Meghann Ray

Rick Lowe is one of the two Lead Artists for the Greenwood Art Project alongside William Cordova. Born in Alabama, but a longtime resident of Houston, Lowe's work is widely acclaimed and collected. He was awarded a coveted MacArthur "Genius Grant" in 2014. On this episode we chat with Lowe about the ongoing work of the Greenwood Art Project and the upcoming centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Hosted by Jeff Martin with Philbrook Museum of Art and produced with Public Radio Tulsa.   

On this episode we road trip to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to chat with Associate Curator, Allison Glenn. "Promise, Witness, Remembrance" at Louisville, Kentucky's Speed Art Museum, guest-curated by Glenn, reflects on the life of Breonna Taylor, her killing in 2020, and the year of protests that followed. The exhibition is organized around the three words of its title, which emerged from a conversation between Glenn and Tamika Palmer, Breonna's mother.

TheRese Aduni has been hard at work on her documentary, "Rebuilding Black Wall Street." The film uses 16mm film footage shot by TheRese's father and chronicles the men and women who rebuilt Greenwood in the aftermath of 1921. This episode also features artist William Cordova, one of the Greenwood Art Project's two lead artists. Co-hosted by GAP Project Director, Jerica Wortham.

2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the classic crime film SHAFT, directed Gordon Parks. Parks was a filmmaker, writer, musician, and one of the 20th century’s great photographers. A recent piece in the New York Times called him, “The Godfather of Cool.” Not bad for the youngest of 15 children from Fort Scott, Kansas. Fort Scott is now home to the Gordon Parks Museum. On this episode we catch up with the Museum’s Director, Kirk Sharp.

2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the classic crime film SHAFT, directed Gordon Parks. Parks was a filmmaker, writer, musician, and one of the 20th century’s great photographers. A recent piece in the New York Times called him, “The Godfather of Cool.” Not bad for the youngest of 15 children from Fort Scott, Kansas. Fort Scott is now home to the Gordon Parks Museum. On this episode we catch up with the Museum’s Director, Kirk Sharp.

There was a moment when critics held much more central place in American culture. Film critics, book critics, art critics. Weknew their names. They were tastemakers. Trusted sources. Now in the age of rotten tomatoes and likes, we’re all critics. But a rarified few have transcended the trends and held onto a corner of the zeitgeist. No American critic has been better at that than New York magazine’s Pulitzer Prize winning art critic, Jerry Saltz. In his new book HOW TO BE AN ARTIST, he distills his life into a mission statement of sorts.

It's not breaking news to say that women artists have often been ignored or even purposefully excluded from the canon. As we continue celebrating the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, we sit down with acclaimed author Bridget Quinn to discuss her book, "Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That Order)."

Produced by Jeff Martin with Philbrook Museum of Art.

Art museums actually account for less than 5% of all American museums. More than half of our museums fall into the history category. And while science and technology museums barely make up 1% of the overall industry, they host millions of annual visitors. On this episode of MC, we travel to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas to look at the why and how of these museums.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Christine Coulson worked at The Met for a quarter of a century in a variety of roles. She left a couple of years ago to write full time, and the result is her acclaimed debut novel, “Metropolitan Stories.” On this episode of MC, we chat with Coulson about the real stories behind her fictional world. 

    The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving American women the right to vote. Last fall, the Baltimore Museum of Art announced a bold initiative, which was inspired by the fact that only 4% of the museum's 95,000 artworks have been created by women. Throughout this year, every artwork the museum purchases will have been created by a woman artist. On this episode, we travel to Baltimore for a chat with BMA Director, Christopher Bedford.

There’s a bit of a trend happening in the museum world. Museums are unionizing. And while this trend is somewhat isolated to New York and California, it’s a development that can’t be ignored. One of the museums to recently organize is the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. On this episode we chat with Andres Puerta, Director of Special Projects for IUOE Local 30. 

In a special report, we speak with New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Zachary Small about their bombshell investigation into 31-year-old (now former) Erie Art Museum Director, Joshua Helmer, and his related sexual harassment scandals at that institution and at his previous job: the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Hosted by Jeff Martin with Philbrook Museum of Art and produced by Scott Gregory with Public Radio Tulsa.    

One name keeps popping up as one of the most important younger voices on the future of museums. That name is Colleen Dilenschneider. Through short videos, presentations, and data driven articles at her website, Colleen consistently boils down industry studies and presents them in a digestible, reliably optimistic way. Think of a museum-focused Malcolm Gladwell...who's a giddy millennial. On this episode of MC, we chat with Colleen about that future she’s always talking about.