Art Monthly Talk Show

Christopher Townsend discusses the physicality of drawing; even the most apparently hands-off of artists are drawn to reveal their corporeality through the medium – albeit at one remove.

Morgan Quaintance makes the case for imaginative engagement as a form of participation, arguing that discussion around particpatory art has missed this important category of engagement: artwork that purposefully cues up and then directs the individual viewer’s imagination.

Omar Kholeif discusses western appropriation of art from the Arab world and Paul O’Kane redefines outsider art in an attempt decontextualise art as existing inside an ‘art world’.

John Douglas Millar discusses the Gerhard Richter exhibition at Tate Modern: ‘As this exhibition well demonstrates, Richter’s work contains a dual critique that acts as a painterly plague on both houses of the Cold War divide. There is the desire, on the one hand, to suspend and/or indict ideological thinking, coupled with the will to mourn its effects on his country and his people.’

Colin Perry discusses the vexed relationship between art and TV – where are the activist video artists? Correction: Artworks by David Hall are misattributed to Tony Hill in this broadcast.

Mark Prince discusses the resistance of objects in relation to his article on sculpture ‘The Made v The Readymade’.

Laura McLean-Ferris discusses her essay on dissolution of the body in the internet age, and Morgan Quaintance follows up on his review of the book Digital and Other Virtualities.

Christopher Townsend discusses how mid-century British modernism has become inaccessible to contemporary viewers since it can now only be viewed through contemporary culture's mythologising of late capitalism.

John Douglas Millar on why experimental writing thrives in the art world, and Peter Suchin on Focal Point Gallery's 'Tarot' exhibition.

Bob Dickinson reports on the nuclear-bunker-based Time Machine Biennial in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Paul O’Kane discusses Gillian Whiteley’s book on assemblage, Junk: Art and the Politics of Trash.

Stephanie Schwartz discusses her feature article ‘Photography as Work’, which questions the utopian potential of digital photography, with reference to the Jorge Ribalta-curated exhibition ‘A Hard, Merciless Light: The Worker-Photography Movement 1926-1939’ at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.

Maria Walsh discusses her interview with Mary Kelly, and JJ Charlesworth argues that theory’s current obsession with objective critique misses the mark in comparison with subjective criticism.

Critic, musician and curator Morgan Quaintance joins critic and artist Peter Suchin. They discuss General Idea’s ‘Haute Culture’ exhibition in Paris and Suchin’s ‘Rebel Without a Course’ article on practice-led PhDs, which questions the institutionalisation and professionalisation of artists.

Dave Beech and Larne Abse Gogarty discuss ugliness, in relation to Beech's feature article 'On Ugliness', and Gregory Sholette’s book about guerilla activist art, Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture.

Art Monthly Editor Patricia Bickers discusses with Dean Kenning his report on art students’ recent direct-action campaigns, including occupation, teach-ins and protests. The pair also discuss Mike Watson’s polemic (AM342), which advocates that art schools become independent of the university system.

Zoë Shearman discusses the British Art Show 7: ‘In the Days of the Comet’, while Maria Walsh focuses on Berthold Brecht’s influence on artist filmmakers, who, she argues, should explore fiction and narrative rather than pure reflexivity.

Richard Hylton discusses two films by Ruth McClennan and is joined by Sophia Phoca who asks how might artist filmmakers might go about producing their films today when funding bodies are being forced to close and many support structures have disappeared.

Colin Perry and Klara Kemp-Welch discuss Manifesta 8 in Murcia and ‘Touched’, the Liverpool Biennial.

In this 15-minute Talk Show extra, Matt Hale and Andrew Hunt discuss the likely impact of forthcoming government spending cuts on the arts. Andrew Hunt, who runs Focal Point Gallery in Southend, reports back from a meeting at Tate Modern attended by the heads of over 70 public galleries from across the country to discuss the cuts and the fightback.

John Douglas Millar discusses the ethics and aesthetics of docu-art as practised by artists such as Renzo Martens, Harun Farocki and Aernout Mik, and asks: does art’s subjectivity give it a unique angle on the exploitation of tragedy? Andrew Hunt, meanwhile, suggests that optimism and humour are intelligent alternatives to the cynicism of postmodern irony.