Studio visits for the listening mind.
Sound and Vision pairs Brian Alfred with artists, musicians, and art writers for loose, detail-rich conversations about creative work. The show favors lived anecdotes over tidy theory, moving from materials, exhibitions, books, music, memory, and criticism into larger questions about how art gets made.
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Sound and Vision is a long-running conversation show about contemporary art, music, and the private weather of creative practice. It is anchored by Brian Alfred, whose conversations tend to give guests room to think aloud. The show rarely rushes toward a polished thesis. It starts with actual lives and actual work. Recent episodes introduce artists through places, schools, residencies, exhibitions, materials, books, and scenes they have moved through. Claudia Doring Baez is framed through painting shaped by art history and literature, with references ranging from German Expressionism to Marcel Proust and Cindy Sherman. Chenlu Hou's episode foregrounds ceramics, residencies, exhibition history, and her current work around Harvard Ceramics and the Rhode Island School of Design. Kayla Witt's profile moves through Canadian and Los Angeles art contexts, solo shows, group exhibitions, and residencies. Nat Meade returns around a show called Franklin at Hesse Flatow, opening a path into new work and the continuity of a working practice. Elizabeth Hazan's conversation stretches from artist parents and New York bands in the 80s to avid reading and working from imagination. The show is strongest when a small detail becomes permission for a wider thought. A discussion with Cyrilla Mozenter lingers on Gertrude Stein, Chet Baker, outsider mentality, fear, convention, and the value of discovering things where they do not meet cleanly. The talk can be funny without turning into performance. It can also be serious without becoming sealed off. Andy Woll's episode brings a sharper edge, especially around art criticism, attention, and whether people still read closely about art. The annual 2025 recap with Brian Boucher from ARTnews widens the frame to shows, film, music, freelancing, and joining a magazine staff. Sound and Vision is for listeners who enjoy the texture of artists talking to each other, including the side paths and partial restatements. It assumes curiosity rather than expertise. The result is an approachable but specific archive of contemporary creative life, where process is never just technique and inspiration is usually tangled up with memory, labor, doubt, and looking hard.
Made for: For artists, art students, curators, writers, and visually curious listeners who like process talk with room to wander. It especially suits people who enjoy contemporary painting, ceramics, criticism, and artist-to-artist conversation.
What sets it apart: Sound and Vision stands out by letting studio detail and personal memory carry the weight of the conversation. Instead of packaging artists into quick career summaries, it lets influence, uncertainty, materials, criticism, and everyday talk sit together.
Brian Alfred sits down with artists and musicians to discuss their process and inspiration in their creative life.
Studio talk gets honest here, letting you hear what survives after openings, sales, and art-school expectations.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose, searching episode about materials, outsider thinking, and the productive edge of uncertainty.
Sound & Vision follows an artist thinking through a practice built from gouache, pencil, industrial wool felt, cut-out letters, and pictogram-like forms, then lets those materials open onto a wider question: what happens when work stays near the edge of convention?
Andy Wohl connects the future of art criticism to the pressures of a distracted attention economy.
Andy Wohl frames the conversation around a sharp arts question: what happens to serious writing about art when attention is harder to hold? The most engaging section links a wry story about surrealists passing a hat for critics to a present worry that art writing may be harder…
A warm live panel follows painters through abstraction, realism, and the imagination behind the work.
The 500th podcast settles into a live panel on how painters navigate abstraction, realism, and the images that keep coming back. The host keeps the questions open, letting the artists move from distinctions between realistic work, abstraction, and a more gestural middle ground…
Art historian Tamar Avishai interviews critics, curators, and writers about single paintings and ideas.
Russell Tovey and Robert Diament interview artists about their materials, biography, and process.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins and James Deakins interview film crew about the craft behind specific shots.
Robert Bound interviews artists and reviews new film, book, and music releases with critics.
Sound art from places, recordings, and memory.
Brian Alfred announces the 500th episode of Sound and Vision podcast, a live event at Williamsburg Biannual with special guests, and thanks sponsor Golden Artist Colors.
An interview with artist Kwamé Azure Gomez about her creative process and career.
An interview with artist Marcus Troy about his creative process, sponsored by art and coffee companies.
The episode opens in gratitude.
Chinese-born, Houston-based kinetic installation artist Sizhu Li discusses her solo show Synthetic Mobility at Faux Gallery, which runs through November 8th.
An interview with artist Claudia Doring Baez about her creative process and influences.
This episode introduces ceramic artists Chenlu Hou and Chiara No, discussing their backgrounds and creative processes.
This episode introduces artist Kayla Witt, discussing her background, education, and exhibitions.
In Sound and Vision, Brian Alfred interviews Brooklyn painter Nat Meade about Franklin, a show built from eight large paintings developed over roughly 16 or 17 months.
Sound and Vision host Brian Alfred interviews New York painter Elizabeth Hazan about growing up with artists Jane Freilicher and Joe Hazan, leaving film, and developing a painting practice.
"Outsider mentality" is the phrase the conversation keeps testing.
Andy starts in Los Angeles.
Sound and Vision host Brian Alfred interviews Melbourne-born artist Hilary Harnischfeger about how moves through Tokyo, Wisconsin, and Texas shaped her attention to landscape and adaptable materials.
Sound & Vision host Brian Alfred talks with Mika Obayashi, a 2025-2026 fellow at a Brooklyn paper studio in the Navy Yard, about whether New York still makes sense for artists.
Michael Brennan, a Brooklyn painter who has taught at Pratt Institute since 1998, traces his path from a Florida childhood of Mad Magazine and comics to the Bowery, where he lived for 10 years.
Brian Alfred talks with Virginia-born artist Langdon Graves, who teaches at Parsons and Pratt, about growing up near DC with a grandfather who was a Washington Post staff illustrator.
Brian Boucher from ARTnews joins the podcast to discuss his 2025 year in review, including his transition from freelancer to staff writer.
A live panel discussion with three painters celebrating the 500th episode, discussing their recent shows and a new podcast.