Cool Hunting

Mika Rottenberg
For our final video taking a closer look at this year's Whitney Biennial, we travel to the Harlem studio of video artist Mika Rottenberg. Known for videos depicting women engaging in elaborate systems of production that often harvest their own body, Mika shows us the set of her latest piece (and Biennial installation), "Cheese" and tells us the backstory of making the video. We...

Olaf Breuning
In honor of Swiss artist Olaf Breuning's inclusion in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, this video visits his Manhattan studio. In the midst of working on his two-part installation for the show, Olaf takes the time to explain his inspiration and thinking behind his mini army made of readymade objects and a recreation of a 1932 photograph. There's also plenty of examples of his other playfully...

Michael DeLucia
Following sculptor Michael DeLucia from his Brooklyn studio (shortly after completing studies in London) to his first gallery show, this video tells the story of a talented emerging artist's path. When we first visited Mike early last year, he showed us his current works incorporating industrial materials (brooms, mops, chain link fences) and walked us through some of his influences and ideas. Last December,...

Okamoto Studio
Takeo Okamoto, an established sushi chef in his native Japan discovered his calling for ice sculpture and moved to the iciest place he could think of, Alaska. Winner of several international awards, including a Silver Medal in the 1998 Olympics, Takeo now runs Okamoto Studio with his son Shintaro in New York City. We were introduced to them through Jeremy Mangan, an artist whose coffee paintings we admired. When we spoke with Jeremy he mentioned that he also sculpts ice—he's in fact Okamoto's principal carver—the result of Jeremy and Shintaro having met in an art class at Hunter College. We decided right away to make a video of the studio and, after some deliberation, we realized CH mascots Otis and Logan would make the perfect subjects for a video and a great feature at our 50th Episode party. Guests were treated to the breathtaking sculptures of the Sealyham Terriers themselves and to raw footage from the video of them being made.

Brian Dewan
In this, our 50th episode, we visit the Catskill, NY studio of artist Brian Dewan. His sculptures are pre-digital, unpredictable electronic musical instruments. Dewanatron, as he calls the genre, is a family of instruments which hazard unpredictable behaviors and self playing tendencies. They make all previous and future instruments obsolete. We also bring you to Pierogi Gallery where we first learned about Dewan.