Bad at Sports Episode: 920 Tony Lewis

Recorded live at the CAB6 × MCA Tailgate

This episode was recorded as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB6) activation on the plaza of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where Bad at Sports staged a series of open-air interviews, community dialogues, and tailgate-style broadcasts. Artists, architects, students, and the public intersected in a shared social space designed for porous conversation. Episode 920 features Tony Lewis, whose practice has shaped Chicago’s contemporary drawing discourse for more than a decade.

In this conversation, Tony Lewis joins Bad at Sports for an unscripted outdoor interview on the MCA plaza during the Architecture Biennial. The discussion moves fluidly between Lewis’s formative years in Chicago, the evolution of his drawing practice, his relationship to language systems (notably shorthand), and the material intelligence behind works that incorporate rubber bands, graphite, or constraint mechanisms.

Lewis reflects on mentorship, studio discipline, the importance of failure and patience, and the way drawing becomes a long-term conversation with materials. He speaks candidly about the Chicago art ecosystem, the emotional dimensions of his practice, and the shifting sense of scale and intimacy in his recent work — including his Louis Bag series and large graphite constructions.

The episode captures an artist thinking in real time about endurance, attention, vulnerability, and artistic friendship.

·       Drawing as a full-body practice: constraint, tension, rubber bands, architecture of line.

·       Language + shorthand: transcription, coded systems, linguistic compression.

·       Chicago as a site of artistic maturation: community, humility, seriousness.

·       Material intelligence: graphite as dust, weight, pressure, residue.

·       Patience and endurance: long timelines for developing works.

·       Professional evolution: moving from iconic early works to quieter, more intimate forms.

·       Artistic friendship and trust: collaboration, studio visits, long-running dialogues.

·       Shorthand Drawings / Gregg Shorthand–based works

·       Rubber band constructions & torn-grid drawings

·       Graphite floor drawings / powder dispersion works

·       Louis Bag series 

·       Wall-based large graphite sheets under tension

NAMES DROP-ed 

·       Tony Lewis - https://massimodecarlo.com/artists/tony-lewis

·       Kevin Beasley (referenced indirectly in relation to material practice) - https://caseykaplangallery.com/artists/beasley/

·       Nate Young - https://www.moniquemeloche.com/artists/36-nate-young/works/

·       Theaster Gates - https://www.theastergates.com/

·       Michelle Grabner - https://www.michellegrabner.com/

·       Kerry James Marshall - https://jackshainman.com/artists/kerry_james_marshall

·       William Pope.L - https://www.miandn.com/artists/pope-l

·       Rodney McMillian - https://vielmetter.com/artists/rodney-mcmillian/

·       Amanda Williams - https://awstudioart.com/home.html

·       Rashid Johnson - https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/2830-rashid-johnson/

·       Charles Gaines - https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/21845-charles-gaines/

·       Torkwase Dyson - https://www.torkwasedyson.com/

·       Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) - https://mcachicago.org/

·       Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) - https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/

·       Shane Campbell Gallery - https://www.shanecampbellgallery.com/

·       School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) - https://www.saic.edu/

 

Image Sarah Hudson