Kamrooz Aram
June 16, 2026

1. Lay My Love, Brian Eno & John Cale, 1990
   
2. Ho Chérie Chérie, Rachid Taha, 2000
   
3. Komel Kah, Ali Akbar Moradi, 2001
   
4. Sepideh Dam, Mahasti, 1990
   
5. Sepideh Dam, Javad Yassari, 1988
   
6. Bordi Az Yadam, Viguen, Delkash, 2004
   
7. Meditations For Moses, Charles Mingus, 1963
   
8. 17 Days - Piano & A Microphone 1983 Version, Prince, 2018
   
9. Purple Rain - Piano & A Microphone 1983 Version, Prince, 2018
   
10. A Case of You - Piano & A Microphone 1983 Version, Prince, 2018
    
11. Love Me Or Leave Me, Nina Simone, 1966
12. The Plum Blossom - Remastered 2023, Yusef Lateef, 2024
    
13. Heleh Mali, Toofan, 1991
    
14. Gourara, Hamid Baroudi, 2004
15. America, Allen Ginsberg, 1998
16. If 6 Was 9, Jimi Hendrix, 1967
17. Dear Mr. Man, Prince, 2004
18. Improvised Pishdaramad, M.R.Lotfi, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, 1997
    
19. Daramad, M.R.Lotfi, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, 1997
    
20. Hejaz, M.R.Lotfi, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, 1997

Kamrooz Aram (b. 1978) has built his practice on dismantling the divide between ornament and fine art, renegotiating the art historical hierarchies that privilege Western forms of abstraction above others. His paintings and sculptures do not simply cross categories; they probe the structures that enforce them. Born in Shiraz, Iran, Aram emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, where he found himself forced to come to terms with a multitude of identities imposed upon him. These experiences left a lasting mark. Categories, he discovered, do not merely describe identity—they invent it. This recognition drives his work, which asserts that non-Western ornamental traditions carry the same intellectual weight and conceptual rigor Western art history has long reserved for itself.

Aram’s paintings are acts of translation. Intricate geometries slip into fields of color, while brushstrokes accumulate in thin layers, revealing glimpses of what lies beneath. Aram speaks of pursuing contemporary art’s “taboo subjects” like emotion and spiritual presence, and in his work, they appear not as sentiment, but as structure. Calligraphic forms reverberate against the cool authority of Minimalist grids; floral arabesque patterns breathe new life into Color Field painting. These juxtapositions are not acts of fusion, so much as acts of recognition, acknowledging what has always been visible.

Aram’s influences are as diverse as his artistic strategies. Henri Matisse’s embrace of pattern, Ellsworth Kelly’s geometric clarity, and Cy Twombly’s gestural abandon all resonate in his practice. Most revealing is Le Corbusier—modernism’s supposed ascetic—whose architecture, despite its rhetoric of purity, cannot entirely suppress its embrace of ornament. For Aram, this contradiction lays bare how words like “decorative” are never neutral; they are instruments of hierarchy.

Aram’s sculptures extend this critique into three dimensions, arranging ceramic objects on painted plinths that echo museum displays. These installations engage with institutions from within, showing how context confers the status of “art” and revealing the fragile systems behind such designations. As Aram explains, “I hope to renegotiate the terms in which art history has been written—the Eurocentric hierarchy that places certain types of painting in the category of fine art while others are relegated to the minor arts.”

At the center of Aram’s practice lies a paradox he captures with poetic clarity in his writing: “It occurs to me that I am Arabesque. It occurs to me that there is no such thing as the Arabesque.” His work inhabits the charged space between being and non-being, tradition and invention, visibility and erasure. Rather than resolving these contradictions, Aram leaves them; it is in their friction—in the failure of old certainties—that new ways of seeing begin to emerge.

Aram’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including Kamrooz Aram: Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, IL (2022); Lives of Forms: Kamrooz Aram and Iman Issa at Z33 Alexander Gray Associates 384 Broadway New York NY 10013 United States Tel: +1 212 399 2636 www.alexandergray.com House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt, Belgium (2021); FOCUS: Kamrooz Aram, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX (2018); Kamrooz Aram: Ancient Blue Ornament, Atlanta Contemporary, GA (2018); and Kamrooz Aram: Ornament for Indifferent Architecture, Museum Dhondt Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium (2017). His work has been featured in significant group exhibitions, including Whitney Biennial 2026, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2026); Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2023-2024); and Desorientalismos, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2020). Aram's work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX; Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; Portland Museum of Art, ME; and Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates, among others. He is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including the Trellis Art Fund Stepping Stone Grant (2025); the Guggenheim Fellowship (2025); the Carla Fendi Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2024); and the Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014). He is also represented by Green Art Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Aram lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

David L. Johnson
June 2, 2026

This week on the Selection Committee Radio Show I welcome the fascinating artist and educator David L. Johnson whose work is currently on view in the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Johnson grew up in Manhattan, and New York City’s public and private spaces, methods of dominance and control, and irrepressible sociality are continual sources of inspiration for his challenging and legally ambiguous work. Johnson was a student at the Cooper Union when Occupy Wall Street camped out in Zuccotti Park. Fascinated by the complex legal status of the park as a privately owned public space (or POPS), Johnson began investigating how private real estate companies negotiate the privileges of operating these spaces with the challenges of managing the public—sometimes with the assistance of the state.

“Rule,” 2024-ongoing, is a series of purloined signs outlining codes of conduct from various POPS around the city. Each sign is unique in form and content, interdicting behavior ranging from the criminal, to the merely annoying, to the protected (distribution of literature). By removing the signs, which must be visible in order to be enforceable, Johnson creates a space for the return to greater freedom.

Johnson brings a great selection of music for the show, including two tracks that are excerpts from a collection of cassette tapes his late father made by recording radio broadcasts. For his series of 2025 video sculptures called “Cleveland’s Mix(es),” Johnson replayed a tape in a POPS on one of his father’s boom boxes. The resulting object is a portrait of a stereo returning the radio and a sense of sociality to the public sphere.

We talk about the ramifications of working in between public and private spaces and the relationship his work has to performance and to artists like Dennis Oppenheim and David Hammons. We also discuss early 2000s hip hop, landlords, and audible deterrents designed to be heard only by people under 25. It’s a captivating show!

Complete playlist below; tracks in yellow were cut for time.

1. One Piece at a Time, Johnny Cash
   
2. It Fell Off the Back of a Lorry, Denim
   
3. Iron Galaxy, Cannibal Ox
   
4. Laws, Apani B Fly feat Nujabes
   
5. Cleveland_s Mix (Random) - Excerpt   
   
6. Cleveland_s Mix (The Quiet Touch) - Excerpt   
   
7. Panamanian Fight Song (Lyric Video), Irreversible Entanglements
   
8. Cold Sweat, Billy Woods
   
9. Scarcity Is Manufactured, Deerhoof
   
10. Guapa, Juan Wauters
    
11. Song, Tom Verlaine
    
12. Sweetheart (Live), Suicide
    
13. Gertrude Stein, Ed Askew
14. 4 American Dollars, U.S. Girls
15. My Contribution to This Scam, Jean Grae & Quelle Chris
16. Catalogue demo take, Cities Aviv
17. City Hell, Jockstrap
18. It's O.K., Dead Moon

David L. Johnson makes work attuned to the streets of the city, pinpointing moments of slippage between public and private property. His practice utilizes photography, video, found and stolen objects, and sound to consider the politics, histories, aesthetics, and forms of use that define contemporary urban space.

David L. Johnson (b. 1993, New York, NY) lives and works in New York City. Recent solo and dual exhibitions include: Fanta MLN, Milan (2025); The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ, London (2024); Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin; Galerie Noah Klink, Berlin; Art Lot, Brooklyn (all 2023); and Theta, New York (2021). Recent group exhibitions include: The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2026); Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (both 2024); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago; MoMA PS1, New York (all 2023); and Artists Space, New York (2022). Johnson received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2015 and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. He is an alumnus of the Whitney Independent Study Program and is a part-time faculty member at Parsons MFA and an adjunct professor at The Cooper Union. Johnson’s work is held in the public collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Columbus Museum of Art.

Rebecca Cleman
April 21, 2026

This week we welcome the amazing Rebecca Cleman, a writer and the director of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) in New York City. Born in Flagstaff, Arizona the same year that VCRs came on the consumer market, Cleman has an abiding interest in the mythologies of the American West and the public use of video recording.

Cleman discusses the legacy of EAI, a nonprofit founded in 1971 by the visionary gallerist Howard Wise to encourage the use of video technology by artists. We talk about the changing role of EAI in a world where video has become ubiquitous and how this historically important institution is navigating the continual evolution of technology, from video cassettes to streaming, from cable access TV to YouTube and beyond.

Cleman’s audio selections range from Ennio Morricone and the Clash to George Carlin and Lily Tomlin. Comedy and the Spaghetti Western are perfect foils for her interest in artists who can take things apart and expose narratives and histories that are hidden, people like Jaime Davidovich, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Robert Buck, Cory Arcangel, and Nancy Holt.

We also talk about “Yo! MTV Raps”, horror movies, Marshall McLuhan, and her childhood growing up in a very musical family in the desert wanting nothing more than to play ice hockey. A great show!

Complete playlist below; tracks in yellow were cut for time.

1. The Ecstasy Of Gold, Ennio Morricone, 1967
   
2. Why Am I so Tired All the Time? Eggs, 1994
   
3. Oscillations, Silver Apples, 1968
   
4. Advertising, George Carlin
   
5. Don't Believe The Hype, Public Enemy, 1988
   
6. Potholes in My Lawn, De La Soul, 1989
   
7. Mr. Veedle (Live At The Ice House,) Lily Tomlin, 1971
   
8. Clampdown, The Clash, 1979
   
9. Lonesome, On'ry and Mean, Waylon Jennings, 1973
10. Egg Man, Beastie Boys, 1989
11. Big Mess, DEVO, 1982
12. Highway Star, Deep Purple, 1972
13. Hey Jane Mansfield Superstar, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, 1989
14. Backslider, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, 2010
15. Gasoline, Britney Spears, 2011
16. Candy's Room, Bruce Springsteen, 1978
17. Pine Box Derby, Beat Happening, 1992
18. No Particular Place To Go, Chuck Berry, 1964
19. Teen Angel, Mark Dinning, 2021
20. The Day The Earth Stood Still, Bernard Herrmann, 1951

Rebecca Cleman (b. 1975, Flagstaff Arizona) is a writer and the director of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI). She was raised by a pianist mother and a composer father who kept a slim but choice selection of rock-n-roll albums within their prodigious collection of classical music, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and the American Graffiti soundtrack were as formative as Rossini, Bach, and Bartók.

Professionally, Rebecca has enjoyed a long career at EAI, a leading distributor and archive of artists' videos from the 1960s to the present, which includes videos by previous Selection Committee guests Robert Buck, Michael Smith, Jake Brush, and Phyllis Baldino. She has published essays on video art and film, with a focus on infrastructure and artists television, and programmed many screenings and curated a few exhibitions, including VHS: The Exhibition at Franklin Street Works and, with Alex Klein, Broadcasting: EAI at ICA. Recently, she co-edited The New Television: Video After Television with Rachel Churner and Tyler Maxin, published by no place press.

Highways, hot rods, and hockey are particular non-professional subjects of interest.

April 7, 2026
Enter the Nothing: Marches, Dirges, and Drones

A music-only episode showcasing a Nate Heiges mixtape from 2019.

1. Eye in the Wall, Perfume Genius, 2019
   
2. The Devil's Mirror, Dirty Art Club, 2013
   
3. What's Not Mine, Cate Le Bon, 2016
   
4. Magnifique, Ratatat, 2015
   
5. Sing, Blur, 1991
   
6. Sketch for Summer, The Durutti Column, 1979
   
7. Battery Point, Beak>, 2009
   
8. Last Trains Come and Gone, Cindy Lee, 2015 
   
9. Dimanche (feat. Bertrand Belin), The Limiñanas, 2018
   
10. Transparent Things, Fujiya & Miyagi, 2006
    
11. Balloon Ranger - Clavis Remix, Ane Brun, 2019
    
12. Soft, Lemon Jelly, 2003
    
13. Time Moves Slow feat. Samuel T. Herring, BADBADNOTGOOD, 2016
    
14. i ain't scared of no devil, Jitwam, dj godfrey ho, 2017
    
15. Memory Arc, Rival Consoles, 2018
    
16. Yumeji's Theme - Theme from 'in the Mood for Love', Shigeru Umebayashi, 2013
    
17. I Trawl the Megahertz, Prefab Sprout, 2003
18. Starless and Bible Black, The Stan Tracey Quartet, 2010