Pop Goes the Museum
Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) turns 25 this year. On our Season 9 finale we light out to the Pacific Northwest for a fascinating conversation with MoPOP CEO Michelle Y. Smith.
May 30, 2025•31 min•Season 9Ep. 13
Museum Confidential
Museum Confidential is a behind-the-scenes look at museums hosted by Jeff Martin. The show is a co-production of Philbrook Museum of Art and Public Radio Tulsa. New episodes every two weeks.
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Episodes
America's National Churchill Museum
1946, in the wake of the Allies winning World War II, Sir Winston Churchill came to the US and gave his famous (and famously cautionary) "Iron Curtain" speech at a small college in Mid-Missouri. That school, Westminster College, is the home of America's National Churchill Museum, which celebrates the life, work, thought, and leadership of the "British Bulldog." How does a museum dedicated to the man who saved Western liberal democracy endeavor to stay relevant at a moment when, around the world,...
May 03, 2025•34 min•Season 9Ep. 12
Ralph Steadman
Ralph Steadman is an English artist and illustrator best known for his long collaboration with the iconoclastic Hunter S. Thompson, notably illustrating "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Their partnership helped define “Gonzo” journalism. On this episode we catch up with Ralph, who turns 89 next month, and his daughter, Sadie, to discuss a career spanning exhibition now on view at Oklahoma State University.
Apr 11, 2025•21 min•Season 9Ep. 11
On "Japonisme”
When Japan opened its borders for trade and travel in the 1850s, the goods that hit markets across Europe and America sparked an international craze known as “Japonisme.” On this episode we explore the history, legacy, and a new exhibition on this era with Rachel Keith, Deputy Director for Audience Engagement & Curatorial Affairs at Philbrook Museum of Art.
Mar 28, 2025•30 min•Season 9Ep. 10
What's a Creative Director?
Museum staff titles are often lengthy, so “Creative Director” seems pretty straightforward. But what exactly does it mean? And what exactly do they do? Bhadri Verduzco holds this position at Philbrook, so on this episode we go straight to the source.
Mar 14, 2025•28 min•Season 9Ep. 9
Crip Curation and Disability Art
Why are museums built the way they are? Why do we hang art at that height? If a disabled artist makes art, is it necessarily Disability Art? Who gets to decide? On this episode we explore these questions and more with “Crip Curator” and acclaimed author Amanda Cachia.
Feb 28, 2025•27 min•Season 9Ep. 8
Reimagining Native Art
As Season 9 resumes, we travel to New Jersey’s Montclair Art Museum to experience the Museum’s stunning new installation, Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge / Native Art and a chat with Laura Allen, the acclaimed curator behind the long-gestating project. Featuring artists including Shan Goshorn, Fritz Scholder, Holly Wilson, Oscar Howe, Rose Simpson, and dozens of others, the installation reimagines and presents a new template for what it means to display Native Art.
Feb 07, 2025•27 min•Season 9Ep. 7
Introducing: Immaterial
While our midseason break here at MC continues, we would like to introduce our beloved listeners (that would be you) to something special. It's a podcast called Immaterial: 5,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time ; it's produced by our pals over at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We dig it. You will, too. For more episodes, or more information, please visit HERE .
Dec 05, 2024•42 min•Season 9Ep. 7
Return To Taliesin West
Four years ago, deep in the pandemic, we travelled to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Arizona compound, Taliesin West, to see how they were weathering the unprecedented challenges. We just went back to see what was learned and what remains with Niki Stewart, Chief Learning and Engagement Officer for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Nov 22, 2024•35 min•Season 9Ep. 6
Charles Gaines
A dispatch from the Phoenix Art Museum where we recently traveled to speak with acclaimed conceptual artist, Charles Gaines prior to the opening of a new retrospective. Charles Gaines: 1992–2023 runs through March 9, 2025.
Nov 08, 2024•33 min•Season 9Ep. 5
Live from Tulsa
This special episode of MC was recently taped before a live audience at Philbrook Museum of Art. Our host Jeff Martin is joined by on stage by interdisciplinary artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, Brooklyn Museum curator Kimberli Gant, and Philbrook Chief Curator Kate Green. They speak in detail about why and how today's museums are diversifying (or attempting to diversify) their collections. Presented in partnership with Tulsa Town Hall.
Oct 25, 2024•33 min•Season 9Ep. 4
What is American Art?
What makes American art "American"? Let's discuss. On this episode we welcome back Philbrook curator, Susan Green to chat about the new exhibition, "American Artists, American Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976." It's a sweeping, varied exhibition offering more than 100 masterworks -- by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Thomas Moran, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth, and many others. It runs through December 29, 2024.
Oct 12, 2024•29 min•Season 9Ep. 3
From Haiti with Love
On recent trip to Washington, D.C. we stopped by the National Gallery of Art to chat with curator Kanitra Fletcher about a new show she was preparing to debut, the first show dedicated to Haitian art in the history of the institution. As with most things in life, timing is everything. Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti opens September 29 and runs through March 9th. www.nga.gov
Sep 27, 2024•28 min•Season 9Ep. 2
Re-imagining Museums
On our Season 9 debut we talk with Stephen Reily, attorney, entrepreneur, and former Director of Louisville’s Speed Art Museum about REMUSEUM, his ambitious new project to reimagine what museums can be.
Sep 15, 2024•30 min•Season 9Ep. 1
Banksy Unmasked
Psyche! We’re not actually unmasking Banksy on this episode, but we are taking a closer look at the recently-opened museum in New York City dedicated to the famously anonymous street artist/activist. William Meade is the Executive Director of the Banksy Museum in Manhattan and we have no idea if he knows Banksy’s true identity. For all we know he could actually be Banksy! It’s all a bit complicated.
May 30, 2024•26 min•Season 8Ep. 18
Art Fair Diaries: Chicago
On the final installment of our ART FAIR DIARIES trilogy, Philbrook Chief Curator and roving MC correspondent, Kate Green takes us to the land of John Hughes movies and deep-dish pizza. Welcome to EXPO CHICAGO.
May 10, 2024•23 min•Season 8Ep. 16
The Things We Keep
Acclaimed artist Chris Ramsay’s work deals with big, universal subjects: time, space, impermanence, what we discard, and what we choose to keep. Now, after receiving an incurable cancer diagnosis, Chris is confronting the biggest questions of all.
Apr 26, 2024•38 min•Season 8Ep. 15
Art Fair Diaries: Mexico City
For this new installment in our Art Fair Diaries series, Philbrook Chief Curator (and occasional roving Museum Confidential correspondent) Kate Green reports from the biggest art fair in one of the world's biggest cities. Welcome to Mexico City.
Apr 13, 2024•16 min•Season 8Ep. 14
On Sovereign Futures
Our guest is curator Allison Glenn; we previously spoke to Glenn a few years ago about her Breonna Taylor-inspired show, "Promise, Witness, Remembrance." Now Glenn is curating a multi-venue, multi-day, multi-focused convening titled Sovereign Futures , which runs April 4th through the 7th. Per the Sovereign Futures website, various "artist-led projects will explore themes of sovereignty through...food, land, speculative futures, and histories of the place that is now called Oklahoma."...
Mar 30, 2024•25 min•Season 8Ep. 13
The Insider
Our guest is acclaimed journalist Bianca Bosker, who tells us that -- when it comes to which topics she chooses to investigate and cover -- she's "obsessed with obsession." Bosker's latest book is "Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See." She was a security guard at the Guggenheim. She worked in a commercial gallery. She was a studio assistant to an emerging artist. What Hunter S. Thompson did with the Hell's Angels, B...
Mar 15, 2024•28 min•Season 8Ep. 12
The Future of Museum Funding?
A recent headline in The New York Times read: To Save Museums, Treat Them Like Highways . There’s no shortage of conversations about museum funding models. But after reading this one, arguing that museums should be thought of more like infrastructure, it was time for another. On this episode we speak to one of the piece’s co-writers, Laura Raicovich, former Executive Director of New York’s Queens Museum.
Feb 23, 2024•27 min•Season 8Ep. 11
Live in Reno with Cannupa Hanska Luger
The Nevada Museum of Art invited us out for a live show in Reno with acclaimed indigenous artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. Futurism and speculative fiction are just two of many terms that describe Luger’s unforgettable work and the special exhibition, SPEECHLESS. On this episode we chat with Luger and Apsara DiQuinzio, the Museum’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art.
Feb 09, 2024•39 min•Season 8Ep. 10
Film & Fashion: Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon just nabbed ten Oscar nominations, including one for Costume Design. But how do you authentically take people back to the Osage Nation of the 1920’s? How do you get every detail just right? Meet Julie O’Keefe, the Osage Nation wardrobe consultant hired to do just that.
Jan 26, 2024•34 min•Season 8Ep. 9
Edward Hopper Abides
On our first episode of 2024, we chat with the co-directors of an acclaimed new PBS American Masters documentary on legendary New York painter, Edward Hopper. “Hopper: An American Love Story” has it all; lonely people in rooms, quiet city streets, difficult relationships, and plenty of secrets revealed.
Jan 12, 2024•30 min•Season 8Ep. 8
Art Basel Miami Beach: A Diary
Art Basel Miami Beach, the biggest international modern/contemporary art fair in North America, took place earlier this month; thousands of art dealers, artists, collectors, curators, and art aficionados showed up. Kate Green, the Chief Curator & Nancy E. Meinig Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at Philbrook Museum of Art, was among those attending this very active and multifaceted annual event (or series of events). At our request, Green kept an audio diary while she was there. She j...
Dec 15, 2023•37 min•Season 8Ep. 7
Sharon Stone
You probably know Sharon Stone the actress. It’s time you get to know Sharon Stone the ARTIST. Over the past few years, the Oscar nominee has turned painting into a dedicated daily practice. On this episode we talk about inspiration, early museum experiences, a new exhibition, and so much more.
Dec 01, 2023•21 min•Season 8Ep. 6
Impossible Music
We travel to Pittsburgh’s Miller Institute of Contemporary Art (Carnegie Mellon University) for the special exhibition, IMPOSSIBLE MUSIC, a fascinating collection of sounds, scores, sculptures, video, live performances, and more. First up we have a big picture chat with the ICA’s Director, Elizabeth Chodos before a deeper dive with acclaimed curator Candice Hopkins and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist/composer, Raven Chacon. IMPOSSIBLE MUSIC runs through December 10.
Nov 10, 2023•42 min•Season 8Ep. 5
Trade & Transformation
Every object holds a story. That’s the idea behind the thought-provoking new Philbrook exhibition, TRADE & TRANSFORMATION . Curator Kalyn Fay Barnoski (Cherokee Nation enrollee, Muscogee descent) originated and organized the exhibition. On this episode she joins us to chat about how she came to create it. Trade & Transformation is on view through December 30. Details at Philbrook.org.
Oct 27, 2023•29 min•Season 8Ep. 4
Live in Iowa: Words & Pictures
In 2008, a catastrophic flood shut down the art museum on the University of Iowa campus. 15 years later, the museum has finally reopened with a new building, new name (The Stanley), and a new catalog created in partnership with the legendary Iowa Writer’s Workshop. They invited us up to chat about all of it.
Oct 13, 2023•41 min•Season 8Ep. 3
Scorsese, Songs, and More with Randall Poster
From time to time we explore the question, “what is a curator?” For the past 30 years, Randall Poster has been searching for, securing rights for, and working alongside directors to find the perfect moment for music in countless films. The official job title is Music Supervisor. It could easily be called “Music Curator.” In 2023 alone, his slate includes Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Sep 22, 2023•28 min•Season 8Ep. 3
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