Episode 247: ILSSA
May 23, 2010 · Print This Article
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This week: The third in the lecture series that was in conjunction with the Bad at Sports organized exhibition “Don’t Piss on Me and Tell Me it’s Raining”. Tom and Amanda talk to Bridget Elmer and Emily Larned of Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts.
Founded by two letterpress printers, Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA). ILSSA is a membership organization for those who make conceptual or experimental work with obsolete technology. Consisting of a Union and a Research Institute, ILSSA seeks to build community and create resources, promoting the creative re-use of discarded innovations and the values embedded within them. Since its inception in 2008, ILSSA has grown to over 100 members, including a social sculpture weaver, a clip art librarian, a blogger who posts in needlepoint, a designer/builder of vacuum tube electronics, and an heirloom farmer.
On this evening with the use of an overhead projector and a portable anachronistic sound system, the ILSSA co-operators will provide an overview of the organization, its activities and members, and the philosophy behind their collective interests.
Over the past two months everyone at Bad at Sports has been in a frenzy preparing for the exhibition, “Don’t Piss On Me And Tell Me It’s Raining” at apexart in New York. The show was a bit of a last-minute golden opportunity, so details have been scarce, but we now have the full scoop on what’s in store, and it’s pretty awesome. (You can keep up with Meg, Duncan, Amanda, Tom and Richard throughout the show’s installation and opening events by following Bad at Sports on Twitter and the hashtag #basapex.) The exhibition features over 100 objects, images and ephemera that will serve as a visual complement to Bad at Sports’ considerable audio archives, submitted by Bad at Sports contributors and guests of the show, including:
Carol Becker, Britton Bertran, Temporary Services, Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson, Ivan Brunetti, Tom Burtonwood, David Coyle, Death by Design, Elizabeth Chodos, Miguel Cortez, Tony Fitzpatrick, Rob Davis and Michael Langlois, Jeremy Deller, Lisa Dorin, Jim Duignan, Dan Devening, Cody Hudson, Jason Dunda, Fendry Ekel, James Elkins, Anthony Elms, Pete Fagundo, Mary Rachel Fanning,Tony Feher, Rochelle Feinstein, Pamela Fraser, Liam Gillick, Helidon Gjergji, Michelle Grabner, Dylan Graham, Madeleine Grynsztejn, Sarah Guernsey, Terence Hannum, Anni Holm, Brian Holmes, Astrid Honold, Christopher Hudgens, Meg Onli, Amanda Browder, Tom Sanford, Duncan MacKenzie, Christian Kuras, Ben Tanner, Scott Hug, Richard Holland, Carol Jackson, Paddy Johnson, David Jones, Alex Jovanovic, Atsushi Kaga, Mark Staff Brandl, Vera Klement, Peter Saul, Gregory Knight, Monique Meloche, Leo Koenig, Chad Kouri, Steve Lacy, Caroline Picard, Jose Lerma, Laura Letinsky, Kerry James Marshall, Ed Marszewski, Eric May, Dominic Molon, Anne Elizabeth Moore, David Morgan, Julian Myers, Gavin Turk, Liz Nofziger, Jamisen Ogg, Neysa Page-Lieberman, Trevor Paglan, Raymond Pettibon, John Phillips, Allison Peters Quinn, Lane Relyea, Lawrence Rinder, David Robbins, Thomas Robertello, Julie Rodriguez Widholm, Elvia Rodriguez, Nathan Rogers-Madsen, James Rondeau, Marlene Russum Scott, Alison Ruttan, Dan S. Wang, Stephanie Smith, Deb Sokolow, Scott Speh, Chris Sperandio, Lisa Stone, Shannon Stratton, Randall Szott, Christine Tarkowski, Tony Tasset, Tracy Marie Taylor, Ron Terada, Philip von Zweck, Hamza Walker, Chris Walla, John Wanzel, Chris Ware, Oli Watt, Tony Wight, Anne Wilson, Jay Wolke, InCubate, Curtis Mann, Michael Velliquette, Clare Britt, Shannon Stratton, Damian Duffy, William Conger, M N Hutchinson, Mark Francis, Annika Marie, the artists of Blunt Art Text, and more.
The exhibition also features three related exhibition talks, all of which are free and open to the public. They’ll all be rebroadcast on upcoming episodes of Bad at Sports’ podcast, for those of you not able to catch the events in NYC.


Jeffrey Deitch in conversation with Carlo McCormick
Thursday, April 8, 6pm. On the eve of Deitch’s departure from New York, Carlo McCormick will talk to Jeffrey Deitch about his time and legacy as one of the most visible, dynamic and controversial players in the New York art world.
Painters/Painting
Wednesday April 28th, 6pm. Tom Sanford will moderate a panel of five other painters who will talk about painting, including: Kamrooz Aram, Holly Coulis, David Humphrey, Dike Blair and Deborah Kass.
Emily Larned Introduces Ilssa
Tuesday, May 18th, 6pm. Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts is a membership organization for those who make experimental or conceptual work with obsolete technology.
You can download the exhibition brochure, which features a conversation between co-founders Duncan MacKenzie and Richard Holland about the history of Bad at Sports, here.
Last but not least, the all-important details on the opening reception! This Wednesday night!
Don’t Piss on Me and Tell Me It’s Raining
Organized by Bad at Sports
Opening: Wednesday, April 7th 6-8pm
apexart
291 Church Street
New York, NY 10013

Amanda & everyone involved with the Battleship conversation at Winkleman Gallery in NYC would like to thank everyone for turning out to the show and for helping to make it a great time. Here are some photos of the event as well as the link to the blog by William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton that streamed live video of the event and posts about it plus future events like it.
Again thanks for coming out and look forward to audio from the event in a future episode of Bad at Sports.
Battleship Throw-Down – #Class @ Winkleman Gallery – Sunday!
February 26, 2010 · Print This Article
Ever feel like you wish you could take on painters in a one-on-one art debate!? NOW you can!!! Sink those battleships!! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!! Embrace your inner art competitor!

Join our own NYC Correspondant / Referee: Amanda Browder (possible recording) For an afternoon of Battleship gaming at the Winkleman Gallery where two groups go head to head in an art conversation battle.
Sunday, February 28, 2010 / 2pm / part of the William Powhida – Jennifer Dalton exhibition #Class
HOST : Amanda Browder – Bad at Sports Podcast – NYC Correspondent
Address: 637 West 27th Street, NYC – btw 11th and 12th
Battle One: Formalists vs. Conceptualists.
- Why do people still fetishize the object?
- Why can’t I buy a performance?
- Can we actually believe half the work that is out there?
- What has more value: objects or ideas?
Battle Two: Painters vs. The World.
- Are painters just magicians? or illusionists?
- Why do painters always make more money?
- Isn’t photography a better version of painting?
- Painting sucks…why?
Battle Three: Artist vs. Dealer
- Why can’t I believe in my dealer?
- Why are artists so fucked up?
- Dealers suck because they use the artist for their own advantage.
- Artists have no idea what is going on, they need handling.
All are welcome and encouraged to choose your weapon. At the end we will tally up the points and see who really reigns supreme. It’s a WAR ON THE SHORE!
It is possible if all works out that some of it might be recorded for Bad at Sports….also an open soap box for ranting.
Bring it Sailor!!!! – I double dog dare you!
Episode 233: East of Borneo/Book Review
February 15, 2010 · Print This Article
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This week: The Amanda Browder show talks to Thomas Lawson and Stacey Allen about the new art journal East of Borneo.
Then Terri and Joanna discuss Gail Carriger’s novel “Soulless”.
ALSO PLEASE HELP US OUT!!! Post a video question for our new project! Duncan details in the BAS announcement section of the show.
Los Angeles, CA, September 30–Set to launch in spring 2010, East of Borneo is a dynamic and extensive website: part art journal, part multi-media archive edited by Thomas Lawson, Dean of California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) School of Art. This far-reaching publishing project will also include an imprint of highly focused books that reconsider neglected material and provocative themes within a contemporary context.
The development and launch of East of Borneo, signals the amicable end to CalArts’ productive eight year collaboration with Afterall. Under Lawson’s co-editorship, the contemporary art journal was produced in partnership with London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.
In an interview earlier this week, Lawson said, “As the internet forces radical change on all forms of publishing it has become ever clearer that all but the most entrenched art magazines are at risk of becoming obsolete in their current forms. The interesting and exciting thing about this is the potential the web opens up for those of us who want to push forward. As we envisage East of Borneo we will be able to offer readers and writers a much richer, and much more valuable and highly personalized, experience than print formats can. And editorially we will also be able to explore more fully our roots in Los Angeles, while maintaining very active links to the rest of the world.”
East of Borneo presents traditional art writing in all its variations–from personal to academic, poetic to theoretical–while providing a multi-media platform that highlights connections and encourages new lines of thought, research and consideration, as well as expanded forms of writing. With its robust web architecture and non-hierarchical editorial approach, East of Borneo reflects the sprawling, rhizomatic nature of Los Angeles as well as the broader, international art world.
Afterall 22, the last issue of the journal co-published with CalArts, is due on newsstands in October and will feature texts on the artists Sheela Gowda, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys and the artists’ group Art Club 2000.
Thomas Lawson is an artist, educator and writer. His essays have appeared in such journals as Artforum, Art in America, Flash Art, frieze and October, as well as numerous exhibition catalogues. From 1979 until 1992 he, along with writer Susan Morgan, published and edited REALLIFE Magazine, an irregular publication by and about younger artists interested in the relationship between art and life. A selection of writings from REALLIFE was published by Primary Information in 2006. For East of Borneo, he is joined by Stacey Allan, a writer and curator who was the Los Angeles-based associate editor of Afterall from 2007-2009. Lawson and Allan are working, on this new venture, with a highly experienced team of web developers, freelance editors and contributors based both in Los Angeles and abroad.
East of Borneo is published by the California Institute of the Arts, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and is supported in part by grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts and the J. Paul Getty Foundation.












