Jan Tumlir is an author, editor, educator, and founding editor of the Los Angeles-based contemporary art journal X-TRA. He is a winner of the 2026Rabkin Prize. You can read more about Jan here. 

We invited Jan to have a conversation about his work and ideas. The interview is accompanied by a newly commissioned portrait of Jan at his home office in Los Angeles by Kevin J Miyazaki.

The interview has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:

• World Trade Organization

• University of California, Los Angeles

• California Institute of the Arts

• George Schultz (U.S. secretary of state, 1982-1989)

• Cultural critic Walter Benjamin

• Octoberjournal

• Writer Rosalind E. Krauss

• Art historian Benjamin H.D. Buchloh

• Philosopher Martin Heidegger

• Artist Michael Asher

• The Beatles

• Mythologies by Roland Barthes (Editions du Seuil, 1957)

• X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal

• The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

• Helter Skelter: LA Art in the 1990s exhibit curated by Paul Schimmel (The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1992)

• Sunshine & Noir: Art In L.A. 1960–1997 by Max Kozloff (Artforum, November 1997)Los Angeles 1955-1985: The birth of an art capital exhibit (Centre Pompidou, 2006)

• Getty museum

• PST ART experience

• Artist and writer Ellen Birrel

• Artist Stephen Berens

• Occidental College

• LA Weekly

• Art Issues magazine (1989–2001)

• Writer Gary Kornblau

• Artist Ron Athey

• Writer Malcolm Gladwell

• Artist Mike Kelley

• Artist Andy Warhol

• Coca-Cola [3] by Andy Warhol (1962)

• Made in L.A. 2025 exhibit (Hammer Museum, 2025-2026)

• L.A. Artland, Contemporary Art from Los Angeles by Chris Kraus, Jane McFadden, Jan Tumlir, Oriana Fox, and Catherine Grant (Black Dog Publishing, 2005)

• Writer Chris Kraus

• ArtCenter College of Design

• Southern California Institute of Architecture

• Artist Lari Pittman 

• Artist Marcel Duchamp

• Archaeological Park of Pompeii

• Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola (American Zoetrope, 1979)

• On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art, Architecture, and the Extension of Life by Spyros Papapetros (University of Chicago Press, July 2012)

• Art historian Aby Warburg

• Artist Fernand Léger
  
  

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin  Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The interview was conducted by Mary Louise Schumacher, a journalist and the executive director of the Rabkin Foundation. The portraits were made by artist-photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki. The production team includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer; Johnathon Olsen, editor; with research and copy editing by Danielle Yovino and Nan Williams.

Music is HaHaHa by Ariel Shalom, Present in the Past by Flint, i know (Instrumental) by Flint, and Now That We’re Here by Danny Shields. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners.