New Models

This is a preview | For the full conversation, an annotated photo diary of Artforum’s old 7th Ave office, and access to New Models’ back catalogue, subscribe https://patreon.com/newmodels or https://newmodels.substack.com _ Our guests are Artforum co-editors Rachel Wetzler and Daniel Wenger. When the two stepped into the role this spring, the magazine, like nearly all print media and the art world at large, was wading through something of a backloop. But three issues in, a new era of the publication seems underway—one in which the magazine leans into being based in New York, and its exacting art criticism applies not just to the art on the wall but potentially to anything that operates on and through culture. In Rachel and Daniel’s hands, major exhibition reviews follows essays demystifying the creative logic of generative AI or a visit to a midtown Manhattan shop selling bank vaults; meanwhile, a heartfelt essay by Nairy Baghramian on the life of her gallerist Marian Goodman sits just as naturally on the page as a piece by Simon Denny on the aesthetics of Palantir. Reading, you might think: could art criticism become the ur-mode for making sense of the world now? We talk to Rachel and Daniel about their vision for the magazine and their own backstories. Then in post, Carly, who worked at Artforum from 2008 to 2014, added some meta-commentary on the digital shift and an impression of the Artforum she knew. Daniel and Rachel responded, also in post, with an impression of the Artforum that now is. This ep is sort of like a live-edited Google Doc in the form of a podcast. We hope you enjoy. https://www.artforum.com/issue/2026/may-2026-1234741944/

This is a preview | For full audio and show notes plus extras, subscribe via https://patreon.com/newmodels or https://newmodels.substack.com — After a month in North America, we’re back—coming to you from Berlin with some reflections on that time and thoughts on the AI doomstorm that’s defined this year’s fall rentrée. Lil Net, currently writing on Bernadette Corporation’s film Get Rid of Yourself (2003) for the Julia Stoschek Foundation, draws a path from Y2K era empire to the blackboxed Cthulhu it’s become today. "The twin towers didn't fall, they were uploaded." — Lil Net Carly, involved in a local land-use dispute over a country road, notes how, at least in the US, there’s no civic mechanism to value the intangible benefits of something that’s slower and higher-friction, only its measurable “improvement.” Plus: trance music and Y2K airport globalism; birth of the non-space; 9/11; the contentification of theorems; data centers; and the K-shaped everything. “They are themselves so astonished that they can do these things. And they have so much fun in doing it. But they miss a little bit more of intelligence. Strategic intelligence [...] they are too confused because they are too astonished about their own being made.” — Werner von Delmont (Stephen Dillemuth) in BC’s Get Rid of Yourself (2003) https://newmodels.io

Every summer, we return to the land of our youth, the Mid-Atlantic USA and, as has become tradition, relay our impressions of it to you. With this episode, @Lilinternet unpacks the 36 hours he spent just trying to get to the States, navigating a labyrinth of apps, regulations, platforms, self-ordering kiosks, loyalty programs, waitlists, dynamic pricing, seat assignments, Star Alliances and accelerating arches in an atmosphere defined by algorithms.

This is a preview | For full audio and show notes plus extras, subscribe via https://patreon.com/newmodels or https://newmodels.substack.com _ Artist Simon Denny returns to New Models to discuss the American defense tech sector's newfound dedication to aesthetics. Distilling the branding languages of companies like a16z, Palantir, and Anduril—which draw heavily on Italian Futurism, return-to-order neoclassicism, and the graphic idiom of modernist institutions—Denny shows techno-libertarian leaders to be positioning themselves as a progressive counter-elite, priming the public to receive its revanchist turn toward miltarism as natural, just, and inevitable. "Why is Andreessen reaching for art and culture? He doesn't have to reach for culture... What is useful for him in reaching back toward Futurism… ?" This conversation builds on “Epic Fury: the Dark Art of Defense Tech” Simon’s feature for the May 2026 issue of Artforum; as well as his installation “Monsters Between Worlds” with Venkatesh Rao, which is on view in Venice as part of Palazzo Diedo’s “Strange Rules” exhibition (through Nov. 21); and “Rules Based Order” in Munich, his solo show at Gallery Kraupa-Tuskany-Ziedler. https://simondenny.net/

This is a preview | For full audio and show notes plus extras, subscribe via https://patreon.com/newmodels or https://newmodels.substack.com _ When Enlightenment-era scholars taxonomized humankind, they chose homo sapiens, in part because of what they observed as a uniquely human aptitude for “taste.” [“Taste” comes from the Latin taxare (to handle, to assess) – an intensive form of tangere (to touch). It is a term that via vulgar Latin blended with gustare (to taste, to try) to express the act of appraising something by physically handling or even consuming it. In proper Latin, there is the related term sapere, which carries a double meaning of “to taste” and “to be wise.” To taste, in the sense of sapere, is to possess wisdom through tangible experience.] It’s remarkable that in recent years, and intensely in recent months, the idea of “taste”—“having taste,” “deploying taste,” “taste agents,” “integrating a taste layer,” “taste as a core skill,” “taste as moat”—has become an ultra-present concern in tech circles. Isn’t having taste (wherever one falls along the taste spectrum) an inherent quality of being human? To be sure, there’s already a lot of writing on this phenomenon: “Tasteslop” by NEMESIS‘s Emily Segal and “Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed With Taste” by Kyle Chayka for the New Yorker being among the best takes. The most confounding, in our opinion being Y-Combinator cofounder Paul Graham’s “Taste for Makers” (Feb 2002, but highly cited this year). There is also “Against Taste,” by Will Manidis, which makes some good points (patrons used to fund art for a higher power or at least public display whereas contemporary collectors tend to buy art for their own private use) but in its theory-of-everything aspiration, feels LLM-ish and contextually ahistorical. So in pure “Content Today” form, we are adding to the pile-on with our own fashionably late, probably factually botched but definitely human, free-associative conversation about taste.