Category Archives: Art

Reverse Centaurs Kick Back! Cory Doctorow On How Artists Can Fight Back Against AI

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Portrait of Vincent van Gogh sitting with boxing gloves in an artist's studio.
AI portrait of Vincent van Gogh wearing boxing gloves

What are the implications for Artificial Intelligence in art, and what’s the best way to fight it? That’s what Cory Doctorow, author of the new book the Reverse Centaur’s guide to Life After AI, will talk about today. Last week we began a conversation with him where he explained how AI is a stock-driven growth bubble, fueled by tech bros who hype up AI’s ability in order to seduce bosses who have wet dreams of replacing all workers and gaining world-destroying power. However, AI is also a Ponzi scheme scooping up unimaginable amounts of investor money in a bubble that is bound to burst. So now let’s pick up our conversation with Cory Doctorow, as I ask him, should we be worried about AI art?

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear part two of my interview with Cory Doctorow on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Part one can be found here:

The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI

The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI

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Do you take after that mythological half-human, half-horse creature the centaur, or are you a reverse centaur? In the age of Artificial Intelligence, you’re either one or the other, says our guest today. I was happy to welcome blogger, journalist, science fiction writer, and activist, Cory Doctorow, whose most recent book was Enshittification, here to talk about his new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Cory Doctorow on the Arts Express radio show this week, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Just Phenomenal

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One of the most astonishing and entertaining magic acts I’ve ever seen. Belgian Magician Laurent Piron stuns Penn & Teller, the audience, and certainly me.

More at Laurent Piron

Public Health And Morale

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This 1943 painting by N.C. Wyeth (father of Andrew, and iconic illustrator of Treasure Island and other favorites) struck us at our recent outing to the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadd’s Ford, Pa. The painting was commissioned by Bristol-Myers Squibb as an advertising window display for its products. It is unironically titled “Public Health and Morale.” Your mileage may vary…

Brandywine Museum of Art

Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania

A Tribute To Artist Tom Keough

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Tom Keough died about a month ago, far too young. He was a brilliant artist, political activist, and community organizer. Tom was also a dear friend, and someone whose life I think Arts Express listeners might like to know more about. So in tribute to Tom, here’s a little bit more about him.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my tribute to Tom as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, as heard on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Clocking Time

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“The Hours” by Edwin Austin Abbey, intended for the rotunda of the Pennsylvania State Capitol building

Yale University Art Gallery

New Haven, Connecticut

Amy Tan: The Backyard Bird Chronicles

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Sometimes in life you see a person in a different context and it changes everything, like seeing a favorite teacher climb into a sports car. I had the same sort of feeling when I discovered that novelist Amy Tan has just come out with a new non-fiction book called The Backyard Bird Chronicles, a diary of Amy Tan’s backyard birding experiences. I was happy to have her as a guest on the Arts Express radio show.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Amy Tan as heard on Arts Express, broadcast yesterday on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

A Revolutionary Artist: Part 2

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This is part 2 of our conversation with artist, revolutionary and Young Lord, Carlito Rovira.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to part 2, as broadcast yesterday on Arts Express, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

You can find part 1 here:

A Painter of Revolutionaries

A Painter of Revolutionaries

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Carlito Rovira with his portrait of Puerto Rican revolutionary Lolita Lebrón

What makes a person become an artist? Are they born or are they made? And what is the purpose of art? Our guest yesterday has very definite views about these and other questions, and I was happy to be talking with a man whose portraits are filled with meaning, artist, revolutionary and member of the Young Lords, Carlos “Carlito” Rovira.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview with Carlito, as broadcast on Arts Express radio yesterday on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

And you can find Part 2 here:

A Revolutionary Artist: Part 2

Taking Venice: The US And The Cold War Culture War

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At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government was determined to showcase US culture to the world as proof of capitalism’s superiority as an economic system. And so in 1964, the US government embarked on a daring plan to make artist Robert Rauschenberg the winner of the Grand Prize at The Venice Art Biennale, the world’s most influential art exhibition. A new film documentary, Taking Venice, gives us an inside look at how the Biennale was manipulated, and more than that, a look at the enigma that was Robert Rauschenberg.

I was happy to interview the director of Taking Venice, and an art critic in her own right, Amei Wallach. Click on the small triangle above or the mp3 link to hear the interview as broadcast on Pacifica affiliate stations across the nation.

Billie, Lester, Fats and Duke

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Billie, Lester fats and Duke by artist Frederick J. Brown

The Spike Lee “Creative Sources” Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

Eastern Parkway,

Brooklyn, New York