Today we’d like to introduce you to Timmy Black.
Hi Timmy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
First off, Timmy Black is not my real name. My given name, the one that appears on my birth certificate, is Tobiah Sisel Schwartz. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t changed it.
I grew up in Mexico City. My grandparents were German Jewish refugees who immigrated to Mexico in 1938. When I was in high school, I became involved with a small but significant group of transgressive poets and musicians who were instrumental in shifting the center of the Latin American avant-garde away from what were the orthodoxies of Gallen and Fuerti.
My mother was an opera singer and when late in her career she was offered a teaching job at Juilliard, the whole family moved to New York. Believe it or not, it wasn’t until we moved to the States that I had my first bialy. I loved Manhattan, and inevitably, I fell in with the art scene on the Lower East Side. It was a wild time – in those days, you could be broke and still live in New York City – and I became very good friends with a wide variety of eccentric geniuses.
I started keeping a journal in order to record all of my improbable encounters, and it was then that I got the idea of becoming the modern-day Vasari. When podcasts became a thing, it was inevitable that I would use it to expand my voice. I had no plan nor ambition to become Los Angeles’ preeminent arts podcaster, but alas… here we are.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I was born with a cleft tongue, and though I received early treatment, it left me a recalcitrant lisp and a slightly vibratory stutter. When I made my shift from writing to broadcasting, I had to work intensively with a very expensive speech therapist. I really couldn’t be where I am right now without the patient dedication of Dr. Charna Bluma Breindel.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Timmy Black Presents: The Lives of Contemporary Artists?
Timmy Black Presents: The Lives of Contemporary Artists is, as I said earlier, the preeminent arts podcast of Los Angeles. I say this with great humility. Apparently, my short concise vignettes have struck a sufficiently dissonant chord within the art world. I think this has something to do with the conventional, non-combative, feel-good, empowering, zen-inflected, vapid politesse that defines the southern Californian zeitgeist. My work is unique because of its unabashed honesty. Another reason for my popularity is my sense of humor. The vicars of the L.A. arts ecosystem are completely void of irony. As for the artists themselves, they are so conditioned to see their role as subservient to the curator. /gallerist/collector bolshevik that they live in fear of offending. Any misstep outside the academy of permitted mischief could cost someone a career.
Obviously, this leaves a tremendous performative vacuum.
Enter Tobiah Sisel Schwartz!!!
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Like the parricidal child pleading for mercy on the grounds of his condition as an orphan, I have the gift of shameless temerity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://open.spotify.com/show/3PT2zFA44Swivs130ISLMD
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelivesofcontemporaryartists/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100060832822377
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRI8sBnOVSlNIq8Nbu63BRQ
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/dahliadanton
- Other: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/timmy-black-presents-the-lives-of-contemporary-artists/id1453429456?mt=2&uo=4
