What’s My Thesis? – Details, episodes & analysis

Strategic Generosity: Collecting, Curating, and Championing Emerging Artists with Leslie Fram

In this galvanizing episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by Leslie Fram—collector, curator, marketing strategist, MFA educator, and tireless champion of emerging talent—for a sweeping conversation that summons the urgent need for innovation as well as entrepreneurial literacy among artists today.

Fram’s multifaceted career is an exercise in forecasting trends.  Formerly a dancer with the NYC Ballet, Fram studied art at Parsons, founded a fashion design company, became the Trends Editor of Cosmopolitan, obtained an MBA from Columbia University, segued into early Internet enterprises…  and eventually arrived in Los Angeles to engage with the city’s emerging art scene.  Fram has cultivated a holistic approach to art, deploying business models from the various industries she has worked in.  Marrying aesthetics with infrastructure, community with commerce, her approach is unique.

Fram speaks candidly about the genesis of her annual MFAs of LA exhibitions, a curatorial endeavor born from her desire to showcase under-recognized artists while removing traditional barriers to entry for collectors. She shares her exhibition experiments in transparency, scale uniformity, collector-artist collaborations and her belief in art’s ability to generate new forms of economic and social engagement. Fram’s insights are consistently bracing, generous, out-of-the-box and solution-oriented.

Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of how artists can reclaim agency in the marketplace, why building relationships is central to sustainability, and how Fram herself continues to assist emerging artists on their respective trajectories to success.  Through direct mentorship, educating with her strategic marketing workshops, sharing information as a form of gallery-whispering, and many other modes, Fram is always advocating on the artists’ behalf.

Topics covered include:

• The economics of emerging art: why size, pricing and communal experiences matter
• Institutional resistance to business education in art schools: how Fram works around it
• Collectors:  her plans to ensure new collectors enter the marketplace, offering artists more opportunities for sales; understanding that they are artists’ best supporters and how to build authentic relationships with them; perhaps, finding a different name for “collector”
• New models and formats: from artists’ managers to new apps and technologies
• The future: art sales, blockchain royalties, and the power shift away from legacy galleries systems

This episode is a masterclass in strategic vision, offered by someone who has not only built a practice around elevating others, but continues to do so with a rare mix of compassion, clarity and enthusiasm. 

Guest Leslie Fram Follow her on Instagram: @lesfram

Host Javier Proenza

Astrology, Embodiment, and the Myth of Power: A Conversation with Alystair Rogers

In this episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by artist Alystair Rogers for a searching, radically honest exploration of transformation—personal, political, and astrological. Traversing terrains of gender, spirituality, social critique, and visual language, Rogers shares the deeply embodied trajectory that led to his MFA thesis: an immersive installation confronting capitalism, queerness, and cosmic time.

With the insight of a cultural theorist and the intuition of a mystic, Rogers recounts how early encounters with Scott Cunningham’s Solitary Practitioner and a DIY magical practice laid the groundwork for a conceptual framework rooted in astrology, myth, and critique. From testosterone therapy and shifting social legibility, to trans embodiment and the slow violence of neoliberalism, Rogers discusses the pain and revelation of becoming, with humor and precision.

Their thesis installation—centered around a reclaimed domestic space lit by planetary lamps and anchored by a satirical infomercial titled Sea World: Spiral 'Til You're Free—is a poetic and confrontational meditation on how billionaires might be coaxed into their own undoing. Through this absurdist yet sincere gesture, Rogers dissects the mythologies of power, proposing alternative logics of time, value, and being.

What emerges is a searing, wide-ranging conversation that refuses binaries—between subjectivity and objectivity, spirituality and politics, or critique and care. Rogers makes a compelling case for astrology not as superstition, but as an expansive, generational clock—a way to read time not only in hours or revolutions, but in revolts and revelations.

Topics discussed include:

• Trans identity and the phenomenology of transition

• The astrology of Pluto in Aquarius and its revolutionary implications

• Queer embodiment and the aesthetics of self-determination

• The failures of liberal institutions and the weaponization of speech

• The installation Sea World, capitalist mythology, and speculative resistance

This episode offers a rare convergence of the personal and planetary, blending social analysis with an artist’s pursuit of symbolic coherence. Rogers’s work embodies a form of queer speculative myth-making—one that critiques the world as it is while gesturing toward the one that might be.

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Guest: Alystair Rogers Instagram: @alystair.rogers

Host: Javier Proenza Podcast: What’s My Thesis? Support the show: Patreon.com/whatsmythesis Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

#queerart #transartists #astrologyart #MFAthesis #artandpolitics #plutoinaquarius #socialpractice #whatsmythesis #aly stairrogers #artpodcast #decolonizegender #anti-capitalistart

Art as Infrastructure: A Conversation on Social Practice, Community, and the Evolving Role of Nonprofit Art Spaces in Los Angeles An interview with Pranay Reddy, Director of LA Artcore

In this compelling episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza sits down with Pranay Reddy, the director of LA Artcore, for a far-reaching conversation that explores the role of nonprofit art spaces as vital community infrastructure in Los Angeles. With clarity, conviction, and deep sincerity, Reddy offers an unfiltered look at his trajectory from punk and zine culture in suburban Colorado to leading one of the city’s longest-running artist-run institutions.

The conversation traces Reddy’s early exposure to alternative music and DIY media, his education at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the profound influence of social practice artists on his own sculptural and photographic inquiries. Through personal reflection and institutional critique, Reddy unpacks the realities of inheriting LA Artcore’s legacy and reimagining it for a new generation—one that demands transparency, inclusion, and intentional community-building.

As the city contends with stark inequalities and ongoing housing crises, Reddy’s leadership emphasizes LA Artcore’s position in a broader ecosystem of mutual aid, solidarity, and decolonial cultural work. The discussion touches on the failures of the commercial art fair model, the limitations of traditional museums, and the importance of small-scale, grassroots infrastructures in giving artists room to experiment and be seen.

Reddy shares details about LA Artcore’s upcoming programming, including:

• Naman – A self-titled exhibition by a collective of Philippine X diaspora artists, opening March 15, exploring contemporary identity, historical presence, and visibility.

• Labkhand Olfatmanesh – A powerful installation centered on grief and grounding practices.

• Teamoz – An artist whose research into panda symbolism interrogates the complexities of U.S.–China relations.

• Tokyo Exchange Exhibition – Featuring ten artists from Tokyo, reactivating LA Artcore’s longstanding commitment to international dialogue.

Through it all, Reddy reaffirms his belief that artists are conduits of the communities they live and work in—and that art, at its best, is an infrastructure for care, connection, and change.

Follow LA Artcore Instagram: @laartcore Website: laartcore.org

Follow Pranay Reddy Instagram: @p_reign

— 🎧 For early access and to support independent arts media: patreon.com/whatsmythesis

#LAArtcore #PranayReddy #SocialPracticeArt #NonprofitArtSpaces #ArtistRunInitiatives #DeColonialArt #CommunityArts #PhilippineDiasporaArt #TokyoArtExchange #WhatIsContemporaryArt #WhatsMyThesisPodcast