Modern art you can hear

New York’s P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, a Museum of Modern Art affiliate, is creating ear candy for art devotees by launching an Internet radio station, www.wps1.org. If you cross pirate radio with contemporary art and add a splash of NPR, it comes close to defining the station’s programming.

“There is no model for WPS1,” says station Managing Director Brett Littman, who is also senior administrator for the Art Center. “It’s an all-inclusive means of expression about art.” He likens the programs to “going out to dinner with a bunch of artists.”

Art radio debuted on April 19 and in ensuing days offered 40 hours of original, commercial-free programming as part of the Live365.com Internet radio network. Each week, several hours of fresh shows are added to the lineup. The archives also allow listeners to catch up on missed broadcasts.

Tune into WPS1.org and you’ll hear eclectic programming that can make KCRW-FM sound like KIIS-FM. The “Yay/Nay Show” with Linda Yablonsky and Carey Lovelace is an hourlong dialogue on cultural criticism and the arts. In its inaugural episode, Yablonsky ranted about how cable television is killing the medium (the “nay” part of the show), but the duo “yayed” their guests, playwright-performer Lisa Kron and critic Eleanor Heartney.

Other shows include real estate information for artists seeking living or studio spaces, a discussion of market-generated issues in contemporary art, poetry and spoken word performances, experimental music, DJ culture and historical recordings from MoMA’s archives that captured artists like Marcel Duchamp and Tennessee Williams.

WPS1.org is supported in part by MoMA, but financial and media giant Bloomberg LP is the station’s major sponsor. Littman stresses that the station is “not just for the art elite,” but with the emphasis on the avant-garde in the arts, no one can be sure if WPS1 will play in Peoria.