because I can’t trust myself to read. I think you do amazingly well at reading and typing on camera. There’ll be none of that when I’m anywhere near it. No no no.
Miriam Schulman: Uh, the size of the group and the role played by the very special surroundings means the performance does not travel well. Oh, this.
Liz Scully: I suppose you’ve got to take that giant painting with them wherever they go. That flooring? Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Exactly. The floor.
Liz Scully: So I really love modern dance. I see a lot of modern dance in London. There is the only dance specialist theater in the world is in London. That’s all it does is show world class dance, all, all day, every day, all year round. And so I go there a lot and I, I will see a lot. I will be very tolerant of a lot of things in dance in a way that conceptual art, I have to say I’m, I’m less keen on. But dance, one of the advantages of dance and tell them what about this is that dancers obviously it’s very physical. They get tired quite quickly. So you tend to get about an hour, maybe 90 minutes at most. So even if it is dreadful and you hate every second, you’ll be out of there within an hour really most of the time. And that lots of intermissions. Yes. And they think a lot of they think a lot about the less speaking, the more curtain calls they do. So basically, as soon as the curtain goes down, I stand up and race for the door. And then I stand in the aisle politely applauding, and then I dash off, thus saving myself about 20 minutes of the performance where they’re just taking curtain call after curtain call after curtain call. It’s very annoying.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so I am going to share a part of the video and hopefully not share too much that copyright infringement happens or get yelled at or whatever.
Liz Scully: Maybe you could do it Muted so we’re not infringing music.
Miriam Schulman: Oh that is true. Yeah okay. So we’ll do it without the music for a little while. So it looks like they’re dancing around their living room because there’s couches set up.
Liz Scully: Yes. And I must admit the the Mondrian painting, Mondrian type painting, it looks a little bit like the monopoly board somehow as well. There’s something of the obviously the square structure. It looks intriguing and there’s a lot of dancers. We’re now watching one parade from one side to the other. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: And what we’re watching is actually the YouTube clip, which we will embed this clip on the blog post. It’s only a minute long, so it’s obviously it’s not the full performance. It’s like just a highlight reel of it.
Liz Scully: Excellent. What it doesn’t give you any indication of is if there is a sort of through line, if there’s a story, if there’s any kind of narrative in there. It’s just lovely people doing lovely things on a big, flat painting.
Miriam Schulman: So, you know, I’m going to take back what I said. I’m not that interested in finding out. I was kind of bored by that. What that clip we saw.
Liz Scully: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it could be because there was no music.
Liz Scully: True. It could be.
Miriam Schulman: So I will withhold judgment until I look at the clip with music and see if I change my mind. But I was a little bit bored, and I thought it was like, I don’t know what the word is, but, like, dull. No, no, no, no. There’s another word like gimmicky. Gimmicky is the word gimmicky. The Mondrian as your as your kind of like putting the art in the art. I don’t know. I found it a bit gimmicky.
Liz Scully: That didn’t seem to be much interaction between the beautiful flooring and the space and the dancers, that it didn’t seem to come together.
Miriam Schulman: No it didn’t. I was like, okay, we have couches on top of the painting. And then the costuming didn’t. I didn’t understand what was happening. So I don’t know if this is Emperor’s New clothes, but I right now I’m like, I’d rather go to see New York City Ballet, which I do see, which I do like.
Liz Scully: Yes, which is always beautiful. But it’s also possible. Let us let us not rule out the fact that it’s very beautiful. And that’s just a really bad trailer.
Miriam Schulman: True. And we did not have the music, so the music might have pulled it all together. Who knows? You never know. Okay, so now we are down to our last bit of art news that I have prepared for us today in the least amount of preparation possible. Like, I literally pulled out articles during lunchtime. Okay.
Liz Scully: By which you mean you did deep research all week? That’s right.
Miriam Schulman: That’s right. I did the research of finding the best guests. That’s really the whole point. All right, so this is about Christine Berry and Martha Campbell. They launched their New York gallery, Berry Campbell, by searching through Grandchildrens attics and reaching far under widowers beds. And their whole idea was to find overlooked abstract expressionists. And I wonder if anyone can guess who those the gender of who those un overlooked abstract expressionists would be.
Liz Scully: Let’s just say you could look under my bed for all of eternity and never find an overlooked or underlooked abstract Expressionist. Under that, you’d have to be shooting at a certain type of attic you’re in to find these things.
Miriam Schulman: Yes, that is true. So we didn’t start. She’s one of the gallerists said we didn’t start out with the mission of primarily representing women artists. We just wanted to show good paintings of of that era, of which they didn’t say that. But I’m putting that in. The good paintings that were overlooked happened to be by women.
Liz Scully: Oh.
Miriam Schulman: All right. And what they would do is they would like, look at the auction records to find them. And she said that a lot of other gallerists might stop when they see that they only have one auction for $500. And they had faith that this was an untapped market. So I actually prepared one of the artists that they represent so that we can take a look at the art and see what we think about it. So this is Yvonne Thomas.
Liz Scully: These are actually very beautiful. I wonder how big they are.
Miriam Schulman: Yes.
Liz Scully: Well it’s a secret at the moment I don’t know. So we’re looking at lots of oranges and greens and very powerful stuff. Some of it’s a tiny bit derivative of Rothko as all abstract abstract expressionist eventually become. Yes, some of them are better than others, but it’s good work. It’s very beautiful.
Miriam Schulman: It is very good work. You’re so good, by the way, at describing things. So I’m going to let you describe which painting would you like to describe on this page?
Liz Scully: I would like to describe the one that sort of purply one at the far end of that row you’re in at the bottom. That one, this one. Because that is that really appeals to me. So it is a series of marks. There’s a sort of cigar shaped marks all the way across, actually. And now we’re looking at two of the same genre together. I guess it’s the same. It’s Yvonne Thomas, and there are two pictures that were either done to be hung together or were done at the same time. Yeah. Now we have the whole series. They’re beautiful. They really are. There’s lots of blues, lots of purples. There’s a random red one in there. And they they have a sort of feeling of both temperature and heat and haze. Certainly for me, I’m feeling sort of humidity and maybe a time of year and that they’re incredibly beautiful. And if they’re big, which most abstract expressionists tended to work quite large, they could be really overwhelming the way a good Rothko is. That really sort of brings a lot of life to them. And the gallerist must have been thrilled to find these. Yes, gorgeous.
Miriam Schulman: I clicked onto the image just to make sure, because sometimes you know how an image might be on a page, but it’s not that person’s art. It’s just part of the article that mentions that artist. So this is indeed by Yvonne Thomas. It’s called Windows and Variations paintings 1963 through 1965.
Liz Scully: She does such a beautiful quality of color in them.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it really is beautiful because it’s so. The way I like to think of it is they’re about the proportion of like a domino. Each of the rectangles, they’re not there’s no precision in it. It’s it’s clearly done by hand. You see the artist’s hand throughout how she laid out these rows. No rulers, no straight edge, these rectangles, they vary, as you said, in temperature. The one that I actually particularly liked is the one with the violets on top of the red orange. And then there’s some greens on the bottom. Really stunning art. Okay.
Liz Scully: Beautiful. I would like to own one please. I will pay $500.
Miriam Schulman: I have a bonus story for you. It’s about Stonehenge.
Liz Scully: Oh. Have you ever been to Stonehenge? It’s incredibly underwhelming.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, wait, I that is not the right. That is not the right picture.
Liz Scully: I mean, sure, it’s old and it’s beautiful, but it’s so much smaller than you imagine.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, really? So it’s kind of like the Spinal Tap version where the.
Liz Scully: Dwarf stands for small. But I mean, you do have to put quite a lot of work in to remember. Yes, they made it in the Stone age. Yes. This is very impressive. It came to a very long way away. Yes, yes.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so what happened is these activists attacked Stonehenge with orange paint. Oh, now this is a thing. I love the way you said rude. So here we are. And this is something that activists have been doing. They’ve been going into museums and galleries and putting tomato soup on artwork. Sometimes the artworks are under glass, sometimes they aren’t. Thoughts?
Liz Scully: Well, it says that it’s powder paint. And in the photograph you can see Stonehenge. Not as impressive as you think. And some presumably activists blowing this big billows of orange paint around. So. So I feel better that it’s powder paint. So presumably you could sort of hose it off quite easily. Well, I don’t know.
Miriam Schulman: Once you add water to it, does it then become true? Like does that activate the paint?
Liz Scully: That’s true. I thought at first it would be aerosols. Like graffiti. It looks. It looks like a film effect here. I mean, my background is is people on set? It does look like someone’s sort of in the middle of either putting out a very orange fire because it’s got that kind of powdery fire extinguisher look to it, but it also like, like, what are you achieving here, guys? I mean, like, what is this doing? I mean, sure, you make news, but what are you doing? What what are you trying to get.
Miriam Schulman: At is that we care more about works of art than we do about the planet. Like that is their message by doing these stunts like the people, and sometimes they glue themselves to the art. Like I said, sometimes it’s tomato soup. In this case, it’s orange paint. I do agree with you, Liz, that this photo is kind of like a piece of performance art. Like, like like if I didn’t know what they were doing in this photo, I’d be like, what a great photo. I wonder what the artist was trying to say. You know.
Liz Scully: Also, if you want to look after the planet, why attack one of the worst places of the Druids, people who were entirely connected to the life of the planet and how it fits together? Like not well thought out guys. Do better, do better. Bravo.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. And with that, we are going to wrap up. All right. Liz, do you have any last words for my listeners, watchers, whoever, however you’re consuming your podcast these days before we call whatever this is called, complete.
Liz Scully: This has been fabulous. I’ve learned. I’ve learned about my liver. I’ve I’ve been outraged about the dilution of Yoko Ono, whose work I’ve been thrilled at the board by things, and now I’m vaguely outraged on behalf of, of all people, the Druids. I mean, frankly, it’s the whole gamut of your life. Oh my gosh.
Miriam Schulman: I mean, like, you, like, probably earned yourself as a repeat guest for this segment.
Liz Scully: Yes. You were.
Miriam Schulman: You’re like beyond expectations with this. I am so happy. All right, my friend. Thank you so much for joining me this week. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week, wherever that happens to be. Bye for now.
Speaker3: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Schulman Art, on Instagram at SchulmanArt and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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