Bad at Sports Episode 922: Andi Crist

Recorded at the Stony Island Arts Bank / Chicago Architecture Biennial tailgate

In this wild, funny, and unexpectedly heartfelt tailgate episode, the Bad at Sports crew — Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews, Ryan Peter Miller, and Jesse Malmed — sit down with sculptor and arts worker Andi Crist in front of the Stony Island Arts Bank during the Chicago Architecture Biennial. The conversation moves fluidly between jokes about heated bamboo floors, fake Uber snacks, soggy bottoms, and bees swarming the microphones — but at its core, the episode is an unusually generous portrait of an artist who’s spent years inside the hidden labor structures of museums, galleries, and fabrication shops.

Crist discusses her debut solo museum exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Live Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths. She traces her evolution from preparator and art worker to exhibiting artist, unpacking how years of installing, patching walls, and fabricating for others shaped her own deeply self-aware sculptural practice. Her work twists familiar objects — especially extension cords, wet floor signs, and museum benches — into uncanny, absurd, and often poignant ceramic sculptures.

A major highlight is Crist performing, in full BBC British-schoolmarm mode, the ChatGPT-generated Jane-Austen-style text she inscribed onto a handcrafted wet floor sign. The hosts derail repeatedly into laughter but also probe serious questions about labor visibility, materials, usefulness, and what it means to “gussy up” the hidden structures of the art world and present them as art.

Throughout the episode, Crist reflects on her Southern-to-Chicago shift, her years of preparator culture, the pleasures and irritations of coiling cords, the aesthetics of infrastructure, and her dream of sneaking her replica Art Institute bench into the museum permanently. Her practice sits at the intersection of devotion, mischief, and craft — a perfect “match” for Bad at Sports tailgate chaos.

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Andi Crist
https://andicrist.com/

EJ Hill
https://ejhillart.com/

Jamila James (curator; formerly ICA LA, currently at Carnegie Museum of Art)
https://cmoa.org/people/jamila-james/

Justin Witte (Director/Curator, Cleve Carney Museum of Art)
https://cod.edu/academics/arts_communications/departments/art/faculty/witte.aspx

Cleve Carney Museum of Art
https://theccma.org/

Stony Island Arts Bank
https://rebuild-foundation.org/arts-bank/

Chicago Architecture Biennial
https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/

The Art Institute of Chicago
https://www.artic.edu/

UIC School of Art & Art History
https://artandarthistory.uic.edu/

Columbia College Chicago — School of Visual Arts
https://www.colum.edu/academics/school-of-visual-arts/

Mary Berry (Great British Bake Off)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Berry

Prue Leith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prue_Leith

Great British Bake Off
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off

Hobby Lobby
https://www.hobbylobby.com/

Michaels
https://www.michaels.com/

Play-Doh Fun Factory
https://shop.hasbro.com/en-us/product/play-doh-fun-factory/ (representative product link)

Far Side (Gary Larson)
https://www.thefarside.com/

Let Me Google That For You (LMGTFY)
https://letmegooglethat.com/