Art Lovers Forum Podcast

Thanks to Robert Fontaine, Lincoln Road is once again a meaningful and exciting destination for serious art collectors. He recently moved his blue chip art gallery, The Robert Fontaine Gallery, to the legendary outdoor mall, because of the ever-increasing foot traffic. It’s also steps away from the world-famous Art Basel and all of the art fairs that pop up annually.
Robert Fontaine is going to add a certain new pizzazz to the area that he hopes will attract both new and experienced buyers who want blue chip art. Robert and his staff are more than willing to spend time with people who never bought art before and want to be educated.
Just listen to this podcast. Robert explains the art market in ways that will give you a greater appreciation and desire to get involved. He makes it simple and direct. He also discusses topics, like investing, that many gallerists don’t want to talk about. It’s great to have a resource like Robert because he has experienced all of the stages in contemporary art.
His early years were spent in St. Petersburg, Sanibel and Captiva Islands. When he was 18, he lived on a sailboat and worked on the barrier Islands of North Captiva Island, Cabbage Key, and the historic Useppa Island.
Robert entered the art market in 1998 when he interned at the Jill Spanbauer Gallery, Naples FL. In 1998, he received the Robert Rauschenberg Scholarship Award Grant via B.I.G Arts Sanibel. He also studied at the Florida Gulf Coast University for four years.  He worked as a studio assistant to Multimedia Artist Nancy Gifford, Naples & Miami Beach FL.  Robert also received an Academic Scholarship from the Captiva Civic Association, Captiva Island.
In 2003 he finally moved to Miami Beach for a position as Director of Ashmore Gallery, a 17th-19th century European and American Art Gallery, located near the Bass Museum in what is now the W Hotel. He spent a year as an assistant to Barbara Gillman, Barbara Gillman Gallery, Wynwood and worked as Director of Space 39 Gallery Southwest Florida.
Robert saw the world in 2007 to 2010 when he was named Director of Exhibitions for Performer and Painter Marilyn Manson, staging solo Exhibitions in Zurich, Athens, Moscow, São Paulo, and Cologne.
He finally made it to Miami in 2011 when he opened the Robert Fontaine Gallery which was in operation for 10 years in Wynwood, before moving into pop ups spaces, in various locations in South Florida: Miami Beach, and Palm Beach. He loves his life in art and plans to continue to surprise his audiences.

If you want to expand your horizons in the art world, listen to this episode of Art Lovers Forum. I am speaking to Dianne Beal, an independent curator and private art dealer in Washington D.C., Paris and Miami.
She is absolutely a well-known specialist of non-conformist art. Let’s put it this way, the bipartisan political power couple, Mary Matalin and James Carville, are just two of her celebrity status clientele. 
Dianne has developed an excellent reputation for promoting intellectually challenging projects in Washington, Paris and most recently, Miami.  During the pandemic, she created an online artist interview series Square Dose and spends time now organizing diverse exhibitions with impactful curatorial themes. After operating galleries in Washington, DC in the early part of her career and then founding Galerie Blue Square in Paris in 2007, Dianne continues to focus on art projects that link local and international concerns. She has collaborated with American university art museums as well as major museums, including the Louvre Museum and Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
Curatorial exhibitions include The Color of Light (2021-22) featuring five international artists and three venues in Latvia and France; Riga Photography Biennale (2018); Tribute -Yves Ullens (2017) Mark Rothko Art Centre, Riga, Latvia; RED!!! Russian-American XXI c. Visions (2017) George Mason University; Crude - Andrei Molodkin (2013) American University; and Russian Constructivist Roots: Present Concerns (1997-98), University of Maryland, University of New Hampshire, Dickinson College and The World Bank which traced the legacy of the Russian avant-garde movement of the 1920s and 1930s through the works of 13 leading contemporary Russian artists.
From 2011 - 2014, Dianne  served as a consultant to UBS bank, acting as a private guide to its top Private Wealth clients at Art Basel Miami Beach. Galerie Blue Square hosted a booth of its artists at Art Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais for several years.
Dianne has been invited to give interviews and has delivered lectures at leading universities and has served as guest curator and juror for various public and private exhibitions. In 2010, she contributed to a book published by the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow about émigré artists.  Dianne earned a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Michigan and a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the George Washington University. She speaks French and Russian.

Tomas Redrado is one of the youngest gallery owners in the United States. He became a gallerist in his homeland of Buenos Aires during the pandemic because he felt it was a period in all of our lives when we could try new things. He was just starting his career in foreign affairs when the world went into lockdown. He couldn’t travel so he turned to his love of art. Tomas was friendly with a number of artists who he really admired so he started representing them. He was only in his early 20s.
Today Tomas is a full-fledged gallerist working in both Miami and Buenos Aires. He explains that Miami is like a second home to people who live in Buenos Aires. They go back and forth all the time. The TOMAS REDRA-DO ART gallery is now located in Little Haiti, Miami. Address is 224 NW 71 Street. 
Tomas feels his art business is very experimental. The gallery of tomorrow will not be what it is today. Collectors travel around more than ever before so you just can’t sit around in one spot and wait for clients to come to you. There are a lot of new opportunities for gallerists to show their collections. He talks a lot about that during our interview.

Welcome To Art Lovers Forum.  I met Pauline Shender a few years ago at Fountainhead Arts, an art residency in Miami. We are both members. She is a few decades younger than me but when I see her, I feel like I am looking at myself at her age. However, I’m far more brash, she is much more sophisticated.
Pauline has been studying contemporary art since 2012. What started as a curiosity about contemporary art has turned into a meaningful pursuit of further knowledge. An initial course with Kathleen Madden at Barnard College entitled: Conversations in Contemporary Art has led to collecting, Museum involvement and patronage of emerging artists. Pauline is currently or has been on the Acquisitions Committee at the ICA Miami, Emerging Collectors Committee at the Norton and is a Patron of the Fountainhead as well. She has amassed a growing collection of approximately 75 works from both emerging and established artists including: Azita Moradkhani, Nate Lewis, Tariku Shiferaw, Emily Mae Smith, Teresita Fernandez, Theaster Gates, Maynard Monrow, and William Kentridge. She made her first art donation to the Norton in 2023 of a Naama Tsabar "Work on Felt" and there is a performance planned at the Norton likely in 2025. 

Welcome To Art Lovers Forum.  This is a podcast conversation about pop art in the 1960’s and 1970’s that includes drugs, infidelity, dementia and everything else that makes a real juicy story.  If you are involved in art you may know some of this already, but today I have Jonathan Scull on Art Lovers Forum who is going to tell us all about Ethel and Robert Scull, the most talked about  Pop Art collectors for years. They dominated the press because of their unusual collecting and selling practices. Every major artist and gallery owner socialized with them because the Scull’s changed the business drastically which made art prices soar. The world was fascinated by them because of their rags to riches story.
 
Little did I know that a quasi-competitor of mine, was their oldest son, Jonathan Scull. At first he was a  senior editor for Stereophile Magazine. Then he started his own successful marketing company called Scull Communications, a PR company focused on the home entertainment industry. Most folks in the audio and music business knew Jonathan as a distinguished industry publicist.
 
I didn’t know that Ethel and Robert Scull were Jonathan’s parents. I never put two and two together. I think Jonathan recently mentioned it on Facebook. The minute I read that I knew I had to get Jonathan on my podcast to tell us more.  What was it like being a child of the two very fast lane folks who changed the world of collecting pop art? They were their own PR machines.
 
Before we  begin, let me reveal that Jonathan is now working on a new project with his business partner, Amy Penn, to tell the entire fascinating story of his parents called “Bob & Spike.” Spike was Ethel’s nickname. If you Google them, you will see what all of the excitement is about.
 

I feel like I know Evelyn Politzer forever. I have been seeing her yarn, thread, and fabric exhibits all over Miami for years, especially airline terminals, parks, and a vast array of galleries.  Her work makes you stop and stare. You can’t believe what this woman can do with soft hand-dyed fibers to create unconventional pieces ranging from small two-dimensional tapestries to monumental projects. She is definitely a pioneer in this area of art.
I know a secret about Evelyn. Shh, don’t tell anyone. While she is a leading fiber artist for a few decades now, she actually never knitted a sweater. It’s difficult to  believe considering all the millions of people who knit a sweater every year. Evelyn has been spending her time conquering art exhibits all over the world.
I have tried to meet Evelyn for years but I keep missing her at her exhibits. She either left before I showed up or she was at one of her other exhibitions. Then a few weeks ago Evelyn and I were at the same event and she made sure we finally shook hands, or in this case hugged. I knew I wanted to interview her on my podcast so I made her agree to it that night.
Evelyn started her practice  in her native land of Uruguay, a country where sheep outnumber human inhabitants, and where wool and other natural fibers continue to be an essential tool for people’s livelihood, especially women. The relationship between the fibers she works with and the place where she was born evokes the comfort of belonging, no matter where she is in the world.
Thank you Evelyn for joining us.

I’m thrilled to be interviewing Jeanne Jaffe today because she is not the typical artist that I usually meet. She has been creating art for 40 years and continues to put out more work than most people half her age. She is a true inspiration for folks who have something to say.
Jeanne is a multi-disciplinary artist working in installation, sculpture, and stop motion animation. Her work is influenced by an interest in language, literature, psychology, and history and explores how we construct identity, our world, and our value systems. Jeanne began her professional career studying archeology and anthropology, examining how people create and express meaning and values through objects, rituals, and behaviors.
Presently, Jeanne has a very mind boggling and profound exhibit at Spinello Projects in Miami.  Titled "Before I Wake."  The solo exhibition spans her work from 1997 to 2024.
Jeanne was a Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and was a visiting artist for five years at Xian Academy of Fine Arts in Xian, China. She is the recipient of fellowship grants for outstanding artistic development from the Gottlieb Foundation, for support of her automatronic installation about the life of Nicola Tesla from the National Endowment for the Arts, an artist residency in Mino Japan, as well as grants from the Mid Atlantic/NEA, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Independence Foundation, the Leeway Foundation, among others.
Most recently she was awarded an Innovative Artist Fellowship from the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County and a project artist residency from the Deering Estate. Works by Jeanne have been exhibited nationally and internationally at such places as Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art Museum, Phila. Pa; Seokang Museum of Art, Busan, Korea; Mino Washi Museum, Mino, Japan; The Royal Scottish Academy of Edinburgh, Scotland; Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, N.J.; American Museum of Papermaking, Atlanta, Georgia; Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pa; Woodmere Art Museum, Phila. Pa; Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE; Abington Sculpture Garden, Abington, Pa; Rowan University Gallery, Glassboro, N.J; Marginal Utility Gallery; and Gallery Joe in Phila, Pa.
She also has shown at LNS Gallery, Bridge Red, Doral Art Museum, Coral Springs Art Museum, IS Projects, Hollywood Art and Culture Center, Deering Estate, the Mexican Consulate, the Arts Warehouse, Edge Zones, IPC Artspace and Collective 62.
Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, The New York Times, and Sculpture Magazine among others.

Most people refer to Bianca Bosker as the New York Times best-selling author of Cork Dork and, most recently, Get the Picture.
I refer to Bianca as the most self-assured writer alive who doesn’t mind putting herself in vulnerable and embarrassing situations if it means she gets to write kick ass books that shake up entire industries for the better. Most of the folks I know would never allow themselves to be in an inferior position for the sake of anything. Every day when I was reading “Get The Picture” I kept thinking about how brave and fearless Bianca was.   
Bianca did that both in her book about wine, Cork Dork, and most recently, Get the Picture, about art. 
I just finished reading Get the Picture because my husband and I seriously collect art even though we were never formally trained to do so. Yet hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone from our piggy banks to the hands of gallerists around the world.
I couldn’t put Bianca’s book down. Most everything she detailed I have witnessed, or heard, over the years. Of course it was always discussed in hush-hush, one on one, conversations.  Bianca took the lid off of snotty attitudes, pricing practices, artist loyalties, the challenges of art fairs, and everything else you can think of.
Most of my collector friends who read Get The Picture were not only impressed by Bianca’s remarks but truly appreciated her writing style. I kept hearing “a brilliant writer who knows how to captivate.”
Now we get to hear her voice.
Just for some background, Bianca is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She has also written for publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Her work has been recognized with awards from the New York Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, and more, and has been included in “The Best American Travel Writing.”  She lives in New York City.

This is the first Art Lovers Forum I am doing extemporaneously. I usually have a prepared introduction with a list of questions. I guess my free spirited, number 13 episode, is appropriate for the art explorer I am about to interview. Avi Ivan has traveled to 69.1 per cent of the earth studying art. The list of places he has traveled to will be published in my blog: www.digidame.com. I met Avi in South Africa. It was happenstance. He joined a group, Fountainhead Arts, that Eliot and I were touring with. Everyone in the group was fascinated by Avi’s travels so I wanted him to tell us more on this podcast. Welcome Avi.
 
 
 

Marla Rice founded the Rice Polak Gallery in 1992 and holds a prominent place in Provincetown, Massachusetts as one of the primary venues for contemporary art. The gallery represents a select group of emerging and established artists whose work is both contemporary and contemplative. 
 
The philosophy of the Rice Polak Gallery is marked by a spirit of collaboration and exploration. The diverse media in the gallery’s program are united by the consistent presentation of challenging and thoughtful work. These works are often motivated by an interest in questioning established boundaries.
 
Marla is challenged and excited by her artists, whose works are ever changing, often humorous, sometimes political and always stimulating. Her desire to share that challenge and excitement is what keeps Marla committed to her artists and to the public.
 
Rice Polak Gallery
430 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657 
ricepolakgallery.com
508-487-1052  
Marla Rice Director, Cell: 508-237-5499