Explore every episode of the podcast Subject, Object, Verb

Paul McCarthy is a legendary performance artist, painter and filmmaker. He is less known for his work as a musician, though he has been active as an improvising sound artist since his days in music school. Today, he continues to play with his band, Extended Organ (formed with Mike Kelley) and to edit the sound in his films with the sensibility of noise and collage. In this episode, McCarthy describes his life in music, his early influences, and his mysterious interactions with a man who may have been the chess prodigy, Bobby Fischer.

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Paul McCarthy, Whipping a Wall and a Window with Paint, 1974, performance, video, b/w photographs. © Paul McCarthy. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth; photo: Al Payne

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

This episode is a conversation with the writer, Matt Marble on the composer Arthur Russell, who was active in the ‘70s and ‘80s music scene in New York. Marble’s book Buddhist Bubblegum is a study of Russell’s life and music, which spanned many styles and invoked esoteric practices such as Tantra and Shingon Buddhism. On the podcast, Marble discusses Russell’s philosophical perspectives on such divergent topics as non-dualism and disco music, and how Russell worked with his Buddhist teacher to create what he believed would be the pop music of the future.

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Photo: Tom Lee; courtesy Audika Records

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

This episode features the musician and painter, Joanne Robertson whose work is born from improvisation. She regularly collaborates with other artists, such as Dean Blunt and Sidsel Meineche Hansen, who plays a vacuum on Joanne’s most recent release. We discuss her ideas on music, art and life, all while she nurses her newborn baby.

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Photo courtesy Bruna Amaral

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

This episode features two multimedia artists, Deniz Gul and Nour Mobarak, who both work with sculpture, music, language and ideas. Mobarak discusses her new work, Dafne Phono, an audio-based adaptation of the first known opera, translated into the most morphophonologically complex languages in the world. Gul presents an essay from her most recent book, an excerpt on the subject of somatic philosopher Moshé Feldenkrais, along with an exercise for listeners to try at home. 

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Theodoor van Thulden, Apollo and Daphne, 1636-38. Public domain.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Hunter Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix is the leading creative force in the highly eclectic band, Liturgy. She also makes sculpture and has created her own philosophical system called Transcendental Qabala, which informs much of her work. In this episode, we discuss her opera, Origin of the Alimonies, which she considers a total work of art, involving film, spiritual gnosis, and a gender-affirming transition.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini
Image courtesy: Hunter Hunt-Hendrix

Mochu is an artist who creates narrative technofictions in his films, writings and lectures. In this episode, he presents an audio adaptation of his new book, Nervous Fossils: Syndromes of the Synthetic Nether, which discusses fossils, synthetic colour production, and time-traveling syndromes. The episode takes place in an art freeport and drifts between essay, fiction and mythology. It's a wild philosophical ride into deep time.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini
Image courtesy: Adityan Melekalam + Mochu
Audioscape: Suvani Suri
Sound Recording: Abhishek Mathur @ Quarter Note Studios

For the last five years, curator Natasha Ginwala has been investigating riots, uprisings, and pogroms. As a part of this research, she’s curated an exhibition and edited the book ​​Nights of the Dispossessed: Riots Unbound, edited with Gal Kirn and Niloufar Tajeri. For this podcast, Ginwala considers the sonic expression of riots through a collection of mixtapes and sound collages on social unrest. The episode features contributions by Arshia Haq (writer, filmmaker, DJ), Louis Henderson (artist, filmmaker), Josh Kun (author, music critic), and Atiyyah Khan (arts journalist, music writer, artist).

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Featured image
Jitish Kallat, Anger at the Speed of Fright, 2010, Riots: Slow Cancellation of the Future, 2018, ifa Gallery Berlin, courtesy: Victoria Tomaschko

For the last few years, the artist Jared Madere has invented images and music using artificial intelligence. He jams AI systems with irrationality to arrive at pictures and songs that are both familiar and alien. In this episode, Madere discusses the ‘frozen operas’ he has been performing around the world and the idiosyncratic process he uses to collaborate with the non-human.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Ei Arakawa is an artist working in sculpture, performance and more recently, musicals. In this episode Arakawa is interviewed for the first time about his songs, which have been largely overshadowed by his largescale performances, at venues such as Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Arakawa goes on to discuss the process of writing music and some of the artists, both amateurs and stars, who have been an influence on his work since childhood.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Klein is multi-disciplinary artist. She’s made a feature length film, a hypertext storytelling game and theatrical works, but is primarily known for her music, a beguiling collage of sound. This episode features an interview in which Klein manipulates her vocals and provides a playlist of TV sitcom theme songs, commercial jingles, and Nigerian Nollywood soundtracks that influenced her as a child.
Host  Ross Simonini
Credits  Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Sheila Heti is a writer who interrogates the role of the writer, questions the limits of the book and explores the spectrum of literature. She has written novels, fables, a fashion book, a play, and philosophical investigations into everyday life. On this episode, she discusses working with systems as an artist, her love of thinking about thinking, and two of her upcoming works: ‘Alphabetical Diary’ and ‘Pure Colour’.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Tao Lin has a relentlessly curious mind. In his fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, he toes the line between reality and the imagined. His newest novel, Leave Society (2021), uses a great depth of nonfictional research to push against the ideas of accepted science as they related to his life. In an era of proliferating controversial theories, Tao's book celebrates the ability of science to refuse certainty and open up a space of unknowing. On this episode, Lin discusses a variety of ideas, including flat earth, hollow earth and free energy – alternative theories that, for Lin, serve as fertile material for his art.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini
Featured image: ‘birds mandala’ (2017) by Tao Lin

Philosopher Simon Critchley writes about the history of human thought with generosity and open-minded curiosity. His newest book, Bald, is a collection of writings from his New York Times column, ‘The Stone’, which covers a vast cultural spectrum, from Socrates to David Bowie to Mormonism.  On this episode, he presents his lecture on ‘Pandemic Mysticism’ alongside a few recordings by the monks of Simonpetra monastery.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini
Featured image: fresco at Vatopedi monastery, Mt Athos; courtesy Jim Forest (Flickr, Creative Commons)

The musician and filmmaker, Flying Lotus has created a body of psychedelic, horrific and musically sophisticated work. On this episode, he discusses his thoughts on film school, spirituality, cannabis, and the piano, alongside a few excerpts from his new album, a soundtrack to the Samurai anime series, Yasuke.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Guitarist and composer Pat Metheny has spent the last five decades investigating music from a vast array of musical approaches. On this episode, he discusses music from a philosophical perspective, alongside a few excerpts from his album of guitar quartet music Road to The Sun.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Painter Tschabalala Self plays and discusses her new audio work, Cotton Mouth, which uses sound collage and oral history to tell the story of contemporary black pop culture.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini.

Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan opens up his personal inventory of recorded sounds, which he has featured in his many investigative sound works. For this episode, Abu Hamdan simultaneously performs these sounds and discusses their slippery nature in his Dubai studio with curator Sabih Ahmed.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini.

Musician Ariel Pink opens up his unreleased private archive of voice memos and talks about his love of unproduced bootlegs. Artist Jacolby Satterwhite plays a track from his band, PAT, which samples amateur song recordings made by his mother. Musician and writer Johanna Hedva discusses the many extended vocal techniques and experimental vocalists they studied on the path to writing their new album.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini.

Writer Mason Currey discusses the daily rituals of Maya Angelou, Truman Capote, Beethoven, Patricia Highsmith, David Lynch, W.H. Auden and Lillian Hellman. Artist Natalie Labriola speaks about the history of female mystic artists, including Hildegard von Bingen, Betye Saar, Georgiana Houghton, CA Conrad, and Ana Mendieta. Candice Lin offers a surreal eulogy for her feral cat friend. New music by Astral Oracles and Sam Gendel.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini. Astral Oracles music by Michael Thibault. CA Conrad clips from the documentary Rituals for Poetry.

Painter Josh Smith speaks about his reclusive lifestyle and his conflicted relationship with exhibiting his work. Photographer, Farah Al Qasimi discusses her secret life as a soundcloud musician and plays some new music. Writer, Patrick Langley discusses the history of telephone art, and artist, Angharad Williams performs an act of channeling.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini

Performance artist Dawn Kasper unpacks the process of making a collaborative sound work in Frankfurt, Germany. Artist Susan Ciancolo recalls her dreams, tells a joke and reads aloud her favourite book from her apartment in New York. Sound artist, Samson Young discusses a magic bell, tobacco auctioneers, and protest chanting in Hong Kong.

Host
Ross Simonini

Credits
Produced by ArtReview and Ross Simonini