Everything Must Go, so let’s. Jeffrey Michael Austin — interdisciplinary artist and musician — joins Ryan Peter Miller and Jesse Something Malmed to talk about their reflective new exhibition at the Chicago Art Department. Hope in the dark, illusion, allusion, elusiveness, late capitalism, climate crisis, the collective, the needing-tending, the tenderness of a phrase like *help wanted* and enduring questions of scale and capacity guide our winding conversation. What else?   https://www.jeffreymichaelaustin.com/ https://chicagoartdepartment.org/

Bad at Sports welcomes Ashanté Kindle and  Josie Love Roebuck from LatchKey Gallery and their exhibition "CROWN" at Expo Chicago 2022. Working from a place of healing, "CROWN"  explores and rejoices in the legacy of Black hair. The exhibition, named after the CROWN Act - a law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination which is the denial of employment and educational opportunities because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including braids, locs, twists or bantu knots - luxuriates in the scope, range, beauty, and legacy that is black hair. https://www.latchkey-gallery.com/ https://www.latchkey-gallery.com/woks-by-ashant-kindle https://www.latchkey-gallery.com/artist-josie-love-roebuck  

This week the Midwest's greatest contemporary art podcast crew have what can only be described as an "encounter" with one of the Midwest's greatest living artists, Chis Larson! Hailing from St. Paul Minnesota, Larson's newest body of work started its life in Tennessee and slowly spun and wove its way to Engage Projects, Chicago. Taking up a former manufacturing space Larson asks that we consider our relationship to labor from the intimate to the global supply chain in a triumph of an exhibition. The Residue of Labor, April 8 - May 21, 2022   http://chrislarsonstudio.com/ https://www.engage-projects.com/

Gio Swaby is a Bahamian Toronto based visual artist whose work explores and celebrates Blackness and womanhood. Her elegant thread based portraits centres on Black joy as a radical act of resistance. Through love as liberation she explores pathways of healing and empowerment through conversation and observational drawing, allowing the strong and soft to coexist beautifully.  https://www.gioswaby.com/ https://www.claireoliver.com/artists/giovanna-swaby/

This week on Bad at Sports, Kera MacKenzie and Andrew Mausert-Mooney, the filmmakers behind Make A Distinction, join Jesse and the Block Museum’s Curator of Media Arts, Mike Metzger. Make A Distinction is an innovative, hybrid non-fiction feature that blends together strains of essayistic, observational and agitprop filmmaking into a blistering montage. Political in a capital P way, it’s urgent for most everyone, especially those of us in the so-called Chicago universe.    keramackenzie.com https://www.andrewmausert-mooney.com/ Block Cinema  

Rachel Adams joins us live from the halls of EXPO Chicago to talk about all things Bemis Art Center and the Omaha Art scene! We learn about art, llfe, and a little about love as we bounce across the house of yes, residencies, exhibitions and how your dream job might not be where you thought it would be but it is no less dreamy.  

It's the first week in April and that means its time for EXPO Chicago. Brian chats with the fair's director Tony Karman about returning from the pandemic after two and a half years and how best to get into the art amid all the hubbub. And for our second trick we bring in Kate Sierzputowski to chat EXPO programing, community engagement, and the Barely Fair!   Almost as jam packed as art weekend 2022!

BEN FOCH! Marc LeBlanc? Grumpy digital skepticism? NFT revolution? Crypto currency wrestled with? EXPO party power? Hood Ornament? The Cult of the Cheetah revealed. It is quite the adventure. Pay attention nonbeliever because we live in the future.   Ben Foch Marc LeBlanc Cult of the Cheetah EXPO Chicago

This week Bad at Sports Center checks in with Chicago photo super hero Jessica Labatte and a coterie of Northern Illinois University students (Alex Dulski, Edwin Perez-Hernandez, and Emma Vitallo) as they work towards the construction of the world's largest paper snowflake.   Names Dropped: Barbara Kasten Ross Sawyers Jessica Stockholder Dan Peterman Gaylen Gerber Iowa Guiness Book of World Records Western Exhibitions  

Today on Bad at Sports, special Guest Host Mel Cook joins Jesse for a lively conversation with Neal Vandenbergh. Neal has an alluring and excellent exhibition that calls itself Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake at Mickey Gallery up through April 10th. We move through Neal’s practice, talk form, talk politics, talk process and laugh a bit.    https://www.mickey.online/ https://www.mickey.online/landscape-with-a-man-killed-by-a-snake https://melcookart.com/home.html https://www.instagram.com/wizard_neal/