Artists in conversation—since 1981

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Archive

All print and digital content from 1981 onward is available free of charge in our searchable online archive, which houses over 15,000 primary source documents from over 7,500 contributing artists and authors.

EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE

ICONIC INTERVIEWS

A cropped photo of a young child being held up by an adult is shown. The child has long pigtails and wears a one-piece swimsuit. The adult is partially visible in the background.

Spring 1982

Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger

BOMB’s first interview is a dialogue between two groundbreaking artists who used Pop culture to reinvent art’s historical trajectory.

Black and white photo of a window composed of smaller square windows with a white man with sunglasses and a leather jacket looking out into the distance with a small smile

Summer 1988

John Patrick Shanley by Craig Gholson

Shanley believes that writing is acting is directing is living your life. He writes to change his life . . . and describes theater as “the ultimate gymnasium.”

A female and Black presenting person is shown on a solid, mid-tone background. They wear a light collared shirt and have short dark hair. They look directly at the camera.

Fall 1988

Shawn Slovo and Linda Mvusi moderated by Liza Béar

A three-part interview on A World Apart, a fictionalized film on Slovo’s relationships with her mother, an anti-apartheid activist, and the Black housekeeper who raised her.

A white and male presenting person sits at a dimly lit table scattered with various items. They hold a lit cigarette in their left and and look at the camera. They wear a dark turtle neck and a wear a watch on their left wrist.

Winter 1989

Harry Mathews by Lynne Tillman

A founding member of Locus Solus and OuLiPo, Mathews covered the literary terrain: novelist, translator, editor . . .

A black and white photograph of a woman with light skin and short, dark hair. She looks furtively to the left of the frame.

Spring 1991

Kathy Bates by Michael O’Keefe

“So where do non-fiction and fiction meet and what’s going to be perceived as entertainment in the future?”

Fall 1994

Kiki Smith by Chuck Close

Artists united by figurations of the body discuss sculpture casts and nerve endings.

Black and white photo of showing 12 string lights hanging from the ceiling to the ground as a person looks at them.

Spring 1995

Felix Gonzalez-Torres by Ross Bleckner

“No, we are talking about our own culture because artists come from the general culture, and the public is the general culture.”

A black-and-white photograph of three people standing over a work table in a studio.

Fall 1999

Judy Pfaff by Mimi Thompson

The installation artist and the art writer on interpretation, expression, and materiality.

A photograph of Monticello flooded. The room in this picture has light blue walls with white trim and tall, arched windows. The camera is positioned at water level.

Fall 2001

James Casebere by Roberto Juarez

Two artists on perception and the psychological meaning of flooding.

A black and white photograph of a brunette female-presenting person in a grassy field looking at something in the distance with their hand shading her eyes.

Summer 2003

Marina Abramović by Laurie Anderson

“Marina and I sat in my studio and riffed, jumping from subject to subject: the future of objects, falling apart, picking up threads, dreams, nonattachment . . .”

Summer 2005

Luc Tuymans and Kerry James Marshall

Renowned painters delve into access, presence, and process of the work.

Oil painting of boxing ring with Black and male presenting boxer with big afro wearing yellow robe. A white and male presenting person in a green general's uniform and sword holds the Black mans arm. Various faces of onlookers are depicted in the back. A body of water lies past the onlookers with a small piece of land in the distance.

Fall 2007

Peter Doig by Chris Ofili

Two giants of figurative painting on making art in the tenuous sanctuary of paradise.

Two white presenting people are shown in the forefront of the left side of the frame. A male presenting person is holding a female presenting person upside down by the hips. They wear black outfits and there is a marble wall, large window, and sculpture of a human figure with their arms raised in the background.

Fall 2014

Ben Lerner and Ariana Reines

“A novelist and a poet over lunch: "It was a pescatory meal, heavy on the cocktails, terminating in ice cream: basil chip for me, salted caramel for Ariana.”

A Black and female presenting person sits in a chair near a light blue wall with small windows at the top. They wear a medium blue dress with shiny red around the sleeves, bodice, and skirt. They hold a severed pig's head by the ears over their head, with blood dripping down their face and onto their dress. They look directly at the camera with a set expression.

Fall 2015

Deana Lawson and Henry Taylor

“Now I ask Henry to paint (document) me, because, as a photographer, it is fascinating to experience up-close another artist’s process . . .”

Black and white photograph of José Roberto Cea facing the camera, sitting on a guard railing looking of a town in the background.

Spring 2019

José Roberto Cea by Daniel Flores y Ascencio

“El Salvador’s foremost living poet, is a member of the ‘Committed Generation,’ a 1960s literary group that walked the line between revolutionary armed struggle, literature, and politics."

A large abstract painting with blue, grey, and red is shown on a large white wall. There are two neon rods in the middle of the painting, one pink and the other red.

Summer 2019

Mary Weatherford by Hamza Walker

“I became less interested in what paint could do on its own and more interested in seeing the trace of will, like in sports.”

1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s

BROWSE BY DECADE

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

LEGENDS

A white-presenting person looks directly into the camera. They have short dark spiky hair and are not wearing a shirt. The frame is vertical and closely cropped so that all the viewer can see is the head and face, shoulders, and hands on either side of their neck.

Summer 1983

Kathy Acker, 1947–1997

A black-and-white photograph of a white, male-presenting person staring off to the right of the camera.

Fall 1987

James Rosenquist, 1923–2017

A black-and-white photograph of a white, male-presenting person dressed in a tuxedo and looking quizzically at the camera.

Winter 1988

Robert Mapplethorpe, 1946–1989

A black-and-white photograph of a white, male-presenting face repeated four times in a circular pattern around the image borders.

Winter 1988

Brice Marden, 1938–2023

A black-and-white photograph of a white-, female-presenting person with dark curly hair sticking up straight behind them as they stare into the camera.

Fall 1993

Trisha Brown, 1936–2017

A black-and-white photograph of a Black, female-presenting person with their hands crossed over their heart, sitting between two windows, looking into the camera.

Summer 1994

bell hooks, 1952–2021

An image of a purple-scale painting composed of a lot of small squares, getting darker toward the middle and bottom of the piece.

Summer 1994

Jack Whitten, 1939–2019

A black-and-white photograph of two masked performers wearing colorful and decorated costumes and masks. In between them sits a puppet of a dog looking up at one of the performers. Behind these figures stand three men all wearing black sunglasses staring at the figures in the forefront. On the side of the image, the name of Lee Breur is shown in black and white, and in the top left corner, Michael Goldberg's name is printed much smaller.

Summer 1996

Lee Breuer, 1923–2007

A Black and female presenting person is dressed in a black dress with a white pattern looks into the mirror. They wear dark eye makeup, a black and white headband encircling their head, and red lipstick. They wear two gold necklaces, one of which shows the shape of the continent of Africa.

Summer 2000

Miriam Makeba, 1932–2008

A cropped view of a tall building shows it made of glass with metal scaffolding along the right side.

Fall 2001

Raimund Abraham, 1933–2010

Grainy black and white photograph portrait of Roberto Bolaño, a man with deep set eyes and thick eyebrows, wearing a black jacket with a popped collar.

Winter 2002

Roberto Bolaño, 1952–2003

A black-and-white photograph of a white-, female-presenting person seated in a chair, looking into the camera with their glasses sitting low on their nose.

Spring 2006

Paula Fox, 1923–2007

A photograph of a large, orange rock sitting on top of a black sedan that is crushed in because of it. The car is parked on a sidewalk in front of a green, foliage-filled background.

Winter 2012

Jimmie Durham, 1949–2021

A long accordion paper ink and watercolor painting depicting a colorful scenery of mountains and clouds.

Spring 2014

Etel Adnan, 1925–2021

Summer 2014

John Ashbery, 1927–2017

Summer 2017

Founded in 1981, BOMB magazine has been a critical platform for visual artists, playwrights, filmmakers, poets, fiction writers, and creatives from across the cultural spectrum, presenting in-depth dialogues between significant innovators in their fields.

READ OUR ORIGIN STORY