I NEVER FUCKED WAYNE, I NEVER FUCKED DRAKE.
Nicki’s in my ear and I couldn’t be more relieved. Brooklyn’s All Night Skate has a zero tolerance policy for neuroses. It’s not so much a command as it is a kiss. Like relax, bitch. When you’re here, you’re family.
After briefly entertaining “Poppin’ Off” (feat. mezcal, strawberry syrup, Triple Sec, and a Pop Rock-chili salt rim), I opt for a watermelon sour, giddily recommended by my strapping bartender. I spy an open booth in the mezzanine and wind up the iron spiral staircase in hot pursuit of its vantage point. My new positioning allows me a full view of the checkerboard dancefloor below, psychedelically circled by the scattered cobalt light of a spinning disco ball. To my left, an inflatable turkey straddling a pumpkin leans over the bar overhang, its pointed witch hat straining against the ceiling. As I settle into the booth, my ass dips ever so slightly into its broken seat, the warm cadence of a cushion that has been known and loved by many.
I’m here to meet the writer, editor, and art critic Travis Diehl, a regular contributor to outlets like The New York Times, ArtReview, and Spike Art Magazine. I’ve met him twice before in passing, at events that could be classified as “literary.” In both instances, we stumbled into each other on the outskirts of the noise. He possessed the familiar stance of the observational introvert, one I immediately recognized as my own. Our exchange was easy, good-humored, and from then on I found myself following his writing with renewed interest (It’s not every day a writer makes a good first impression, myself included).
My interview notes—the culmination of hours of research—are a cascade of text, choked with pull quotes, haphazard headings, and arrows assembled like tiny cattle prods. Huh. In the “bisexual lighting” of All Night Skate, my inky leak of Logos looks ugly, impotent. I’m in the realm of the senses now. (“I NEVER FUCKED WAYNE, I NEVER FUCKED DRAKE!”)
Fuck it, I think, shoving the pages under my leather jacket. I’m going off script.
Why are we here?
Travis Diehl: This is my favorite bar in New York, probably. I have a lot of affection for it. I would come here by myself and just really get out of my own head. Like, there’s a drag show, or there’s a horrible amateur film night, or there’s funny people you meet at the bar. It’s a good place to get out of your own head, see something different.
Well, I feel like there’s no way you can be an asshole in this bar. Like, as soon as you cross the barrier…
TD: You know what, though? One of the funnier guys I’ve met here was a public defender, and he was really grouchy. A lot of people come here at like five, just to have a Budweiser after work, and then it transitions into more of a nightlife queer space. But there’s definitely the guy across the street trying to sell you coke, or the public defender, so pissed. He’s like, “What do you do?” I’m like, “I’m an art critic.” He’s like, “Ah, figures.” He was so grumpy about it.
That seems so antithetical to the energy in here. I mean, the man is under a disco ball.
TD: There’s not a ton of bars around here. I was really intimidated by this place at first. It’s just so high energy, like people are going to talk to me.
Yeah, you’re vulnerable.
TD: Yeah.
Fair enough. Well, one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is because you seem to be someone who kind of seamlessly moves between mainstream and underground channels very fluidly, which I think is increasingly rare as the media landscape becomes more stratified and fractured. How do you see your positioning in the media world right now, and how has it evolved?
TD: Yeah, that’s a good question. Writing for The New York Times, for example, means you have a bigger audience, which is a real double-edged thing. It makes me simplify [my writing], try to be more clear. When you’re writing an art review for Artforum and 20 people are going to read it, they let you go off on whatever little flight of fancy, and that’s kind of part of the fun. Not so in a newspaper. I would say maybe it’s helped my ideas get a little bigger. Instead of scooting stuff around in an art context, you’re actually like, “What is this trend? Why would anybody care about this?” You have to fit it into a bigger picture. So that’s a good muscle to exercise. I like moving between things. I also publish poems. I published a couple short stories. I’m all over the place.
Right, I imagine things start to shift as you become more aware of your audience widening. You moved here from LA, right?
TD: Yeah.
So you’ve had to adapt to different standards, different cultural environments. Has it changed the way you approach writing?
TD: Yeah. I think one thing you have here [in NYC] is a more intense dialogue.
It’s constant.
TD: And it’s faster. Like Dean [Kissick’s] Harper’s thing, for example. That was really quickly metabolized here in person, on text message, in a way that’s different from LA. Nine out of the ten rebuttals were New York writers. It was a very New York phenomenon. So I think that cuts both ways. It’s fun to feel like you’re in that mix, but also, you know, blinders…
Yeah, because you’re anticipating the potential of a reaction like that, where someone’s writing rebuttals and challenging you almost immediately after it’s published. What did you think of the Harper’s piece, though? You mentioned in one of your Spike articles that you don’t believe moralizing is ruining the art world so much as this widespread reductionism, this loss of nuance.
TD: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. My last column was about modernism a little bit. I think Dean saw a shift and sort of diagnosed it, but I think it’s a pretty nostalgic piece. I think a lot of the argument comes from a very romantic place, which is kind of his style, and so that was a blindspot. I don’t think it was revelatory to a lot of people here, to have those criticisms. You’re just like, “Yeah, okay, Dean said it, but in a really big forum,” which was kind of my main… criticism’s not the right word, but, like, sadness? Like people’s grandmothers or college professors are going to read this and think this is what art’s about now, and think that it’s all going to shit and wokeness is ruining art, the way it’s framed in this mainstream way. I don’t know if that fear was founded in anything. Fear’s a strong word, too.
I think that’s also one of my interests, like how art is perceived in a big mainstream context. Like if people think it’s just Pollock and Basquiat, or if contemporary art means anything other than shock value. What do people know about art? What do they think artists do? I think that you kind of have to start there if you want to [*air quote*] “affect change” or engage a big audience with your art. There’s a way you have to understand the other side of that, like how the art world appears to the average person, which I think is often pretty stereotypical. Like science or any other big discipline, you have some Hollywood idea of it.
Right. So, how do you determine what’s worth engaging in? I think publicists and writers kind of occupy similar positions in the sense that we’re pressured to be aware of the media landscape, to a degree. It’s something that I really struggle with, balancing engagement and detachment. There’s so much happening all the time.
TD: Yeah, it’s a struggle. I definitely have mixed feelings about it. You can’t write about everything. Somebody told me that once, and I was kind of like, “Sure you can.” But he was right. I feel like the things I end up writing about are the things I don’t quite understand yet, and are still a little unsettled, or I keep coming back to them. Like Christopher Kulendran Thomas, for example. He’s somebody I’ve written about a handful of times, and I’m often really frustrated by his work. I don’t agree with some of the message. He’s against humanism, for example, or human rights. You know, in this convoluted, post-ironic way, but still.
That’s interesting to hear from an artist.
TD: Yeah, that’s a whole rabbit hole. He actually reached out to me after my last skeptical write-up of his work. We had a drink and walked through his show, and it was fine. He’s a smart guy, but he’s skeptical of individuality—which I am, too—but also human rights from a post-colonial perspective. Like, human rights is a Western invention, and therefore we should move past it. It’s a white European idea, and it’s deployed as part of imperialism, like in the case of U.S. interventions overseas, which is true, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad concept in theory. Anyway, I forgot what I was talking about. Oh, why do I write about things? Yeah, because they stick. I’m just like, “What the fuck?” I want to understand, so I end up gravitating towards those things.
How did your recent Joshua Citarella profile [for The New York Times] develop?
TD: I followed him for a while. It’s funny because I was thinking about audience in that one.
Did you come up with the title (“Is This Artist the Joe Rogan of the Art World?”)?
TD: Yeah, that was my title. Well, I think it might have changed a little bit. I don’t remember exactly how I phrased it, but often there’s some discussion about the title, or I give them a title, and it just turns to something else. Also, the titles are different online than in print.
Oh, weird.
TD: I would say I planted the Joe Rogan seed. I was interested in explaining Josh to the world. I don’t know how many New York Times readers there are, maybe 30 million people. I mean, I’m often looking for ways to get out of the art world, idea-wise. I’m not going into film or anything, but I saw [Joshua Citarella] doing that. He’s a more or less traditional artist, roughly my same age, came out of school, the recession, blah, blah, blah, and then was like, “This isn’t really working out the way it’s supposed to.” So he’s taken steps to move out of the quote-unquote art world, and I related to that path. I also thought the way he’s using art as a political tool is really interesting and unique and actually effective, for once. I mean, he got [Zohran] Mamdani elected.
Wait, in the sense that his larger project is speaking to leftists, or was he actually involved in Mamdani’s campaign?
TD: He co-hosted a fundraiser. There were a bunch of art world people [involved]. I think Aria Dean was there. Anyway, he’s actively involved in DSA. He has a very concrete approach to politics. It’s not like his paintings are his politics. He’s actually trying to change people’s minds with discussion and persuasion.
Right, in ways that you don’t see in the art world, where it’s often a lot of gesture.
TD: Yeah, I think the Brad Troemel Josh Citarella comparison is really informative, or useful. I think Brad’s a really sharp critic. He’s basically an art critic at this point, but he’s in this analytical, trollish mode. Josh is a little more earnest about it and strategic. But they’re friends, they’re coming from the same place. I think they have a lot of the same frustrations, which a lot of other people share. But, you see, there are two approaches. I also wanted to work out with Josh.
Did you actually go to the gym together?
TD: Yeah, we went to the gym. It didn’t make it into the article, but it was fun. It was my introduction to weightlifting, and I’ve been lifting ever since. So Josh has a way of, you know, changing people. He’s persuasive.
That’s cool. Josh and Brad are definitely ones to watch. As I was reading your profile of Josh, I felt that there were some parallels between what he’s doing in his sphere and what you’re doing in yours, in the sense that you both seem to be invested in seeding ideas or making introductions to underground figures who have yet to break into the mainstream.
TD: Yeah, I think that’s fair. That’s what’s hard, but also what’s interesting…interesting is a dry word. What’s the word? I mean, it’s a challenge, but it feels rewarding to try to get some of those ideas out there. Not to harp on Josh too much, but that was an interesting example. I was talking to my friend Ryan about this, who’s a big DNR aficionado. He was like, “Yeah, this profile only makes sense in The New York Times. Everybody else in the art world already knows about it.” Like, it wouldn’t be news to anybody in Artforum or Frieze, or whatever. There was something different to say, which in some way changes the message of his practice, now that it’s out there at that level. The Joe Rogan thing is sort of a joke.
I get it. There was some discourse online about that headline, but you gotta get them to click the article...
TD: Yeah, rage clicks count.
For sure. Okay, knowing that you’ve written for a wide range of outlets at this point, what have you encountered in the way of editorial oversight? How does it vary outlet to outlet?
TD: It’s all over the place. It’s often surprising. Not to single anybody out, but it varies widely. The bigger the publication, you would think it’s more professional. That’s not necessarily true. It often is, but it’s more about the people you meet along the way. There are certain editors that I work with wherever they go. They have—and often do—jump to different publications, which is part of why I’ve written for so many things, in a way. Editors tend to bop over to different publications and they’re like, “I would like to work with you again, but I’m over here now.” So, I guess what I’m saying is, over time, that has become more important. I want to work with people who get good writing out of me and I feel supported by, and the publication itself doesn’t always make a difference.
That’s really interesting because I feel like that’s an unseen piece of the equation. The general public doesn’t see that.
TD: Yeah. Another thing I think about is whether it’s online and if it has a paywall. I would rather have it online instead of in a boutique magazine that comes in a plastic bag that you have to subscribe to.
Are you in a position now where you’re not pitching as much, and it’s more often an editor tapping you for content or story ideas?
TD: Depends. I get some invitations. I send a lot of emails, also. Like, a lot of pitches. It’s funny, I don’t know. I’m also curious about the publicist side of it because that’s another thing that happens. As soon as I started writing for The New York Times, I’ve unlocked a new level of publicist…
…Harassment? [Laughs.]
TD: Opportunities.
Thank you. I feel like a fucking mosquito sometimes [as a publicist], but I really try to be intentional about who I’m pitching. I was briefly on the other side of it when I was doing arts writing in San Francisco. I would get emails from publicists, and it was clear they had never read anything I had ever written.
TD: Yeah. I got my girlfriend a showerhead for free from some random brand. They were like, “I’m representing blah blah blah eco-showerhead company.” And that same week, she was like, “I really don’t like my showerhead.” I was like, “Yes, I would love to try your showerhead for a future article.” And they just sent me one.
How often does a publicist actually entice you into seeing or covering something?
TD: I don’t know. I’d say pretty often. I feel a little bad because I’m often like, “Yeah, I’m theoretically interested in that,” but then as the process moves forward I don’t actually go to the press preview or whatever. You know, the cone narrows. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. Publicists have feelings too.
People forget that. [Laughs.]
TD: Yeah, I don’t know. It can be a lot. Some are better than others. It’s like editors a little bit. With some people you always read the email, or at least open it.
Yeah, that’s interesting. So, lately you’re more interested in working with people who understand your writing rather than aligning yourself with a certain outlet.
TD: Yeah, it’s funny we’re talking about this, but I think it’s like... what are publicists for? It’s a rhetorical question. Sometimes you get an email and it’s like a prepackaged pitch. It’s like, “Here’s what’s going on. If you need help finding an outlet, let me know. All you have to do is put your name on it and write this, and then we can say that we collaborated.” You know, there’s a kind of publicist who’s really doing all the work. They’re just setting it up, and all you have to do is hit send. I don’t really find that helpful. I like knowing what’s happening, and when something makes sense to write about, then I go back and I’m like, “Oh, this is the artist they were pitching me hard on six months ago. Now I’m interested.”
Well, it’s kind of patronizing.
TD: On my part?
No, it’s kind of patronizing for the publicist to be like, “Hey, it’s all packaged for you. I’m going to hold your hand through it.”
TD: I would say that’s not super common, but it definitely happens…I don’t know how much I want to say. Like, I do all the work.
Well, exactly. Regardless of how it’s pitched to you, it’s still an ask. What’s your media diet like?
TD: Just publicity emails, mostly. [Laughs.] I mean, I read The New York Times. I’ve been getting into Substack more, I guess. I’m hitting a wall on Substack just because there’s too many.
Who stands out to you?
TD: Josh (Citarella). Taylor Lorenz. John Ganz. I don’t know who else. I like what Ben Davis is doing on Instagram. He started doing video reviews, like first impression hot takes. He’ll go see a show, and then he comes out of it, and he’s like, “Okay, I just saw such and such show. Here’s what I think the show’s about.” And then he’ll read the press release and be like, “Oh, I got it totally wrong.” Or he’ll be like, “I got it right, I give myself a B+.” It’s a funny format. At first, I was like, “What are you doing? Why are you giving the press release so much credit?” But I think I’ve come to see it as a little more tongue-in-cheek, and it’s an interesting way to poke at the idea of evaluation.
How much have you entertained the idea of going off script like that, or trying a different format?
TD: I don’t know. Well, I need an editor, first of all. I don’t trust myself unedited. I mean, that’s not true, but my editors will tell you it’s like the second draft where things start coming together. So I’d be a little squeamish about letting my first draft out there. I don’t know. I’m not very photogenic for that, too.
I feel like that’s another thing that people underestimate. People outside of the industry don’t really think about the role of the editor in the process, and how this slow transition from legacy media to Substack is actually very significant in that sense. You’re losing the editor, you’re losing the fact checker. It’s not a minor detail.
TD: I wonder about that. I wonder if Max Read and the other heavy hitters or more professionalized Substackers might have an editor somewhere in their pocket. Some of them clearly don’t. I was thinking about that today, actually. I don’t know if it would make it better. It might make it something different, or like you’re sort of returning it to legacy media but in an email. I don’t know. I like editing. I was an editor for a while. I do it occasionally. In LA, I was editing a magazine.
Are you referring to Prism of Reality?
TD: Well, yeah. But also X-TRA. It was a non-profit quarterly journal, now sadly defunct. But editing’s important. I really started editing with X-TRA because it was kind of an editorial collective. There were maybe eight to twelve editors, all volunteers. About half of them would write for the journal, but everybody was editing. So I got into editing that way. I really like it. It’s good to have both. I’m all about balance. My [Spike] column name is Libra Season. I don’t know if a lot of people know, but I’m really into balance.
Are you a Libra?
TD: Yeah.
Same. What’s your birthday?
TD: September 27th.
Mine is September 30th.
TD: Oh, wow. September Libra. Relatively rare.
Yeah, I was curious about your column title for that reason. So you’re into balance…
TD: Yeah. Mainstream, niche. I don’t know. I like writing for the one-off newsprint stuff because you can do whatever you want. You get to be creative.
I fucking love your column. I look forward to it every month because they allow you to be creative.
TD: Yeah. It’s good. I’ve always wanted a column.
How did it come about?
TD: I guess it’s been about a year. They just cold called me. Spike is a funny story. I just started writing random little stuff for them. I wrote a couple features and they asked me to do it. But I think we met because I applied to an editor job, and then they were like, “Actually it’s in Berlin.”
You don’t want to move to Berlin?
TD: I did not at the time. I don’t know. It’s a timing thing. I don’t want to move to Berlin now either. Ten years ago I would have been like, “Yeah.”
Tempting, honestly.
TD: Yeah. It’s funny how this stuff works, though. I was like, “No, but I would love to write for you.”
Spike stands out to me as an outlet that’s doing really cool, interesting work. It’s cool to me because it’s demanding of the reader, but it’s also rewarding. People seem to associate it with some level of cultural value, like it’s worthwhile reading.
TD: And worth responding to.
Yeah, and I honestly haven’t seen that with other outlets. I can’t really come up with a comparison.
TD: Right, you asked about my media diet. There are critics I read. I think that’s what’s nice about Substack and also what’s annoying about it. I don’t want the whole magazine. I’m not going to subscribe to Wired, I just want to read Max Read and Taylor Lorenz. Some of my best friends are critics, but it’s tough to feel like there’s a real dialogue between all the [critics]. Like Ayoung Kim is on the cover of Artforum and Frieze at the same time. It’s like Coke and Pepsi.
Do you feel like it’s helpful or distracting having friends who are also working in the same discipline?
TD: I like it. I didn’t really have that in LA. It’s nice.
Does it feel more competitive in LA?
TD: It’s definitely more competitive. Freelancing, it’s hard to feel like you have colleagues. But when there’s other critics and art writers, it’s like you have colleagues. There’s some rivalry and there’s some “Oh, I wish I was them.” It’s all those dynamics, but at least you’re a part of…
Solidarity.
TD: Solidarity, camaraderie. You understand their struggles. I appreciate that.
What’s your day to day like as a freelancer? Because I work from home, I live with roommates. It’s not the most conducive for like…sanity. [Laughs.] Are you writing full-time?
TD: Yeah, I’m writing full-time. I have been for like five years, since right before the pandemic, and then there was a subsidy moment. My ideal routine is wake up, work on personal projects before I check my email, and then work until like six. And then there’s the other part, which is like going to openings and the social side of it. I’m not very good at routines.
How often are you getting out to openings?
TD: I think a lot, but maybe less. I feel like it’s more targeted. I go to a lot of stuff, but it’s not everything. Like two or three times a week. You can’t do it all. You’d go insane.
And your personal projects?
TD: Personal projects are like essays that don’t have a home, or fiction or whatever. Non-art writing. Do you know Special Interest Group? They’re based in Germany and they do these little pamphlets. I’m publishing an essay with them that’s like 40 pages including footnotes. It’s a weird length that I’ve been pecking at for a long time, since the first Trump term. It’s about Trump and poetry and certainty. And yeah, it’s kind of about analysis, or the limits of criticism. Trump read this poem at his rallies about a snake who was nursed back to health by this naive woman, and then the snake bites her and kills her. She’s like, “Why’d you bite me? I saved your life.” And the snake’s like, “I’m a snake, lady, what’d you expect?” It’s like this fable, and he would read this poem about it, but it’s actually the lyrics to a soul song from the 60s. Anyway, it’s kind of about like, “What does it mean to try to critique those politics by critiquing this art object, this poem?” There are some other examples, but that’s the first. So that’s a personal project.
*We are briefly interrupted by an announcement that a drag show is starting*
TD: I was hoping there’d be a drag show. They’re not kicking us out. I’m not mad about this, as long as we can stay up here. You know, one thing I like about this place is that they ice their [beer] glasses. It makes a big difference. It’s the little things. They also have fentanyl test strips in the back. It’s a good place, they take care of you. This place made it into a Spike column. I don’t know if I named it, actually.
No, you did. I think it’s kind of buried, like you didn’t lead with it. You revealed it later. But [in that column] you were talking about gentrification, like self-gentrification, which I thought was really interesting. I feel like, increasingly, moving forward, observing the way culture and tech is evolving, un-gentrifying the mind, or maintaining some sort of vigilance with these fucking [phones] is what will start to separate people from others in the sense of our relationship with reality…Does that make sense? Because there’s going to be a camp of people who completely submit to this shit and aren’t going to put up a fight, and then there will be others who are going to make more of a concerted effort to step away [from the digital world and its addictive tendencies]. And I feel like you’ve done that to some degree. Your social media presence is kind of minimal.
TD: Yeah, I guess it’s obscure.
Well, you’re definitely in a position where you could lean into a persona if you wanted to, but it seems like you’re consciously not doing that.
TD: What should my persona be?
It’s up to you. You can design your own.
TD: Somebody really mean. Yeah, I don’t know.
Is this something you think about as a writer, wanting to keep that distance [from social media]?
TD: Well, I think social media cuts into my contemplation time. I put a lot of thought into my writing. There’s something so unconsidered about [social media]. I would be tempted to fire off, like get in fights, or debates, or whatever. Criticism. And then I would regret it. I would rather let it bake a little bit. I would delete half my tweets. So I think I’ve made a decision to be more zen about it.
Well, it kind of puts you in a cool position, too, because it means you’re not as accessible. But, when you’re out, you’re approachable. You don’t come off as snobbish, even though you could be. [Laughs.] It’s hard to separate yourself from your work when you’re going out and running into people who you’ve been exchanging emails with.
TD: There are definitely publicists where I’m like, we could be friends, but we can’t be friends. Artists, too, honestly. I mean, I don’t know. A lot of my best friends are artists, but I knew them before I started writing for the most part. I’ve made some good friends in New York. I think a lot of my oldest friends are people I went to grad school with. Or artists.
…TO BE CONTINUED. SUBSCRIBE FOR NEXT WEEK’S INSTALLMENT OF ROT.
Hot TRot. &Thanx for modelling the proper publicist.