National Gallery Of Art | Audio

January 2011 - Held in conjunction with the exhibition American Modernism: The Shein Collection, on view at the National Gallery of Art from May 16, 2010, to January 2, 2011, this public symposium provides an analysis of the paintings, sculptures, and drawings created by the first generation of American avant-garde artists. In this podcast recorded on November 6, 2010, noted scholars Michael C. FitzGerald, Didier Ottinger, Debra Bricker Balken, Carol Troyen, and Jay Bochner present illustrated lectures that chronicle the advent of the modernist movement.

December 2010 - Aim�e Brown Price, art historian, curator, and critic. Puvis de Chavannes played a crucial role in the development of late 19th- and early 20th-century modern art, influencing post-impressionists from Seurat and Gauguin to Matisse and Picasso. Yet his work is neglected, because its resistance to categorization and its dispersal around the world has discouraged a more comprehensive assessment. Recorded on October 24, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, Aim�e Brown Price examines the forces that led to Puvis's special aesthetic idiom and his legacy to modernism. She also considers the Gallery's paintings in context�those relating to his great mural complexes as well as the quizzical, idiosyncratic, sharply simplified, and compelling late work. Two-volume set available for purhase in the Gallery Shop.

December 2010 - Panel discussion included, in order of participation: Sharmila Sen, general editor for the humanities, Harvard University Press; David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London, and the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art; Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture, National Gallery of Art; Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art; and Lou Stovall, artist. David Bindman, coeditor of The Image of the Black in Western Art series along with Henry Louis Gates Jr., participates in a panel discussion for the Washington launch of this landmark publication. Recorded on December 12, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, Professor Bindman and editor Sharmila Sen discuss the complex history and ambitions behind the series. When the expanded and revised series is compl

December 2010 - Noted scholars Stephen Brooke, Martin Gasser, Olivier Lugon, and Alan Trachtenberg present illustrated lectures in this podcast, recorded on January 24, 2009, at the National Gallery of Art. Held in conjunction with the exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans," on view at the Gallery from January 18 to April 26, 2009, this symposium considered other artists who created photographic books and played a role in the dissemination of photography in the 20th century.

December 2010 - John T. Spike, faculty of the masters in sacred architecture, arts, and liturgy organized by the European University of Rome and the Pontifical Athenaeum, "Regina Apostolorum." Michelangelo's Piet� and David are the masterpieces of a young man still in his 20s. In this podcast recorded on October 31, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, John T. Spike�author of Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine�probes the thinking, artistic evolution, and yearnings of a genius whose energy and ambition drove him to the forefront of the Italian Renaissance.

December 2010 - Maygene Daniels, chief of Gallery Archives, National Gallery of Art, and Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, collectors. Dorothy and Herbert Vogel have amassed one of the greatest collections of minimal, conceptual, and post-minimal art in the world, acquiring works by some of the most important contemporary artists of our time. Daniels spoke with the Vogels about the 231 �artist postcards� in their collection�the personalized cards and other items that artists mailed to them, often with drawings, sketches, as well as personal messages.

December 2010 - Richard Brettell, Margaret McDermott Distinguished Chair of Art and Aesthetics, Interdisciplinary Program in Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas. Situated on 2,000 acres of desert land in West Texas, artist James Magee has created a monumental and largely secret work of art known as The Hill. Consisting of four identical structures that Magee has built of shale rock and iron, connected by causeways, and situated on a cruciform plan, The Hill is a life�s work. Large iron doors enclose each structure and when opened reveal elaborate, altarlike installations that Magee has completed in three of the four buildings. Professor Richard Brettell discusses his tours of the complex, led by the artist, in this podcast recorded on October 10, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art.

November 2010 - Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities, The Johns Hopkins University, in conversation with Harry Cooper, curator and head of the department of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art. To celebrate the publication of his recent book, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, Michael Fried spoke with Harry Cooper, his former student, about the place of photography in contemporary art. In this podcast, recorded on January 25, 2009, at the National Gallery of Art, the conversation centered on such topics as the relationship between the photograph and the viewer, the essential characteristics (if any) of photographs, and issues of realism and literalism, narrative and theatricality. Artists discussed included Jeff Wall, Thomas Struth, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gursky, and others.

November 2010 - Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities and the History of Art, The Johns Hopkins University. In this podcast recorded on November 7, 2010, as part of the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art series, Professor Michael Fried argues that despite what is often assumed about the Caravaggisti�painters who emerged in the immediate wake of Caravaggio's achievements�they created a new paradigm of ambitious painting, one with its own distinct pictorial poetics. Among the artists discussed are Manfredi, Orazio Gentileschi, and Valentin de Boulogne.

November 2010 - Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the board of directors, Acropolis Museum, and professor of archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in conversation with Selma Holo, professor of art history, director of the International Museum Institute, and director of the Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California, and Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art. Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis provides an overview of the construction of the new Acropolis Museum in this podcast recorded on October 17, 2010. Designed by Bernard Tschumi and completed in 2009, the 262,000-square-foot museum rises at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. This lecture reveals the challenges and responsibilities of creating a modern building atop sensitive archaeological excavations, within the Athens city grid, facing the Parthenon�one of the most influential buildings in Western civilization�and housing ancient sculptures and decorative arts excavated from the Acropolis. Thi

November 2010 - Paul Richard, art critic 1967�2009, The Washington Post. Paul Richard, who covered exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art before the East Building opened, reported on art for The Washington Post for more than 40 years. In this podcast recorded on October 3, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, Richard speaks of the works of art he has seen and their shared connections, and describes the �thought-webs� he devised as a means for eliciting stories from them.

November 2010 - David Brown, curator, Italian and Spanish paintings, National Gallery of Art, and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, curator, Italian Renaissance painting, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Sixteen examples of the composite heads painted by the Italian Renaissance master Giuseppe Arcimboldo, bizarre but with scientifically accurate components, are on view together for the first time in the United States at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. On the occasion of the exhibition Arcimboldo, 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy, David Brown and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden unravel the mysteries behind his work.

November 2010 - Jacqueline Francis, independent scholar. In this presentation recorded on February 8, 2009, as part of the National Gallery of Art lecture series The Collecting of African American Art, Jacqueline Francis traces the origins of collecting African-American art in the United States and the role of American academic institutions, galleries, and specialized museums in supporting these artists. Francis focuses on six distinguished private collections: Barnett-Aden; Camille O. and William H. Cosby Jr.; Walter O. Evans; David C. Driskell; Grant Hill; and Harmon and Harriet Kelley. She also provides an overview of institutional

October 2010 - Elizabeth Prelinger, Keyser Family Professor of Art History, Georgetown University, and Andrew Robison, senior curator of prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art. Elizabeth Prelinger and Andrew Robison, curators of the exhibition Edvard Munch: Master Prints, discuss how Munch ignored the artistic establishment to create his own vanguard of color printmaking. In this podcast recorded on September 26, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, Prelinger and Robison consider the nearly 60 works in the exhibition and examine the evolution of printmaking throughout Munch�s career, as he repeatedly revised his prints to reflect the broader and ever-changing world of art.

October 2010 - Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture, National Gallery of Art. Fantastic sea creatures can be found in early Venetian printed books, tomb sculpture, churches, political settings, and small bronzes. In such diverse contexts these figures convey a wide range of moods, from festive to poetic to tragic. In this podcast, recorded on September 12, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, Alison Luchs explores the ways Venetian Renaissance artists interpreted a variety of mythical hybrid sea creatures that were handed down, through art and literature, from the ancient and medieval worlds. Purchase her book, The Mermaids of Venice: Fantastic Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art

October 2010 - Virginia Heffernan, New York Times columnist and writer. Recorded at the National Gallery of Art on June 17, 2010, this podcast captures the stirring keynote address by New York Times columnist and writer Virginia Heffernan for the 14th National Museum Publishing Seminar. Addressing the theme of the seminar, Print and the Digital Network, Heffernan asks �Are Books Making Us Illiterate? How e-Reading Can Save Civilization.� Speaking to the relationships among books, new media, and reading, Heffernan scrutinizes the nature of 21st-century literacy, balancing nostalgia for the printed page with the growing role of e-readers.

October 2010 - John Elderfield, chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Museum of Museum of Modern Art curator John Elderfield, the organizing curator of the Martin Puryear retrospective exhibition, discusses the work of his friend Martin Puryear in this podcast recorded on September 28, 2008, at the National Gallery of Art. Puryear's oeuvre draws on forms inspired by a wide range of interests�including ornithology, falconry, archery, and objects of shelter�and incorporates not only traditional sculpture techniques but also processes associated with furniture making, boat building, and basketry, such as joinery and weaving. The artist's materials include a variety of woods, tar, wire, mesh, rawhide, and found objects.

September 2010 - Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art. In this podcast recorded on June 22, 2008, for the Martin Puryear retrospective exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Art, curator Ruth Fine discusses the work of District of Columbia native Martin Puryear. The retrospective included 46 sculptures made between 1975 and 2007. The first exhibition in the Gallery's history to be installed in both the East and West Buildings, it provided a unique opportunity to view Puryear's sculpture in modern and classical settings. Fine discusses the installation process for Puryear's work at the Gallery, designed in collaboration with the artist, as well as the intentions behind the placement of sculptures.

September 2010 - Mark Leithauser, senior curator and head of design and installation, National Gallery of Art, and Philip Haas, artist and filmmaker. American artist and filmmaker Philip Haas (b. 1954) has created a colossal fiberglass sculpture inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo's painting Winter (1563), on display at the National Gallery of Art as part of the exhibition Arcimboldo, 1526�1593: Nature and Fantasy. Leithauser discusses with the artist what prompted him to make this fascinating work of art.

September 2010 - Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, collectors, in conversation with Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art. New York art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel discuss the genesis of their extraordinary art collection with curator Ruth Fine in this podcast recorded on Sunday, November 16, 2008, at the National Gallery of Art. Over a 45-year period, the Vogels collected 4,782 works of art and stored them in their one-bedroom New York apartment. In 1991, the National Gallery of Art acquired a portion of their collection, through partial purchase and gift from the Vogels, which consists largely of minimal and conceptual art. In 2008, the Vogels and the National Gallery of Art, with assistance from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, launched a national gifts program titled The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States in 2008. The program distributed 2,500 works from the Vogels' collection thr