National Gallery of Art | Audio show

National Gallery of Art | Audio

Summary: This audio series offers entertaining, informative discussions about the arts and events at the National Gallery of Art. These podcasts give access to special Gallery talks by well-known artists, authors, curators, and historians. Included in this podcast listing are established series: The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series, The Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture in Italian Art, Elson Lecture Series, A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Conversations with Artists Series, Conversations with Collectors Series, and Wyeth Lectures in American Art Series. Download the programs, then visit us on the National Mall or at www.nga.gov, where you can explore many of the works of art mentioned. New podcasts are released every Tuesday.

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  • Artist: National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Copyright: National Gallery of Art, Washington

Podcasts:

 What Makes a Statue? | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Carol Mattusch, Mathy Professor of Art History, George Mason University. On view from December 13, 2015, through March 20, 2016, the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World features 50 works that survey the development of Hellenistic art as it spread from Greece throughout the Mediterranean between the fourth and first centuries BC. Through the medium of bronze, artists were able to capture the dynamic realism, expression, and detail that characterized the new artistic goals of the period. Power and Pathos brings together works from world-renowned archaeological museums in Austria, Denmark, France, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, the United States, and the Vatican. The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to witness the importance of bronze in the ancient world, when it became the preferred medium for portrait sculpture. In this lecture recorded on February 7, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, Carol Mattusch explains that many of the bronzes in Power and Pathos are incomplete, and explores these questions: What did the complete statues look like? What were the sculptures used for? And were they all statues or did some of them serve other functions?

 Unabridged and Incomplete: Series and Sequences in Contemporary Art | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Susan Tallman, adjunct associate professor of art history, theory, and criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and editor in chief, Art in Print. For centuries, Western artists strove to depict perfection and order—a created world that made more sense than the found one. Much contemporary art has chosen instead to articulate profusion, fragmentation, and the squiggly line between explanation and digression. In this lecture, held on January 24, 2016 to coincide with the exhibition The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. at the National Gallery of Art, Susan Tallman looks at the essential role of prints and printmaking in the rise of conceptual and physical complexity. Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), the renowned Los Angeles artists’ workshop and publisher of fine art limited edition prints and sculptures, has collaborated with some of the most influential artists of the past five decades. On view from October 4, 2015 to February 7, 2016, The Serial Impulse features 17 multipart series by 17 different artists.

 Bronzes from the Aegean: The Lost Cargos and the Circumstances of Their Recovery | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

George Koutsouflakis, director, department of archaeological sites, monuments and research, Hellenic Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. The exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, on view from December 13, 2015, through March 20, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, features 50 works that survey the development of Hellenistic art as it spread from Greece throughout the Mediterranean between the fourth and first centuries BC. On land sites, bronze artworks have seldom survived the vicissitudes of history. The sea remains the richest reservoir of ancient bronzes lost during transit. While the Aegean Sea has yielded some of the most spectacular and well-known masterpieces over the last century, only a handful of them have been retrieved from excavated shipwrecks. These limited discoveries are by far outnumbered by isolated, chance finds, raised by fishing nets, which present no direct evidence of a context. No matter how exceptional, isolated bronzes offer little information on the circumstances of their transit, while wreck sites from where they were detached remain elusive and seem to persistently resist discovery. In this lecture recorded on January 17, 2016, marine archaeologist George Koutsouflakis presents an overview of bronzes found in the Aegean, highlighting the conditions of their recovery, elusiveness of the wrecks, and historical context of the transportation. This program is cosponsored by the Washington DC Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

 The Artist as Weatherman: Hans Haacke's Critical Meteorology | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

John A. Tyson, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, National Gallery of Art. Hans Haacke (b. 1936, Cologne) is one of the leading figures of conceptual art and one of the most important political artists working today. In 2013, the Collectors Committee of the National Gallery of Art made possible the acquisition of Haacke’s Condensation Wall (1963–1966/2013), a breakthrough kinetic work from the artist's early career. Reflecting Haacke's involvement with the West German-based group Zero, Condensation Wall is part of a set of sculptures, including Condensation Cube and Condensation Floor, that combine geometric shapes and organic materials to reveal physico-dynamical processes. Contemporaneous with minimal sculpture, Haacke's work transforms the industrially fabricated containers of artists like Donald Judd and Larry Bell into barometers: depending on the conditions of the environment, the water inside condenses and evaporates into fog or “rain.” The transparent boxes frame this natural process, the gallery that displays them, and the surrounding artworks. In this lecture, delivered on December 14, 2015 as part of the Works in Progress series, John Tyson considers how Haacke has employed weather for both aesthetic and political ends, exploring the way meteorological projects, such as Condensation Wall, can heighten viewers’ awareness of the normally invisible systems at work in art institutions.

 Introduction to the Exhibition — Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Jens M. Daehner and Kenneth S. Lapatin, associate curators of antiquities, The J. Paul Getty Museum. To celebrate the opening of Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World on December 13, 2015, exhibition curators Jens M. Daehner and Kenneth S. Lapatin present some 50 bronze sculptures and related works, dating from the 4th century BC to the 1st century AD. They span the Hellenistic period when the art and culture of Greece spread throughout the Mediterranean and lands once conquered by Alexander the Great. Through the medium of bronze, artists were able to capture the dynamic realism, expression, and detail that characterized the new artistic goals of the period. Power and Pathos brings together works from world-renowned archaeological museums in Austria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the United States. On view through March 20, 2016, the exhibition presents a unique opportunity to witness the importance of bronze in the ancient world, when it became the preferred medium for portrait sculpture.

 Thomas Hart Benton: Painting the Song | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Leo G. Mazow, associate professor of art history, University of Arkansas, and guitarist, The Coverlets; Brittany Stephenson, singer, The Coverlets. American artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975) used folk and popular song as source material for several of his best-known murals, easel paintings, and prints. Borrowing from such classic tunes as “Jesse James,” “John Henry,” “Wreck of the Old ’97,” and “Frankie and Johnnie,” Benton found in music and lyrics artistic material that could help preserve a quickly vanishing past. In this lecture and music performance presented on November 22, 2015, at the National Gallery of Art, Leo G. Mazow and Brittany Stephenson offer a survey of Benton’s sonic subjects—including train whistles, gunshots, and musical instruments—that figure prominently in his work.

 Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture: New York's Cinema 16 Film Society: Programming for a Divided World | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Scott MacDonald, visiting professor of art history, Hamilton College. From the fall of 1947 until the spring of 1963, New York City was invigorated by Cinema 16, the most successful and influential film society in American history. Established by Amos and Marcia Vogel, and directed by Vogel, Cinema 16 offered its audiences monthly film programs of great diversity and considerable intellectual and emotional challenge. At its height, Cinema 16 boasted 8,000 members, including many of the movers and shakers of the New York cultural scene, who came to see films that were unavailable or illegal to show outside the parameters of a membership film society. In this Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture recorded on December 7, 2014, Scott MacDonald, film historian and author of Cinema 16: Documents toward a History of the Film Society, presents a program of films that were crucial for Cinema 16 audiences—organized so as to evoke the unusually challenging programming strategy Amos Vogel developed. The following films were screened: A Divided World (1948), a rarely seen nature film by Swedish filmmaker Arne Sucksdorff; Fireworks (1946), probably the first openly gay film, a psychodrama by 17-year-old Kenneth Anger; George Franju’s The Blood of the Beasts (1949), which exposes the surreal underbelly of normal urban life (no film caused more controversy at Cinema 16); Weegee’s New York (c. 1952), a New York City Symphony photographed by master street photographer Weegee and apparently edited by Vogel; Eaux d’artifice (1953), Kenneth Anger’s exploration of the Villa d’Este gardens at Tivoli outside of Rome; and Canadian Norman McLaren’s Begone Dull Care (1949), a visual accompaniment, made by painting directly on the filmstrip, to an original composition by jazz great Oscar Peterson.

 Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture: Germany in the 1920s: Expanding the Film Avant-Garde beyond the Political Divide | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Thomas Elsaesser, senior fellow, International College of Cultural Technologies and Media Theory, Weimar, Germany. In this Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture recorded on December 2, 2012, cultural historian Thomas Elsaesser, one of our most creative and unconventional thinkers on cinematic culture, film history, and digital media, speaks on the interconnections between the cinematic avant-gardes of the 1920s and modernist architecture, the nonfiction film, and advertising. Among Elsaesser’s twenty 20 authored and edited books is an in-depth study of German cinema in the 1920s, Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary,; a monograph on Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis,; and European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, covering a broad range of topics from film festivals to national cinemas, and from the high-/low culture debate to the cinematic auteurs of France, Britain, and Germany. Elsaesser’s illustrated lecture included advertisements and industrial films from the interwar period that were influenced by avant-garde cinematic techniques, and was followed by concluded with a screening of a new digital restoration of Walter Ruttmann’s classic 1929 film Melodie der Welt.

 The Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art: Canova and Color | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London. Antonio Canova’s (1757-1822) sculptures, as they have come down to us, are notable for their pure use of marble. However, the sculptor was the subject of controversy in his own time because he often toned down the whiteness of the marble and in some cases tinted the stone in flesh colors. Why did this cause such an adverse reaction, and in which quarters? In this 19th annual Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art recorded on November 8, 2015, at the National Gallery of Art, David Bindman discusses the heart of the immense prestige of marble sculpture over every other kind of art in the 19th century and the attitudes we have toward it now.

 Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture: Time Frames: Andy Warhol's Film and Video | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

John G. Hanhardt, senior curator for media arts, Nam June Paik Media Arts Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Andy Warhol created a large and distinctive body of work in both film and video. In this Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture recorded on December 4, 2011, John G. Hanhardt, historian of experimental media, examines the various ways Warhol reshaped time and narrative in both media, illustrated with excerpts from Warhol’s films and videotapes. This program was scheduled to coincide with Warhol on the Mall, a joint celebration on the occasion of two exhibitions: Warhol: Headlines, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (September 25, 2011–January 2, 2012), and Andy Warhol: Shadows at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (September 25, 2011–January 15, 2012).

 Artists and Mentorship: David C. Driskell in Conversation with Ellington Robinson | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

David C. Driskell, artist, curator, and Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, University of Maryland at College Park; Ellington Robinson, artist, professorial lecturer of painting at American University, and professorial lecturer of drawing at Montgomery College, Takoma Park. David C. Driskell is the only speaker in National Gallery of Art history to participate in programming as an artist, collector, and scholar. In this conversation recorded on November 1, 2015, Driskell returns to discuss the role of the mentor with artist Ellington Robinson. Both artists present the genesis and evolution of their work, sharing their experience with important mentors and their training together at the University of Maryland, College Park. This program is held in collaboration with the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park. The discussion coincides with New Arrivals 2015: Collecting Contemporary Art at the University of Maryland, an exhibition featuring Robinson’s work that was on view at the Stamp Gallery from September 21 through December 18, 2015.

 Abstraction and Its Capacities | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

David Getsy, Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History and chair, department of art history, theory, and criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. To celebrate the publication of Abstract Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender, David Getsy presented a lecture at the National Gallery of Art on October 25, 2015. The book examines abstract sculpture in the 1960s that came to propose unconventional and open accounts of bodies, persons, and genders. Drawing on transgender and queer theory, Getsy offers innovative and archivally rich new interpretations of artworks by, and critical writing about, four major artists—Dan Flavin (1933–1996), Nancy Grossman (b. 1940), John Chamberlain (1927–2011), and David Smith (1906–1965). Abstract Bodies makes a case for abstraction as a resource in reconsidering gender’s multiple capacities and offers an ambitious contribution to this burgeoning interdisciplinary field.

 American Experiments in Narrative, 2000–2015: Don Perry | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Don Perry, producer. Thomas Allen Harris’s 2014 documentary film Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People investigates black portrait photographers and artists who have profoundly reshaped the image of contemporary and historic African Americans, and continue to do so. Don Perry, who coproduced and cowrote the film with Harris, visited the National Gallery of Art on May 31, 2015 to introduce and speak about Through a Lens Darkly.

 Introduction to the Exhibition — The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Adam Greenhalgh, exhibition curator and lead author on the team producing the catalogue raisonné Mark Rothko: The Works on Paper, National Gallery of Art. For centuries artists have made multipart series, undertaking subjects on a scale not possible in a single work. This engagement was especially prevalent in the 1960s, as artists dedicated to conceptual, minimalist, and pop approaches explored the potential of serial procedures and structures. Many prominent artists since then have produced serial projects at the renowned Los Angeles print workshop and publisher Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited). In honor of The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L., an exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Art on October 4, 2015, Adam Greenhalgh provides an overview of 17 series created at Gemini by 17 artists over the past five decades. On view through February 7, 2016, the exhibition includes seminal early works by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella as well as more recent serial projects by John Baldessari, Julie Mehretu, and Richard Serra.

 Talking Shop with Sidney Felsen: Fifty Years of Artists at Gemini G.E.L | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:22

Sidney B. Felsen, cofounder and codirector, Gemini G.E.L., in conversation with Lauren Schell Dickens, curatorial consultant, department of modern prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art, and former assistant curator of contemporary art, Corcoran Gallery of Art. Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), the renowned Los Angeles artists’ workshop and publisher of fine art limited edition prints and sculptures, has collaborated with some of the most influential artists of the last half century, including Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Vija Celmins, Ellsworth Kelly, Ann Hamilton, Julie Mehretu, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and many more. On October 1, 2015, in advance of the opening of the exhibition The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. at the National Gallery of Art, Gemini G.E.L. cofounder and codirector Sidney B. Felsen joins Lauren Schell Dickens to discuss the genesis and growth of the workshop since its establishment in 1966. Felsen also shares behind-the-scenes stories about artists and their projects, and considers the future of contemporary printmaking. The conversation is guided by Felsen’s own photographs of artists at work. The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. is on view from October 4, 2015 to February 7, 2016.

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