Chicago artist Duncan MacKenzie is bad at sports.

Although he claims that, he is also one of the founders of Bad at Sports, a weekly podcast about contemporary art, which presents the different styles of artists, curators, critics, dealers and various other art professionals. Modern art, books and movies are also reviewed.

MacKenzie will give a lecture at 7 p.m. today in the Tarble Arts Center.

The lecture will cover his involvement running Bad at Sports and his own art.

Christopher Kahler, coordinator of graduate studies in art, scheduled the event, and the art department co-sponsored it.

MacKenzie and attorney Richard Holland established Bad at Sports in 2005. They were in a bar when they thought of the idea.

“Richard Holland and I were planning an exhibition at Michelle Grabner’s “Suburban” and started talking about the podcasts and audio books that we were listening to and.bang!” MacKenzie said. “We got a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a mixer, three mics, a laptop computer, a curator from the Sioux City Art Center and made the first episode.”

This was the same way he and Holland came up with the project’s name, Bad at Sports.

“We ran through some pretty quick, incoherent names,” MacKenzie said. “Then we figured you wouldn’t be in the art room if you were good at sports. You would be out there picking up girls. That’s how you end up in art.”

Putting the humorous nature of the project’s title aside, MacKenzie said he wanted to fill the void in art media left by the fall of the New Art Examiner, a Chicago-based art magazine that ceased publication in 2002 because of financial crisis.

He also felt there was a demand for conversation and a need to document art in Chicago.

However, MacKenzie feels Bad at Sports is just a small part of the solution. He also appreciates other media projects such as Lumpen, Art Letter, Shark Forum and Art or Idiocy.

Bad at Sports does not only cover the Chicago area.

“We managed to grow to legion size,” MacKenzie said. “I am not really sure how it happened but it did. We are often getting reports from London, Washington D.C. and Houston. I guess other people thought it was a great idea.”

MacKenzie said he and Holland find the experience rewarding.

“We wouldn’t want it any other way,” he said. “We expanded the elements in conversations and it is a great way to do it in public [for all to hear]. It is really grinding and grueling work we do everyday.”

Bad at Sports has done up to 80 interviews with different kinds of artists.

“The most interesting interview I’ve had would have to be with (Chicago artist Kerry) James Marshall,” MacKenzie said. “He was incredibly frank in how he looks at artists and how the market works. He talked about race relations and institutional governments.

“He was amazingly personal about how that system worked. What stood up for me was how incredibly candid he was. He was not afraid to speak his mind at all.”

He hopes to share more about Bad at Sports during his lecture.

MacKenzie grew up in Calgary, where he made hyper-realistic drawings of comic book characters. Later he studied art at the University of Calgary before being transferred to the University of West Sydney, in Australia.

“I was a real teacher’s pet,” he said. “My college and the other one in Australia where going to exchange three students for three students.

“My instructor ended up recommended me instead of another person. In a way I was awarded for being a teacher’s pet. All that being curious paid off.”

Eventually MacKenzie attended the Art Institute of Chicago.

While in Chicago, it was hard to make a name for himself.

“A little of it is just you being willing to stand around and keep doing what you’re doing,” MacKenzie said. “Putting stuff out there and finding stuff that works and people will support them. Not that different from any other job.”

MacKenzie knows how it feels to work his way up from the bottom.

“A lot of times you feel like pushing a rock up a hill. You quietly just don’t notice it after a while,” he said. “I still live like a college student.

“Art is a really expensive hobby to have. You put a lot of money into it. You make it work. My lecture will talk about how you go from grad school into this competitive surrounding. I will also talk about how we interpret our own identity through contact to other people. Grad school changes all of that for me.”

He will also talk about his recent works and formal traditional collaborations and his partner in England.

MacKenzie has his own personal website called Istoleyourbike.org.

Christopher Kahler, the coordinator of the event, is glad to have MacKenzie lecturing at Eastern.

“Duncan will provide students with an opportunity to learn how one person can make a huge difference,” said Kahler. “Not only is he able to teach and be a successful professional artist, but he, along with the other creators of Bad at Sports, saw an absence in the art world of Chicago for an opportunity to discuss contemporary art.

“Being a free podcast, they donated their time and efforts to create something that benefits, not only Chicago, but an international community of listeners.”