Decoder Ring: The Sign Painter

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2021

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Decoder Ring is Slate's show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit, examines its history, and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters. This episode introduces you to Ilona Granet, who was a New York art-scene fixture who won the praise of the art world when she put up anti-harassment street signs in lower Manhattan in the mid- 1980s. Her career seemed like a sure thing, but three decades on, and so much more art later, it still hasn’t materialized, even as her contemporaries are now hanging in museums. This episode is not about the familiar myth of making it, but the mystery of not making it. What happens, to an artist—to anyone—when they’re good enough, but that’s not enough? If you like the show, subscribe to Decoder Ring on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, slow burn listeners, Joel Anderson here. We're working hard on our next season of Slow Burn
0:04.6	about the LA riots, which will be premiering in November. But in the meantime, we wanted to share
0:10.0	with you an episode from one of Slates' other documentary podcasts, The Coder Ring.
0:14.8	The Coder Ring is like Slow Burn, but for culture. Each episode The Coder Ring tackles a
0:20.0	different cultural mystery, like why did the Laptop track become so uncool? Where did the Karen
0:25.3	come from? And why are tabloids so obsessed with Jennifer Aniston? Right now, they're in the
0:30.9	middle of a brand new season of shows, including the episode we've got for you today. This is a
0:36.0	personal investigation for The Coder Ring's host, Willa Paskin. It's the story of an artist
0:41.2	who was once the toast of the New York Art World in order to get in an almost cosmic mystery.
0:46.7	What happens when you're good enough? But that's not good enough. It's funny, it's emotional,
0:51.9	and it's getting at things I'm not sure I've ever heard in a podcast before. If you like this
0:56.4	episode, we hope you'll go subscribe to The Coder Ring and its own feed. There's dozens more
1:01.3	episodes there to binge on after this one. So, without further ado, this is The Sign Painter.
1:14.6	Before we start, I want to let you know that this episode contains multiple descriptions of
1:19.0	sexual assault and a reference to suicide. That's the artist Alona Granite. She's greeting me in
1:37.1	Ben, The Coder Ring's producer, as we arrive at her studio in New York's East Village back in 2019.
1:43.2	Alona's lived and worked here since 1982. When she moved in, she was in her 30s, a performance
1:55.9	artist, a sign painter, and a part of what everyone called the downtown scene.
2:00.8	I just want my voices again, you know? The pop gets there. And the chocolate leaves
2:05.2	long cigars and like you could die. I think if you saw her today, a very petite woman strolling
2:11.8	down second avenue in blue-sweighed booties, her white hair piled a top her head. Walking her very
2:18.0	slight Italian greyhound, you'd think, New York character. And you'd be right. I've known her my
	...

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