Podcast · Arts & Books

Urgent Matter: Cold Take

by Urgent Matter · English · Arts & Books

Urgent Matter: Cold Take is a weekly breakdown of the biggest art-world headlines—minus the artspeak. Journalist Adam Schrader, founder of Urgent Matter, reports from the front seat of his car to Colton Crews, a Texas-based outside observer with zero ties to the art world. Recorded over Zoom and min

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 48 min
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026 · 42 minNew

Cold Take Ep. 16: R.C. Horsch’s Archive, a Stolen Bronze Faun and Fair Week

Recorded September 30, days after New York’s fall art fairs wrapped, Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader and longtime friend Colton Crews, a Texas-based musician with the bands Burning Slow, American Sycamore and Bum Lucky, run through a short, loose week of art news as Urgent Matter nears its first anniversary. The episode opens with R.C. Horsch, a late Philadelphia erotic photographer whose former home police have linked to seven missing women. Colton and Adam dig through Horsch’s self-published books and debate whether talking about his art only gives it a bigger audience. From…

Play episodeWhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 15 most recent

E15 · 12 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 7 minNew
Cold Take Ep. 15: The NSA’s Bin Laden Exhibit, Leon Black in Contempt and a Denied Visa
Recorded September 23, in the middle of New York Art Week, Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader and longtime friend Colton Crews — a Texas-based musician with the bands Burning Slow, American Sycamore and Bum Lucky — run through a loose, lightly edited week of art news, trading artspeak for direct, skeptical takes. The episode opens in a hotel room, where Adam caught Mamie Green’s “fools,” a dance adaptation of Sam Shepard’s “Fool for Love” staged in a suite at the Ace Hotel. From there the guys take on Hyperallergic’s new paywall and sign-in requirement, six years after it told…
E14 · 29 Sep 2026 · 58 min
Cold Take Ep. 14: Missile Makers at the Smithsonian, Bush's 9/11 Paintings, a Bicycle Art Heist
It's the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and Adam's recording from the bathroom again. Adam and Colton open in Vancouver, where the Vancouver Art Gallery is taking heat over a Charlie Kirk memorial it had nothing to do with — a Turning Point Canada vigil staged in the public plaza next door. Adam explains why he covered a story that got him yelled at on Reddit, raising questions about what a museum owes the public when a demonstration lands on the sidewalk outside its doors. Then to Dallas, where George W. Bush has painted 16 new works for the 9/11 anniversary, on view at his…
E13 · 7 Sep 2026 · 48 min
Cold Take Ep. 13: WNDR Goes Dark, the Art Institute Outsources Its Janitors, Paint on a Picasso
Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader and longtime friend Colton Crews — a Texas-based everyman and musician with the bands Burning Slow, American Sycamore and Bum Lucky — return after a few weeks off for a loose, lightly edited run through the week's art news, trading artspeak for direct, skeptical takes. Once they get past a doorbell and an ADT salesman, the show opens on WNDR Museum closing both its Chicago and Boston locations. The guys use it to pull apart the whole for-profit "experience museum" model — Meow Wolf, the Museum of Ice Cream, Mercer Labs — from the ticket prices…
E12 · 27 Aug 2026 · 48 min
Cold Take Ep. 12: Music in a Time of War, Lilith at The Tank, and the "Worst Aquarium" in America
Adam Schrader and Colton Crews are back after a week off, and a week late to post. The episode opens with the Experiential Orchestra, the Grammy-winning classical group planning a "Music in a Time of War" concert that asks the audience to write down how war has touched their lives — and traces the group back to its early days of Barolo-soaked Rite of Spring dance parties with mosh pits and mock sacrifices. From there it's downtown to The Tank for Lilith, Adina Aaron's new 90-minute play that reworks the biblical Adam's mythological first wife. In the back half, Adam (Schrader) breaks down…
E11 · 4 Aug 2026 · 35 min
Cold Take Ep. 11: Rebuilding Gaza, Iran's Imprisoned Women in Paint, and a Dealer Takes On Art Basel
A leaner episode from a slow news week — Urgent Matter spent most of it building the August print edition — but the stories run deep. Adam and Colton open on the Second Circuit's ruling that set designer Michael Hayden waited too long to sue Jeff Koons over the snake sculpture at the center of his "Made in Heaven" series — the one built for Italian porn star turned politician Ilona Staller, better known as Cicciolina. The court never reached whether Koons actually infringed, which raises the question of how artists protect work they sell outright. From there it's into federal spending…
E10 · 27 Jul 2026 · 57 min
Cold Take Ep. 10: Forbidden Bus Ads, Fifty Buffalo and One Man's $150,000 Statue
Adam Schrader and Colton Crews open at the MTA's June board meeting in lower Manhattan, where Orthodox Jewish leaders and a transit union officer asked the authority to pull Museum of Sex ads off the fronts of city buses. Chair and chief executive Janno Lieber told them the agency has First Amendment obligations that prevent it from becoming the censor of all the ads. Adam pulls the ads up on screen — most are the museum's name in block type — and revisits his own 2024 reporting on artist Julia Sinelnikova, who sued the museum over a photograph used in an earlier campaign. The two work…
E9 · 20 Jul 2026 · 39 min
Cold Take Ep. 9: NPR Picks Up UNT, North Korea's Anti-US Art Show and a $400 Photo Fee
Adam and Colton open Episode 9 by playing the NPR segment that credits Urgent Matter's public records reporting on the University of North Texas censorship scandal — a first national radio pickup for the site. From there, the UNT fallout keeps growing. New records show art faculty delayed publicizing a campus visit by MacArthur fellow Wendy Red Star out of fear she'd cancel over the censorship, after a lecture by media theorist Lev Manovich was already called off. Adam and Colton debate whether pulling out of a speaking gig is protest or self-censorship. Then it's on to Texas Tech, where a…
E8 · 13 Jul 2026 · 58 min
Cold Take Ep. 8: Giant Bones, Jay-Z Figurines and a Beanie Babies Grudge Match
Adam is fighting a mold problem, Colton is fighting the Smithsonian, and the White House has 162 pages of grievances. Welcome to Episode 8. Adam Schrader and Colton Crews open with a look at Urgent Matter's first print edition — a paid-subscriber benefit built around artist interviews, an art fair calendar, news briefs, the NASA Goddard library investigation, obituaries, job listings, and a crossword that took four hours to build. Then it's on to the Smithsonian. A report released on the night of July 4 by the Domestic Policy Council accuses the National Museum of American History of…
E7 · 28 Jun 2026 · 55 min
Cold Take Ep. 7: A Jailed Artist, a Nude Portrait, and a Guide to Art Theft
Happy Father's Day. Colton surprises Adam with a relic from a past life — the faded Brainbat skull shirt from back when Adam went by "Brainbat" and made art instead of reporting on it. They open in China, where a court delays the verdict for jailed artist Gao Zhen by three more months. Adam breaks down how the 70-year-old, a U.S. permanent resident, was detained on a visit home and charged under a 2021 law for art critical of Mao — work he made, sold, and kept in the United States — raising questions about reach, retroactivity, and whether he ever comes home. From there, Adam recaps the Work…
E6 · 22 Jun 2026 · 33 min
Cold Take Ep. 6: The World's Worst Photographer, the Obamas' Double Portrait and a Vinyl Archive
Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader and longtime friend Colton Crews — a Texas-based everyman and musician with the bands Burning Slow and American Sycamore — return for a loose, lightly edited run through the week's art news, trading artspeak for direct, skeptical takes. The episode opens with Icelandair's "Really Bad Photographer" contest, an open call built on the premise that even a hopeless shooter can't make Iceland look bad. Adam walks through the winning entries — blurry, grainy, thumb-in-the-frame disasters — and the prize behind them: $50,000 and a 10-day trip to shoot…
E5 · 11 Jun 2026 · 36 min
Cold Take Ep. 5: The MILF Magnet, the Whale Mural and MoMA’s Mystery List
Adam Schrader and Colton Crews run through a strange week in art-world news, starting with the Vagina Museum’s repeatedly stolen MILF magnet and what museums can do when visitors turn an exhibit into an accidental gift-shop opportunity. They then discuss artist Wyland’s lawsuit over the destruction of his longtime Dallas whale mural, weighing public art, property rights and FIFA’s role in the World Cup-related repainting. The episode also looks at a dropped Miami Beach case involving an artist arrested after using washable chalk paint outside Art Basel Miami Beach with his young daughter.…
E4 · 3 Jun 2026 · 34 min
Cold Take Ep. 4: Art Crime, War Photography and A.I. Ansel Adams
Adam Schrader and Colton Crews return for another loose, mildly prepared episode of Cold Take, the Urgent Matter podcast about art-world news, lawsuits, crime, culture and whatever else. This week, Adam talks through Urgent Matter’s recent FOIA work, an NPR interview tied to his reporting on a censored UNT show, Giles Duley’s thoughts on war photography, and an artist in Gaza making work amid devastation. Then the episode turns toward the stranger corners of the art world: the Brent Sikkema murder case, A.I. colorization of an Ansel Adams photograph, and the Robert Indiana dispute involving…
E3 · 16 May 2026 · 43 min
Cold Take Ep. 3: Epstein Files, Space Art and Censorship Fights
In the third episode of Cold Take , Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader is joined again by longtime friend Colton Crews for a loose, skeptical conversation about art, public records, censorship and propaganda. The episode opens with a New York reading room filled with printed copies of the Epstein files — a project Adam and Colton discuss as part archive, part political provocation and part art installation. From there, they turn to Tim Makepeace’s NASA-inspired museum show in Washington, D.C., and the question of what happens when artists are given access to federal science…
E2 · 7 May 2026 · 52 min
Cold Take Ep. 2: A Demolition, an Epstein Resignation and a Murder Trial
In the second episode of Cold Take, Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader once again records from the front seat of his car while his kids sleep, joined by longtime friend Colton Crews for a loose, skeptical breakdown of the week’s art news. The episode opens at the Venice Biennale, where geopolitical tensions and cultural backlash continue to collide. After Iran’s withdrawal from this year’s exhibition and ongoing criticism surrounding the participation of Russia and Israel, Adam and Colton discuss the broader question of whether anyone outside the art world actually understands—or…
E1 · 30 Apr 2026 · 45 min
Cold Take Ep. 1: A Freaky Tourist, a Fake Museum, and Other Headlines
In the debut episode of Cold Take, Urgent Matter founder and editor Adam Schrader records from the front seat of his car while his kids are asleep, joined by his longtime friend Colton Crews for a raw, lightly edited breakdown of the week’s art news. Framed as an “everyman” perspective, Texas-based Colton—an outsider to the New York art world—reacts in real time as Adam walks through the headlines. The conversation starts in Italy, where a tourist was arrested after climbing a 500-year-old statue on a pre-wedding dare, sparking questions about cultural heritage, enforcement, and what…

About Urgent Matter: Cold Take

Urgent Matter: Cold Take is a English arts & books podcast from Urgent Matter. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Urgent Matter
Language: English
Category: Arts & Books
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 48 min
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1895905221
Rights: Urgent Matter

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English arts & books

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.