TIMOTHY HULL: Hello, hello, hello. This is Timothy Hall.

Gina Beavers: This is Gina Beavers.

TIMOTHY HULL: And welcome to Unstretched. All right, here we are on a practically spring day because we turned the clocks forward this morning, which always is like, know, hope springs eternal as far as I'm concerned.

Gina Beavers: So nice. Yes, totally. No, so nice. were out on the deck with our cats. Yeah, it was very cute and warm, even though there's no sun.

TIMOTHY HULL: I noticed that on my property here in Warwick, the daffodils are all starting to really shoot up now. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: ⁓ nice. ⁓ that's really cool. Do you know that I thought when we first moved to the burbs that daffodils were planted? Like, I thought that people went out and planted daffodils. So every time I saw daffodils, I thought they had just been freshly planted, like somebody bought them at the store and planted them in the soil. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ right, like how you would do with an annual plan instead of, right, planting a bulb and then every year it comes back. Yeah, except for perennial.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. And every year it comes back. And I had been actually telling Keith, this was the deal with the daffodils. And he was like, they look like they're injected into the soil. Like, what are you talking? These are coming out of soil anyway. Yeah. So.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. We have tens of thousands of daffodils on our property because the people who lived here before us were landscape architects and the wife also taught at Trinity in Manhattan. And every year they'd have a daffodil fundraising drive. And so for like 30 years, she would just get daffodils and plant them on this property. And now we have probably 20,000 daffodils. So it's really amazing. Every spring at this place looks like home.

Gina Beavers: Oh my God, it's so cool. You have the most beautiful landscaping. Like it's just so, yeah, that's why I was nervous when you guys came over here. Cause I was like, I don't think they're going to be able to handle a rough,

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Well, speaking of Holland, actually, I'm going to Amsterdam next weekend. Well, actually, yeah. Yeah, because Corey is going to Maastricht for Teyfaf. And then at the end of Teyfaf, I'm going to go over to Amsterdam because I've never been and it's always been like super high on my list. And I've just never had like a catalyst. And because he was going to be there.

Gina Beavers: No, you're not. ⁓ my God. Yeah. ⁓ okay.

TIMOTHY HULL: And he was like, you know, why don't you just come? was like, okay. Like, you know, worked on my teaching schedule and everything. So yeah, in two weeks, I'm going to go to Amsterdam.

Gina Beavers: going to Amsterdam for two weeks. ⁓ my God. Two weeks. ⁓ OK. ⁓ but that's perfect. OK, so that's so funny because I was just thinking about this show. I was thinking about this data leak, and we can talk about that show later. But ⁓ I don't think it'll be up when you're there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Anna Spears show. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. No, no, I'm going in two weeks and I'm only going for like, for like three days. So it's like a whirlwind kind of trip. It won't be up, because you had sent that to me about like the Manosphere show and I rea- and I looked into it and yeah, I'm gonna miss it by like a few weeks.

Gina Beavers: But you have to go to the state of like, obviously there are so many amazing museums there. And do you ride a bike? you, would you?

TIMOTHY HULL: I do, but we're there for so short that I think we're just gonna walk because we're staying right in the center. And we're doing a little cruise on the canals and we're hitting up all the, we're really just going for the art museum. So we're, know.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ Yeah, it's so, so amazing. The van goh, the like, there's also Rembrandt studio, which is, ⁓ my God, you would love that. Yeah. That's, I remember doing that, like leaving. did have a bike though. So I like road between the different museums. It's so easy and flat and close. ⁓ but I left my bike in front of the Rembrandt museum and came out because I had gone really early and

TIMOTHY HULL: dying to see that.

Gina Beavers: There were no bikes when I got there. When I got out, there were so many bikes. mean, the bikes in Amsterdam are almost like molds. Like they just grow. I came out, could not find my bike because there were thousands of bikes. And I was like, it was just, it's just such a cool place though. I love it. I'm so jealous. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Wow. Yeah, I've never been in it and it's been so a fascinating place to me, but it just hasn't been like higher up on my agenda. So I'm glad to be going and that will be interesting and we'll, you know, I'll have to report back on that.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. ⁓ once, well, during that same trip that I went, I went to the Stadolick and took all these pictures and somebody thought that I was having, like I was there because I was gonna have a show there and I actually got a show at a Calgary because somebody thought, somebody thought I was gonna have a show at the Stadolick. ⁓ So I got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Right. That's amazing. God, I'm gonna try that technique is like go to some amazing museum and take pictures as if I'm like sort of scoping it out for an installation and even maybe hint at that like, ⁓ scoping out the space or something.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's it's so crazy because I was thinking about like the ways that artists, things like that, where you almost feel like you're you're like a company that's faking. It's almost like, you know, anyway, this is more of a conversation for later. But like all the ways that the art world is like an unregulated stock market. Like if if you were to fake your value. like that in a real investment setting or something like that, that would be illegal. But in the art world, if you faked, I mean, I didn't fake it. was like totally random. But like, you know, this idea of like, hinting that you have something coming up that you don't have coming up is like illegal in a lot of setting. Like it's like, you can't really, anyway.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it also speaks to the reality that no one is actually paying attention to what you're really posting. They just sort of, you because everyone's scrolling through and they just see it. So they're like, ⁓ Gina at the Stedlik, she must be having a show there. You know, like, no one spends any more time thinking about, ⁓ no, she's there because, you know, doing this or another thing. Like, so you can kind of like manipulate social media. I mean,

Gina Beavers: Uh-huh. Yeah. You might want to add the art.

TIMOTHY HULL: I ran into someone a few weeks ago and they're like, ⁓ I see you're like living in Italy these days. And I was like, I was like, no, I may go there once a year, like, you know, they, don't pay enough. I post a lot about Italian news or memes or music. And so to this person, they just think I live in Italy now.

Gina Beavers: Yeah! Yeah. It seems, totally, totally. No, for all I know that person could have seen another video or content by another artist that looked like me right before or after and she got them confused and then she saw me at the state of Lick and thought, you know, like, who knows? Who knows why she thought this? You know, it's like, it is such a destabilized kind of.

TIMOTHY HULL: Right.

Gina Beavers: crazy environment online. Like you see so many things at the same time. It's like, yeah, that's crazy.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. It speaks to like, so a few months ago there was a job posting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Dietrich von Bothmer visiting scholar. And it's like a two year long position and it's studying the Greek antiquity collection at the Met. And they were looking for a scholar who can sort of work across sort of disciplines and like bring a new like breath of fresh air into the Greek. collection and do scholarship. And so I thought I'm going to apply for this job. You know, I don't have a PhD. I'm not an official scholar, but I was like, I'm just going to apply to it as a conceptual art project. So I applied to this position and I emailed Max Helene and another curator at the Met. And I was like, listen, I'm applying for this position as a conceptual art project. And even if I don't get this position, I'm still going to

Gina Beavers: Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: do this position, but in like a shadow version. So I was like proposing this whole ridiculous idea. And of course I didn't get the position. And of course no one has responded back to me. But I've actually continued to now make a body of work as if I was this Dietrich von Bothmer visiting scholar at the Met. And it's been great. Like it's very sort of like Galliporus Kim, but I'm just like going rogue and doing it my own way. ⁓

Gina Beavers: Huh.

TIMOTHY HULL: and I've been making some posts from the Met that I'm there doing research as this like scholar. And because no one really pays attention, most people think I actually like got this job and I work at the Met, you know, and I get people's messages that are like, whoa, I can't believe you like got this job at the Met, like what? And I'm like, no, like look at my website, like all the documents are, cause I,

Gina Beavers: Mm-hmm. You've got to, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: I also built on my website a page of like the documents of like my application letter, the letter of, know, decla, like not, what is that called? Non-acceptance letter, like ⁓ my email to Max Holleen, my sort of, all the research that I've done so far, like built on my website is this conceptual project. ⁓ But of course, no one really is.

Gina Beavers: Well, ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: paid attention to that so they think that I'm like this Met Scholar now, which is funny because it dovetails of what you were saying about how like people want to see what they want to see on social media and you just got to ride with it, you know?

Gina Beavers: See you No, totally, totally. That's so cool. So this is a new project, like a new within. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, it's sort of ⁓ like a side conceptual project. mean, of course it links with all the work that I'm doing, I want, ⁓ like a show that I did at the Carlos Museum at Emory University last year was sort of like this, where I went to the museum, I spent time with the curators, I spent time with the collection, I made a whole body of work kind of referencing. the collection, the controversies, the history, and it's linked to the Met. Like Dietrich von Bothmer was the sort of famous curator at the Met of Greek antiquities, and he had a private collection that when he died, a lot of it went to the Carlos Museum in Emory, and that's the collection that I worked with, but the bulk of his collection is still at the Met. And so this is like ⁓ a project that I hatched that sort of is growing. out of what I had been doing at the Carlos Museum and that exhibition, Anonymous Fragments, and sort of thinking even more expansively, well, how can I tackle the Met's really sort of strange and controversial history of like collecting artifacts of dubious origins? And Dietrich von Boatmer was very involved in the antiquities trade and collecting when it was an unregulated market. And there was a lot of strange characters and people and dealings and fakes and sort of like manipulating the market. And so I wanted to come in as like artist, scholar, investigator and do my own artwork related to the Met and it's sort of weird and strange antiquities collection. But of course the Met doesn't really want me to do that. ⁓ So I've had to do it as sort of like this shadow ⁓ project. And it's been fun. go to the Met like once or twice a month and I do quote unquote research like about the collection and I do drawings and I've done paintings. I've sort of started to develop a new body of work that's very similar in vein and tenor and sort of look to what I've been doing, but really sort of digging more into like archival and institutional critique and sort of investigative art making. which I think has lot of relevance to a lot of the world politics and what's going on and geopolitical concerns. So to me, it's very exciting. It's very nerdy. It's very, you know, sort of cerebral and erudite, but that's just the way that I work.

Gina Beavers: so cool. No, it sounds so exciting and so open-ended, like this could lead to all sorts of works and it's really exciting. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, ⁓ yeah, I think we were gonna talk about...

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Well, speaking of work though, since we're talking about work, what have you been up to anything interesting or what are you thinking about in your work or grappling?

Gina Beavers: I don't know. So I was like really on the edge of something like with this oil like thick oil painting and then I got sick for a week. I was just like in bed for seven days and the whole time I'm just like, like want to do this, you know, get back into this working.

TIMOTHY HULL: Wait, so you're not like Matisse where you're lying in bed with a long stick and sort of like painting from the distance? ⁓

Gina Beavers: No, just like mass marathoning like TV, like a crazy person and just like staring at my studio like, ⁓ I want to be. Yeah. ⁓ but also because the, the fumes and everything, it's like when you're sick, it's like, do I want to go in there when I'm like, I just make it worse kind of. I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like.

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, wait, you're talking about oil paint, right? Because oil paint in the studio can be very toxic. Yeah. Do you use Gamsol? Or what are you using as your paint thinner?

Gina Beavers: this a lot, like, yeah, so that and then, well, right now I'm not using any kind of thinner. I'm just like, I'm just using paint out of the tube and I'm using this like schmaltz stuff, this like impasto builder. So I'm trying, yeah, so I'm into that and then I'm working on gouaches and stuff too. Yeah, but I'm in a like weird, I don't know.

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ Okay. Right.

Gina Beavers: I'm just in a weird zone where I'm depressed about my ideas. It's like I'm making, I'm working on different things, but they're not the true idea itself. The inspiration for the work is like, it's close, but it's not the thing. You know how you get that vibe where you're like, no, this is it. I'm super passionate about this. And then I love the materials and I'm experimenting and stuff, but it's like.

TIMOTHY HULL: Totally.

Gina Beavers: I work so much in these Photoshop collages, and if I don't see the thing, I need to see it. And if I don't, I see something close to it, but it's like, I'm very impatient and pissed off, so it actually affects my whole mood. I'm just like, oh god.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Well, this, the... Yeah. My whole Met project came out of being divinely uninspired because like last year was like a really big year in my career. Like I had my first museum show. I had a solar show at Halsey McKay. I was in like bunch of group shows at great galleries all over. Like last year was like a banner exhibition year, but then all of a sudden the tap stopped.

Gina Beavers: and I'm

TIMOTHY HULL: Like I have no opportunities, like nothing going on. Like I was like, what? Like I hit like a, what felt like a wall after a marathon. And I was like, I need inspiration. Like I don't, you know, like I, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. And so that's when the, saw this job posting at the Met and I was like, well, what if I applied to this job as an art project? You know? And sometimes you just have to make your own inspiration from like,

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Nothing.

Gina Beavers: Totally, I know that I have to go in there. It's this thing of a self-consciousness when I'm making, where I'm trying to recreate the thing that I've already made. You know what I mean? Or trying to like something that was already what I have considered successful, then I'm in my head about recreating that again, instead of just letting it go. Which I know is just all part of the process, but I think I just can't quite, I don't know, get it to...

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Well, it reminds me of that like, I might be Picasso quote of like, inspiration can find you, but it has to find you working. I don't know if that was Picasso who said that, but I think of that a lot because often when I have no idea what I'm doing and I don't know where anything is going, I just start working on something and half the time it's like a total failure, but sometimes one item of it, you know, blows up into something cool and inspiring.

Gina Beavers: Hmm. ⁓ huh. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. turn into, yeah, no, totally. It's like that, that I, I think it's Gustin who said, you know, you, everybody's in the studio with you and then slowly everybody leaves, including yourself. Like when you start working and then everybody leaves, but I'm still very much in that like late stage of that where I haven't left yet. You know, I'm still there. Maybe there was one or two other people in my head, but like, I can't, I can't get myself to leave. I'm just like, I don't know.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.

Gina Beavers: It's like.

TIMOTHY HULL: Speaking of Gustin, you want fucking, ⁓ can I say fucking? I don't know. If you want real inspiration, go to the Philip Gustin Catalogue Resonay website, which is something I've wanted to tell you about for a while. I discovered it like a few weeks ago, and every work of Gustin's art is on this website. he, you look at the breadth of his work and you're like, this is actually like,

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yes, I am. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yes. ⁓ it's a website? ⁓ that's...

TIMOTHY HULL: the greatest artist who ever lived. know, like, cause he, in like the twenties and thirties was doing like, you know, sort of, léger type of, or de Chirico kind of work, but totally his own weird thing. And then he does like the AbEx sort of phase and stuff. And then he goes into his, you know, very original hobnail boot KKK, weird smoking people. It's all there, everything. And it's just like, so inspirational.

Gina Beavers: ⁓ wow.

TIMOTHY HULL: to see and it just has given me a lot of compositional ideas and just, and hope for one's own, the breadth of one's own career. So that's for everyone to sort of go check out the Philip Guston catalog resume because it will just like, it also, it also can make you really depressed because you know, he was sort of like a singular genius and I, you know, we're not all just these singular geniuses.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah, well, I always think of him that show that they had at the Morgan of his drawings, which were I don't even know 10 or 15 years ago, probably now. Yeah, just reading about how he, you know, just checked everything like at the watch, it was just like done with the way he was working abstractly and just started making these really basic drawings of stuff like what might it look like if I made

TIMOTHY HULL: Mmm. Yeah, that was definitely 10 or 15 years ago. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: Drawings of things, like where do I start? It's just like square one, and these were all the drawings that started the rest of his work basically from that point on.

TIMOTHY HULL: And the great lesson is that you can't let yourself be stuck in your own brand. And that's like a problem we have, I think, as like really professionalized contemporary artists these days, is everyone wants to have like the brand and that's how their art looks or this is what it is. And I feel like Philip Guston is an example of someone who's like, no, fuck it. Like I'm taking a far right turn into like the craziest land and either you're coming with me or you're not. And I don't care.

Gina Beavers: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: And that's an inspiration for us all that like maybe there does come a time in one's career where you're like, ⁓ I've been working like this or doing it like that, but maybe I need to like strike a match and like burn it all down and start anew.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, one of my friends who does that, Haneko, do you know Han? I don't know if we've ever, yeah, but she like, she went through a whole phase, she made all of these ⁓ works with textiles, they're like, yeah, like these like large scale installation things, sewing, like all of the stuff like 10 years ago or so. ⁓ And then just hit this point where she was like, it's too much.

TIMOTHY HULL: No, I don't. I mean, I her work, yeah, I don't know her personally, but I do,

Gina Beavers: I'm not enjoying this, this is not, I'm getting, you know, like it's just, and she started just painting, just like, which she's always drawn in painting. So there was this whole new like rebirth to the side of her practice. And then recently she's gotten really into ceramics. Like she's just like, okay, I'm gonna learn everything I can. need to, you know, like I just need to, she's somebody who I really admire for being like, you know, able to switch gears and be like, And also to recognize like this is not working for me anymore. I need to like switch it up. I need to switch the material. You know, like I just and just sort of cut bait and like do it, you know, I'm always like.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's also what my friend TM Davey did. Like he for years was very known for like very realistic portraits of like his husband or himself or beautiful gay men on Fire Island. And then he sort of was like, I'm bored of my own self like that. Like, and so all of a sudden he starts painting mermaids and like weird, you know, satyrs playing in mystical caves and like, you know, he totally like took a 180, you know, it's still like, looks like his work, but like the subject matter just went like totally bonkers and you know, sometimes you need to do something that really refreshes what you're up to, whether the audience comes with you or not, you know, you need to really speak to your own drum because in the end, that's what's going to make people follow you, you know, invariably.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Just kind of liberate yourself from yourself. I mean, from your past self or something. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. But Gina, this also, this reminded me of a question I wanted to ask you though, like, cause it's on my mind of like, you know, artists and how we sort of sustain ourselves is who are like your friends? who, like, I know who's like, some of your friends are obviously like you and I are friends, but like, do you feel like you're part of a... community of like people or have there been people who are kind of like your ride-or-die art friends who you know go see shows with or talk to about shows or you know who you really have a special art relationship. You almost feel like you couldn't do this art life without them sort of thing.

Gina Beavers: Well, it's so funny because it's not, mean, I worked, I know, you work and I worked full time as an art teacher, middle school art teacher till I was 40 and then was making, at the same time that I was doing that, I was like in my studio 30 hours a week or something at night. So it's like, didn't, there are a lot of years where I just did not have time for like friends and it sounds so messed up, but like, I mean, I have friends, but like the idea that, friends that you could spend serious time with or like hang out with in any kind of regular way. I would just like go to openings like a couple times a week and like see who I saw. So it was like that expanded like network of people that I know that I run into and like run into them once a year, but you feel like you know each other like you, don't know or what that, that is probably the bulk of, and then I have a few close. friends in the art world. And then I'm also member of different groups. Like there's a donut club, a bunch of us go and have breakfast and donuts and Greenpoint every once in while. we'll go.

TIMOTHY HULL: Who's in the doughnut? Who are the people who are in the doughnut club?

Gina Beavers: Like ⁓ who's in the doughnut? Well, I think Austin Lee and Ollie Clegg started it and I had done the residency with Austin Lee ⁓ and then there ⁓ Robin Williams and ⁓ Who else is in the group? Why? ⁓ my god, so embarrassing if they're listening and I can't Lacey Dorn Robin F. Williams she shows that at PPOW. Yeah a lot of painters and

TIMOTHY HULL: Wait, Robin Williams? ⁓ Okay.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, like, just, people started adding people to the group and like inviting people. It's a very, who shows up each time just like varies. But then I'm also in a group that does crits. They just got profiled in Artnet that's run by Jessica Stoller from PPOW. Like she shows up at PPOW. And I'm in that group, that's a book group, but also like critique, like visiting studios. So like groups like that too.

TIMOTHY HULL: Okay. ⁓ we're out.

Gina Beavers: But I honestly, I don't know. I have friends all over the art world. I don't know. I just like...

TIMOTHY HULL: But do also have like art friends like on Instagram that you like send pictures of like that painting student? You're like, I can't believe this is being shown.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, I have a few. Yeah, we do. We do that. Yeah, and you and I do that. Yeah, it's like that level of trust where you're like, we can. Yeah, I don't know. I feel safe sending this.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. never been in an art group before. Either I've never been invited or I've never had the opportunity or maybe I'm like that Woody Allen or Groucho Marx joke that I don't want to be part of a club that would have someone like me as a member.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the Greenpoint ones that started when I was in Greenpoint, like when I had my studio there and like, was easy to go, but then it's gotten kind of silly when I'm like in Jersey and I'm driving in on a Friday morning to try to meet everyone at the shittiest diner

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. so to get people though to sort of keep up with groups. Like, I don't know when it was, maybe like 15 years ago, I started the Proust Society at Brooklyn where I was like, let's read all of Proust like together. ⁓ And got like 20 people who were so gung-ho about it. was most like a lot of art world people. ⁓ But after the third meeting, ⁓ that people became... four people and then eventually became three people and it was three people and we read the entire Proust series over like four years, these three people. But that was like the last sort of like already kind of book group that I was in.

Gina Beavers: My god. It is hard, mean it points to like being busy in New York. Everybody is busy. So it's like not only does that impact things like being in a group with people, but it's also like just friendships. Like it's hard to like, like you have friends, we have the art world like friends, you know, but it's not, you can't spend like huge amounts of time with everybody, cause everyone is just like madness. people.

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, it's like most of us are working two full-time jobs. I mean, I really essentially have two very full-time jobs. One is being like a college professor at CUNY. So that's like my full-time, like official job. But then my other full-time job is being an artist and I want to spend 30 hours in the studio doing that and promoting it or doing, you know, whatever else professional stuff too. like, yeah, at the end of the day, it's very hard to find time to be like, let's just go to the mall.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: you know, have Taco Bell or something.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's why social media has been like a godsend for artists because we can like stay in touch and see what people are working on without like, let me come to a studio visit. Like, let's plan this a month ahead of time and take half a day. you know, like we can actually have like a community that, yeah, it's kind of made for us a certain way.

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, because community is so important. Like for me, like one of the greatest community moments of my life was when I lived in Williamsburg and Paul Sapulia was my next door neighbor. And he and I became like as thick as thieves, but like as like art friends, like not just like gay social friends, but like, you know, we would share our career fears or, you know, career dramas or what, you know, what we were working on in our art.

Gina Beavers: Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: And Paul became one of my closest like art. I mean, he became like a social friend too, but like in terms of like growing as an artist together. And when he moved to LA in 2014, it was like a shock to my system to have, cause he was also like a, like a nuclear atom that like brought like all these kinds of like Brooklyn gay artists together. And it was great. It was like a little hay day of like, you know, all these different artists living in Williamsburg who were gay and like working on stuff together or collaborating or going to the Metropolitan. and, and it was, you know, and then I don't know, I don't know if you remember, but Sam Wilson and Jesse Yarbrough and I had a party called Park Life, which was like a Brit pop dance party at K and ⁓ in Williamsburg. Did you ever go to that? Yeah. And that was, became like an art.

Gina Beavers: No, I heard about it though. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: sort of party of like a lot of art world people would come and go dancing on like a Thursday night. And so that was like a super fun sort of everyone together kind of thing. But yeah, as you get older, I feel like social media is now where like I only see Paul like once or twice a year. Maybe I go to LA to stay with him or maybe he comes to New York for a show. like otherwise, we have to like comment on each other's Instagram posts.

Gina Beavers: No, it's kind of sad, I guess. Yeah, that's, yeah, I mean, it is interesting though, like when you bring up like close artist friends versus like broader artist friends is who do you feel vulnerable enough talking about the like ups and downs? Because I feel like there's so many people that you have enough of a relationship to talk about art, but you still feel like we're all gonna maintain like everything's great. I'm doing great. I'm like.

TIMOTHY HULL: Absolutely. Yeah, totally.

Gina Beavers: You know, cause it is really vulnerable. Like it is like, you know, was it Alex Katz who said like being an artist is one humiliation, one humiliation after another. it, it there. Yeah. Yeah. But not until like probably the last 10 or 15 years. Right. I mean, you really struggled, think. Um, but yeah, it's like, do you, yeah. Who do you feel like you can actually be truly honest and yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: And that's coming from Alex Katz, who has like a dream career. Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, it's nice, know, like my husband obviously, like I can really confide and be like, fuck, like, you know, I feel fucked right now. But also like my friend TM Davey, like I said, he's like my best closest vulnerable friend, Paul Sepulia, can talk about that with, Jennifer Sullivan, because she's like a great grad school friend of mine. Maybe Dave McDermott, who's now an LA artist who I went to grad school with. ⁓

Gina Beavers: or you don't feel competitive. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, right, Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Jeremy Deprez, he's an artist who I can kind of be vulnerable with. There's maybe like five people that I can be like, whoa, I have this show and nothing sold or whoa, I have this like, you know, studio visit that went terrible. You know, like, because yeah, normally if I run into some art acquaintance at an opening and they're like, what's going on? I'm like, oh, great, blah, blah, blah. know, like.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Right. Ayayaya Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're all just kind of like, yeah, no, that's it. Yeah, no.

TIMOTHY HULL: But you do need people that you can sort of really get real with and be like, whoa, shit's hit the fan. Like, do you have people that you feel like you can be totally?

Gina Beavers: Yeah, definitely. mean, Hayne and I will spend hours on the phone, like in the studio, like ⁓ while we're working and we just talk through everything. ⁓ But it's, you know, I think one of the issues with artists is competition. It's like we feel so it, you know, like that's, I think one of the stumbling blocks. But it also brings up something that like Hayne and I have discussed, which is like, like people, like we know people who

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Definitely.

Gina Beavers: won't be friends with artists whose work they don't like. Like. No.

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ you want to open that Pandora's box, Tina? Because I think it's the other way around in the art world, so many people are friends with artists whose work they hate because they like, they either like the person as a person or they want to be like associated with their career or something. And so.

Gina Beavers: Uh-huh. Well, so do they hate their work or are they, is it the kind of hate that is on the fine edge of like jealousy and love? that, like hating work or I'm talking about people who will not be friends if they don't think your work is like up to par. I mean, it's one thing to hate an artist's work, but they're hugely successful. that's, that's, that's more complex, right? That's like more different emotions. But if you,

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. ⁓ definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: hate someone's or you think someone's work sucks. I guess it's the difference between.

TIMOTHY HULL: But you I remember, and this I can't, I don't wanna name any names with this one, but there was a painting show like a year or two ago that was really patently awful. Like everyone that I talked to was like, this is the worst painting show I have ever seen. Yet everyone was going and posting about it and acting like it was good. Yet everyone behind the scenes was like, this is the worst.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. No, no. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. When was this? Not September 20, not September 2024, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Maybe I'll tell someone privately if they DM me. ⁓ But I would say to people, cause I did not partake in that, like, you know, love of this artist's work. And I'd say to people, like, you just told me you hate this work, yet you're like promoting it. And they're like, ⁓ I love the person. Like, I love, I love so-and-so. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, you can love the person and think they're amazing, but that doesn't mean you have to act like their artwork is the best. When you told me that you think it sucks.

Gina Beavers: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's, don't know. Yeah, I'm trying to imagine if I've ever done that. Like I've definitely talked shit about someone and then posted their work, but their work had to be good. Like, you know, like, I don't know. That's, I don't know if I could ever like post someone's work that I, well, okay, I don't know. That's so tricky.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. But nothing is more frustrating though when you really love someone's work and they don't want to be friends with you and you think it's because they don't like your work.

Gina Beavers: I know that's the thing. you've, well, so I found out that this person is not friends with people that they, whose work they don't like. And now I'm super paranoid anytime I'm around them, like, cause I feel like they're, they don't want to talk to me. I'm like, you know, and I guess the thing is just like, I don't know. You're a, you're a teacher. I was a teacher for a long time. I do have like a spectrum of, never know, like who is going to develop their work into something.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Totally.

Gina Beavers: You know, so, and I do have a respect for the process and there's like a lot of people out there who I do like as people who, not a lot of people. No, I like a lot of people. I'm just saying there are not a lot of people that I, where I like there were, what am I trying to say? What am I? No, I.

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, but we all do it because we're social creatures. Like someone might follow me on Instagram and if I go and look at their work and I'm like, ⁓ I don't really like their work. I'm actually probably not going to follow them back. Like I don't just blindly re-follow someone because they followed me. if I, like I don't want to.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. ⁓ huh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: you know, I want to actually engage with their work. And if someone did write to me and was like, Tim, I love your work. I want to be your best friend. And I looked at their work and it was really like crappy. I probably would be like, I'm busy.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I respond a lot to dedication. If I know you're hated and I know you're serious about it, it could be in my wheelhouse of something I like or don't like. And I don't, I just know you're serious about it. And I respect that, you know? Um, I, yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yes. I agree with that at end of the day, that's probably one of the most important.

Gina Beavers: And I think that might be where like the teaching side of it comes in, because I feel like that's something you can recognize as a teacher. Like this person's serious, whether or not like it's totally my thing, like I can respect that. you know, and I grew up like my mom was an artist and she had this like wider group of artist friends. You know, she shows in Northern California and like, you know, like this idea that you could be an artist and not necessarily be in New York or, or be as like positioned to like, you know, make work that really speaks to the moment and all of that. Like I just grew up in an atmosphere where you just accepted people as artists if they said they were artists. Like you just like, you and you had a certain level of respect for them regardless, you know, it's like, yeah, I don't know. But. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: I mean, but also at the end of the day, the art world in general is like a social sphere. And so it's so, as a result, it's so political. It's like, you who you know, who you don't know, what you're invited to, what you're not invited to. It's like, you know, the Whitney Biennial opening, you know, like I've been invited to that in the past, but I've had to like scrounge for an invitation. But this year I wasn't, I couldn't put it together. I didn't get to go. like, I was like, you know, looking at Instagram and seeing,

Gina Beavers: and then I'm on. Yeah. I'm sorry.

TIMOTHY HULL: all these people there and I'm like, know everyone at this opening, like why am I not there? Am I that out of it now? Am I that irrelevant or something? And it made me feel like, again, you're in high school and you're in the cafeteria and all the cool kids are sitting over in that area and you're like, whoa, I thought maybe I was cool but I guess I'm not, I don't know, but fuck them. We might be in our middle age but we still have the mentality of

Gina Beavers: Ugh. ⁓ Yeah, yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: 16 or 15 and like and the art world can really bring that out

Gina Beavers: Yeah, no. ⁓ 100%. Well, ⁓ I get invited, I think I told you over DMs, because I'm in the collection. So I think they invite. But I get invited to the second night, which was Tuesday night. Monday night, I think, was the real opening, which is for all the artists and probably patrons. kind of the heaviest, biggest deal one is Monday night. Then Tuesday night is a little bit more open. And they bring in.

TIMOTHY HULL: You're at the B-list event. There's the A-list event, the B-list event. Then there's the C-list event, which is like the third night, which is...

Gina Beavers: Right, which is anybody who is a member. think you get invited to like, yeah, but I also don't know, like I see a lot of people at the B-list event that I'm like, ⁓ are they in the collection? That's so cool. And I don't know for sure all the time or if they, there are other things, maybe they're working on something with, I saw a lot of people there that I have no idea. You can just look people up in the collection though and see if they're in the collection. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the night of that opening, actually, I was fine to not be able to go because I wanted to talk about two things that I did do, which were really cool. And one was I went to a reading of James K. Hill's new book, The Violet Hour, and he had a reading at LaSalle Gallery. And it was really interesting because he's a novelist, but he's in the art world. He's worked at different galleries.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

TIMOTHY HULL: and his new book is like a murder mystery, like that takes place in the art world. ⁓ And so he had invited me to go to his book reading. So I went to that. But then also this really interesting art collector and museum patron named Catherine Embiricos invited me to go see this new work by Gregorius Semitecholo. ⁓

Gina Beavers: ⁓ my god, I love that. It's extremely emotional. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: at Ramekin Crucible and have like a walkthrough of this very amazing sort of obscure avant-garde Greek artist who died and has sort of been rediscovered. And Ramekin is showing these like very strange and mysterious paintings of his, of like weird cityscapes of like after he saw the World Trade Center for the first time in the 70s, mixed in with like Cycladic sculpture because Catherine. Embryikos is part of the Cycladic Museum in Athens, but she lives in New York and she's always connecting Greek history, culture with contemporary stuff. so she had invited me to go see this because these paintings use a lot of Cycladic imagery, which of course I'm very interested in. So I was following my own weird path of obscure stuff.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. ⁓ well. Yeah, it sounds great. was, yeah, I mean, the Whitney Biennial, I know it's one of those things where you go to the opening and you're just like, need to come back and actually spend some time with the show. I was having very like, well, you'll have to go and we can talk about it, but I was having very deja vu, like, I don't know, like I feel like there's certain modes of working that just reappear over and over again in this. I mean, that's ironic for me to say as a painter.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah, I haven't been, so yeah.

Gina Beavers: Like, there are just things that felt like I'd seen them before or versions of them. I don't know.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Well, I hear there's very little painting in this biennial compared to many others. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, but there are some great painting, though. I mean, I think that the painters that are in it are really good. But we'll have to have a debrief. And I'm very sorry that I invited my friend. No, I love her, and I'm glad that she came with me. But I had invited her before I could have invited you to be my plus one.

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, we'll definitely have to have like a Whitney Biannian focus episode or something. Yeah. Well, somebody actually said to me, I was talking about it and they're like, well, eventually with your podcast, you could get a press pass.

Gina Beavers: That's the ultimate. Yes. Well, next time, two years from now, I pledge that you will be my plus one, Tim. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, I was back in, thank you Gina, I was back in New York though all week thankfully because a lot of things have kept me out of New York like the past couple weeks, my mom's knee health and all the snow and the weather and yeah, my mom is good now. She's sort of on the mend from her knee replacement surgery but you know, it's like all the aging parent kind of stuff has been hitting me like a ton of bricks but I was back in the city really hitting the shows up hard. spent

Gina Beavers: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ my gosh, how is he doing? Okay.

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ whole day in Tribeca, really soaking in, you know, the hot shows that I wanted to see, like Melissa Brown and Cameroza Ram and Holly Cooliss. And I just have to say that Cameroza Ram show, now, like I saw it online. I'd seen it sort of like, you know, leading up to it. Then I saw it online. So I knew what I was getting myself into. And I knew that it like was going to really like break my heart because it's so. good. Like, like, and he's one of those artists that really I don't I can't say often get very like jealous of artists. But but when I do, it's like because they're they're hitting on all cylinders like cameras around because, ⁓ he's in the Whitney Biennial while he's having a really amazing solo show. So like, I don't I don't know how someone can like orchestrate their career so beautifully that they have that they can like have all that happen at one time. Like I can barely sometimes juggle all these things in my life to, you know, like, it's like, just, it just amazes me when someone can sort of hit it like that. But then also be like in their stride, like his work right now is like exactly where it needs to be. It's doing exactly like what it's like lyrical, it's decorative, it's conceptual, it's big, it's...

Gina Beavers: Red.

TIMOTHY HULL: It's expressive, it's intellectual. It's hitting on every single cylinder that you could kind of want painting, or what I'm always trying to do. And it also looks so effortless, yet also looks very carefully done. And so it just kind of like, I probably spent 45 minutes in there and I texted him after and I was like, I could have spent an hour and a half if you gave me a bench.

Gina Beavers: Mm-hmm. No.

TIMOTHY HULL: And he was like, no, no benches allowed. But it's the kind of show that I really could have sat in and just taken in the colors, the shapes, the forms, the flow. Like it really, it kind of, it gave me a lot of inspiration and it put me back in the studio, like with a looser brush. have to.

Gina Beavers: Oh, that's so interesting. That's really cool that that's the best when you go back with like a new perspective. Yeah, that's really cool. Well, I didn't see any shows except for the Winnie because I was sick and I didn't make it to what I said I was going to make it. So.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, well, there's still stuff I didn't get to see, but I was also really blown away by Melissa Brown's work because that like, like you look at the in an Instagram image and you're like, is it, is it painting? Is it photo? Is it like, what's going on here? Like there's so much slippage of like image meaning. So when you go see them in real life, you realize that there's elements that are sort of photo silkscreened that then they're also passages that are very like loosely.

Gina Beavers: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ cool. Yeah, I really want to see your show. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: painterly done. And so when you're standing in front of them even, your eye sort of vacillates between the real picture plane and this sort of like painterly picture plane. And you kind of, they're very trippy. And that's amazing because a lot of the imagery is like psychic, psychic windows, weird electronics. So you really get into a strange. zone, which I think the best painting really sort of transports you in that way, like out of your body into another zone. ⁓ And they're just sort of beautifully done. They're just very, the surfaces are really both sort of elegant and crude at the same time. And I found that to be cool. And then Holly Coolis's show, I went to Klaus and chatted with all the Klausketeers there and ⁓ And Holly's show is great. She's got like vibrant lines happening, like beautiful colors that are sort of more bold and expressive. And her line work, it has this sort of vibration to it that I'm really inspired in. Like when I do some lines in my painting, I try to give a little vibration to that line. So Holly's show is really exciting. ⁓

Gina Beavers: Cool.

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ but two Chelsea things I have to talk about is one ⁓ Kwame Azur Gomez's show, Boast Game, which blew my mind. Like talk about like lyrical, open space, beautiful brushwork, confident. Like she's, she's carrying the laurels of Cy Twombly. Like as a young black woman, she's claiming that like sort of Ab-X and Cy Twombly kind of

Gina Beavers: ⁓ yeah, yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: Julian Schnobbly kind of space and she is owning it big time. she, you gotta look out for her because she's like a freight train that's just gonna.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, I gotta go to sleep. Wow, wow. I really have to see. Yeah, I really have to go to Boeski and see that. ⁓ Yeah, what ⁓ did you see? Sorry to like just switch. ⁓ We are there's a VR show at Scarstad. Do you like? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think uptown. Yeah. Yeah, I want to say that. Yeah, we.

TIMOTHY HULL: No, is that that? I mean, I do like VR, but I have not that shows not been on my radar, but is that uptown? I still haven't seen the Jasper John show at the Gagosian uptown. So I'm going to, I'll like, I'll like loop that in with.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, and there's a Peter Saul show at Gladstone too. So I'm going to go see the Kwame show and the.

TIMOTHY HULL: with the Gladstone as Robert Mapplethorpe.

Gina Beavers: ⁓ right now? ⁓ maybe, do they have another location? ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. The same night as the Boatski opening was the Mapplethorpe opening and that was like Lollapalooza. that, you think Mapplethorpe died yesterday. Like that crowd, you could have crowd surfed in that place. But know, Patti Smith was there. So what do you want?

Gina Beavers: Okay. ⁓ Yeah. Wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, must be the other location because then they're Gladstone further like couple blocks down.

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ are there two Gla- ⁓

Gina Beavers: Yeah, think there's a second. Yeah, no, totally. Yeah, did you see the maple thorn show?

TIMOTHY HULL: I did, I went in there, you know, and they're like reprints, they're new, they're like, you know, it's sort of like little greatest hits kind of thing. I, you know, I was like, this is cool, but I'm also like, this probably could be at a museum. And also like, aren't there like new photographers who are doing stuff we should be paying a lot of attention to? I don't know, it felt like a little bit like, you know.

Gina Beavers: Interesting. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: blah, blah, Mapplethorpe, Mapplethorpe, Mapplethorpe, fine, you know, not like the few doors down at Lehman Moppin was MacArthur Binion's show, and that man is a living legend. Like, I mean, bell went off in my head when I saw MacArthur Binion's show, because he is just like the master of image, repetitive image, color, mark making. I mean,

Gina Beavers: Right. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

TIMOTHY HULL: That show also got me back into the studio thinking in like a whole new way. And I kind of worship at the altar of MacArthur Binion.

Gina Beavers: That's really awesome. Yeah, I really love his work. He has this work with like hands, with a grid, and older work.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. ⁓ I made a post of it, like these little hands and like pictures and like, right, I mean, he's so good. It's so like crafty, but also so like skillful. And his history is good. Like he was like, you know, he's a black guy who's been, he's like 70 something. He's been working for years. He taught at the Art Institute of Chicago. He like was just doing the work. He was like, you know, chopping wood and carrying water.

Gina Beavers: good, yeah. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: And now he's like finally really getting his due and that's inspiring.

Gina Beavers: Mm Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Well, do we want to talk about any of these like controversies? Because I feel like, well, one thing I wanted to say just like from a I mean, I love your descriptions of the shows and I like I'm so excited to see these these shows and I feel dirty to bring up business side of it. But I would just say that possibly like ⁓ it cameras absolutely hitting a stride right. Like it's just amazing. It's like amazing to see his work in the biennial so great. But I will say that galleries, when they know you're going to be in a big survey like that, would schedule your solo to take advantage of that as well. So it's like the kind of thing. I mean, I'm just saying like that's a thing for anybody. I don't know who does, yeah. Who might have? Yes, yes, 100 % it's such a great gallery. I mean, it's all, I'm just saying for anybody who doesn't.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah Yeah. But that's also just so lucky that A, you're with a gallery that has the wherewithal.

Gina Beavers: who's listening who maybe thinks that, know, but like they will often do that. But also they're speaking of more like, yeah, again, let me dirty it up with some like stupid online controversy. But ⁓ there was a couple different things. One was ⁓ this guy, Kevin Escherich, I sent you that from Art News. He programmed this AI to make ⁓ paintings.

TIMOTHY HULL: Bring it on. There's a lot.

Gina Beavers: based on George Kondo and Cher Hughes and a bunch of people, but with him kind of as the mediator. ⁓ And he got in trouble with George Kondo and had to cover up those. I haven't seen that show yet, but it's up until the 15th at what is the gallery called? Heft, which is like a digital gallery.

TIMOTHY HULL: And do you side with George Kondo or do you side with the?

Gina Beavers: Well, I don't know. I just, I have to go see them. I'm just like more curious about the technology.

TIMOTHY HULL: But just conceptually, do you feel like George Kondo is right to be like, whoa, shit, like, you're copying my work. That's not cool. Or do you think he should just?

Gina Beavers: Well, no, I mean, I think they look like these paintings were painted by the people. it looks like share. What's interesting about is that the AI is pointing out a style. mean, obviously George Kondo has a style, but he did also ⁓ Salman tour. Like he did a bunch of people and for like young contemporary artists to see that, like their work is so recognizable in this way, like that the AI kind of points to that in this, this crazy way. I just have to see them in person to like understand.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah.

Gina Beavers: Because actually part of the issue is they don't have them on the site because they're afraid they're going to get sued. anyway, that was. I know, I know.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Well, it's like they had to take down the David Sally painting because he used that stupid image of a woman in a dress with a chainsaw around. was like, who gives a flying fuck? Like, David Sally is an appropriation artist. He's like in the history books as an appropriation artist. You should be so lucky that he uses an image of yours in his painting, I think. I mean, I don't know. That to me is...

Gina Beavers: enough. Yeah, think what's interesting, I have a little experience with copyright issues, so I can't say too much. I would say the fact that he took from another painter is probably a really big deal. Like legally, I think it's a big deal. Whether or not we think it's a big deal, it kind of doesn't matter. And if they took it off you thinking like, ⁓ she won't sue, ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: ⁓ Ryan. Ryan. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: if we take it off you, but she could still sue. It doesn't matter if you take it off you. It doesn't matter if you destroy it. It doesn't matter. She could still sue. And she probably, like, this is controversial. If I was him, I would say to her, I'll give you half my half of whatever it sells for.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, but he's like using an image of her painting in a mashup with all this other stuff. It's like, he's making a comment on that image, in his, like, can't you make, can't you use like an image of like, you know, Picasso in your work to, like you've used Van Gogh's image in your own painting, like.

Gina Beavers: Well, I mean, yeah, it's like there's a certain amount of leeway for like fan art. But like when once you're selling something and you're competing in the same arena, what's interesting is that a lot of copyright has to do with like somebody like a photographer suing Richard Prince or something like somebody who is like in the art world, but adjacent, like maybe we're not doing the exact same thing. But the idea that you took someone who is technically even though maybe not in the same marketplace.

TIMOTHY HULL: Right. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: technically in marketplace as you. But which is this, yeah, and does it change it enough? I don't know that it changes it. I feel like it doesn't change it enough legally to, I don't know.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, I mean, it's very, you know, I also work heavily in appropriated imagery and most of it's like ancient, so it doesn't really matter. But like in my, in the last show I had at Housie McKay, I used like Woodstock from the Peanuts cartoon, like in some imagery and I've used more, some more contemporary stuff. And I'm just like, who cares? Like it's so distended from its original intent or whatever that like, so sue me, you know, but.

Gina Beavers: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

TIMOTHY HULL: But of course I'm not selling my paintings for $400,000 and when you're sort of, when you are operating on that level, it's like people, they smell the sort of money or they wanna sort of get more involved in. But in my t-shirt business, I did a drawing of Kate Bush and they told me to take it down.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard when you're dealing with things where you have to rely on photos of people. I mean, that's the whole shepherd fairy thing. The biggest thing with copyright is that it's all, like suits and all of the rules for it are all by analogy. So it's like, nobody can tell you for sure if you're okay. It's all like looking at former case law and seeing which cases won or lost and trying to situate your particular situation in there. And it's like, nobody can really, so a lot of people end up settling just to get like, you know, but I will say the interesting thing. ⁓ This issue, by the way, was Spruce Maggars, am I saying that right? ⁓ And it was this art influencer, Josie Lewis, who like blew the whole thing up kind of. The painter herself is Kelly Remstein is her name, but. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, spoozmajors, maggers, know. Who knows.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, what's interesting about, what was I gonna say? ⁓ my God, I totally forgot. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Well, I want to know what Timothee Chalamet would have to say about this AI ⁓ appropriate. Would he dismiss it out of hand like he did ballet and opera?

Gina Beavers: you ⁓ my god, yeah. No, that was... I mean, it's so sad, like...

TIMOTHY HULL: I I hear that your uncle like wrote the book on opera.

Gina Beavers: He did an opera in America, which I would just say briefly to Timothy Chalamet that, and I mean, I don't think he's this dumb if both his mom and his grandmother were New York City ballet, you know, they were ballet dancers, but you know, European opera came to the United States and eventually became what we know as musical theater. Like we invented that. And musical theater and popular entertainment is literally the movies today. Like this is all a continuum from like opera

TIMOTHY HULL: Haha! Yeah. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: Like he would not, you know, I think he knows.

TIMOTHY HULL: think that what I feel like, what I understood he was sort of meaning though is like, I think he was questioning what the actual larger relevance today of like ballet and opera is compared to more like pop media. And I question that about the art world too. Like I think we're important and I think the art is very important in society. But I also kind of sometimes question, well, what really is our relevance either politically or socially or? you know, economically or whatever that like, I think that even asking those questions, no matter how controversial it is, I think it's important to kind of wonder about that, but.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, I mean, I think maybe he was he was saying from perspective of like, he didn't want to drag along, like, he didn't want to have to be like working for something where he's like, doesn't know if it's going to close or like, it doesn't have money. I think he was reflecting on the fact that like, those disciplines don't have money and you don't know if you're going to, you know, ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: But even in big acting, there's no money unless you're in the 1 % like Timothée Chalamet. It's like there's plenty of people, yeah.

Gina Beavers: Which he is. I know, that's like, which he is, which is why I think people were like, this sucks because like, of course you, you make a ton of money and you dip. But so he's sort of saying that like, well, I ended up going here.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. But it's the same in the art world too. Like there's more of us in the art world who make very little money, but there are a lot who, you know, a number, it's, you small, but they make like hundreds or millions of dollars a year. And so people think like, there is all this big money in the art world, but really most of us are like middle-class or lower-class or no-class artists, you know, like, you know.

Gina Beavers: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. But they can't exist without that structure. know, like none of this can exist. they, you you want to say that you can make like these multimillion dollar movies without the structure of like theater camp or like, you you just can't like this all comes like it's all connected, you know? And I think the same way in mean, it. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the idea of it all being connected is part of the great panellope of life, the great, you know, feast of life. Here we are at the end of our show, end of this episode, sort of threading.

Gina Beavers: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. We talk about all the people. Well, next time I want to talk about this, this influencer, her name's Josie Lewis, the one that blew up the because I mean, I did a deep dive into her social media and that's that's an entire like last 10 years of the internet that yeah, I also wanted to say

TIMOTHY HULL: Mm-hmm. Huh. Boom.

Gina Beavers: That show that I talked about, Kevin Esherick at Heft, that was brought to my attention from a listener, Lovett, yeah, Tali. She's in the digital art side of things. ⁓ that reminds me, sorry, the last thing I wanna say about the Spruce Muggers ⁓ thing is that if you read the comments about the appropriation and how people are scandalized, they're...

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. Yes.

Gina Beavers: More scandalized about the AI. ⁓ If you look at the comments, I would say more people are outraged about the fact that he used AI. AI as theft versus strict appropriation, which we know something about, but I think you should, if you're curious about this whole thing, go look at the comments and see how many people are much, almost more upset about the AI than they are about the appropriation.

TIMOTHY HULL: Wow, okay, that's interesting. Well, and I love the idea too, like you said, like someone had commented to you about something and you took it as a topic to lead. Like if people, if our listeners want to comments on Instagram or send us a DM, either, you know, we'd love to hear like maybe topics you want us to discuss or, you know, yeah.

Gina Beavers: Yeah, yeah. things to talk about totally or like they are if we didn't wrap something up. Yeah, and also.

TIMOTHY HULL: And also to remember to like review and like and star and subscribe the podcast.

Gina Beavers: Reviewing like yeah do all of that to the podcast the last thing and this is because we've talked about AI like three weeks in a row Maybe or two weeks and I didn't get to say this with the AI the big criticism is That you're not a good artist if you use AI It's not even a moral. It's not even a moral conversation, but they're attacking David Sally in these comments for using AI You're not even a good artist. You couldn't think of it yourself blah blah blah blah, and it's like

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, which is not true. Yeah. Right.

Gina Beavers: Doesn't that feel like the ultimate like nothing insult? Like, do you care if somebody says you're a bad artist? Like, oh.

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah, because you use Photoshop because you don't want to cut and paste collages with scissors and glue. Yeah.

Gina Beavers: No, but just in general, if somebody is like, you're a bad artist because you didn't do this or that, it's like, that is literally like, I could care less whether you think I'm a good artist or not. Like, it's just so funny to hear this. I mean, if you want to say I'm a terrible human, okay, like that's going to make me feel bad probably. But if you say I'm a bad artist, like I really don't care. But that's a lot of the AI conversation is like, you're a bad artist. ⁓

TIMOTHY HULL: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Well, the reality is, Gina, that we're all bad artists as much as we're good artists. Because, you know, one man's trash is another man's treasure, you know? So you have to accept that to some people you're going to be a really bad artist. that's... All right.

Gina Beavers: Yes. Totally, totally. Yeah, no, exactly. That I'm proud of that. Wear that like a badge of honor. Yes, you too. I'm going to miss you and I'm going to really try to see art this. I'm not sick and I'm going to go out there and more stuff. Okay. Okay. Bye, Tim. Bye.

TIMOTHY HULL: Okay, well enjoy the spring weather and... Cool. All right, until next time. All bye, Gina.