We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, curator Idurre Alonso imagines a trip to the lush Brazilian landscape through an illustration in a 1648 book. To learn more about this artwork, visit: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cat_ALMA2113047222000155 . Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday. JAMES CUN...
Jul 07, 2020•3 min
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, curator Kenneth Lapatin dives into a new world through a Roman carved gem that features Aeneas fleeing Troy. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/336770/ . Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday. _____ JAME...
Jun 30, 2020•3 min
In the year 1000 CE, complex trade networks were taking shape, stimulating unprecedented cultural interactions. The Vikings reached the shores of North America, trade routes connected China with Europe and Africa, and in the Americas, cities like Chichén Itzá underwent explosive growth that attracted people and goods from afar. These are just a few of the world-changing phenomena of this transformative era. Valerie Hansen explores these early economic and cultural exchanges and their long-term i...
Jun 24, 2020•47 min•Season 4Ep. 113
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, curator Bryan Keene sees a common motif from illuminated manuscripts in a paper chain craft that he makes with his children. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/103069/ . Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tue...
Jun 23, 2020•4 min
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, curator David Saunders reflects on how a painted vase from the 6th century BCE that shows Ajax and Achilles playing board games helps him make sense of his work-from-home life. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/6890/ . Over the...
Jun 16, 2020•4 min
Architect Marwa al-Sabouni was born and raised in Homs, Syria. When the Syrian civil war began, she decided to remain in her home with her husband and two young children. An architect at the beginning of her career, al-Sabouni was determined to pursue her PhD in architecture, even as the war raged and her apartment building was caught in the crossfire between the Syrian army and opposition groups. Al-Sabouni published her reflections on war, urbanism, and the relationship between architecture an...
Jun 10, 2020•40 min•Season 4Ep. 112
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, Getty Research Institute Senior Research Specialist Zanna Gilbert reflects on the empty streets of Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles project, begun in 1966. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/ruscha.html . Over th...
Jun 09, 2020•4 min
Peter Paul Rubens was among the most influential artists in 17th-century Europe. Despite a childhood marred by a scandal that landed his father in prison, Rubens rose to become not only a prominent court painter in the Spanish Netherlands but also a lauded diplomat who worked across Western Europe. With countless biographies written about the artist and exhibitions of his work continuing into the present day, the legacy of this Flemish Baroque artist is hard to overstate. In this episode, Getty ...
May 27, 2020•46 min•Season 4Ep. 112
We've asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These short recordings feature stories related to our daily lives. This week, Getty drawings curator Stephanie Schrader considers the upside-down world of An Enchanted Cellar with Animals , made by Cornelis Saftleven around 1655 to 1670. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/160/ Over the next few week...
May 26, 2020•3 min
As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These brief recordings feature stories related to our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet. Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday. This week features manuscripts curator Beth Morrison ...
May 19, 2020•3 min
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is one of the most admired painters of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Known for his powerful, dramatically lit compositions, Caravaggio depicted violence and the human form with a degree of realism unprecedented at the time. He was among the most famous painters in Rome—but not only because of his skill as an artist. Caravaggio was also notorious for his wild life and shocking temper. After being sentenced to death for murder, he fled Rome and died in e...
May 13, 2020•40 min•Season 4Ep. 111
As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These brief recordings feature stories related to our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet. Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday. This week features photography curator Mazie Harris d...
May 12, 2020•3 min
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was swift and confusing, with breaking news and information about the virus changing seemingly by the hour. Around the world, art museums, as community gathering sites, have had to face difficult decisions. In this two-part series, six museum directors discuss the pandemic and its repercussions for their institutions. These candid, insightful conversations address wide-ranging topics, from the resources that museum directors are drawing on to philosophical exch...
May 06, 2020•37 min•Season 4Ep. 110
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was swift and confusing, with breaking news and information about the virus changing seemingly by the hour. Around the world, art museums, as community gathering sites, have had to face difficult decisions. In this two-part series, six US museum directors discuss the pandemic and its repercussions for their institutions. These candid, insightful conversations address wide-ranging topics, from the logistical challenges of when to close and how to reopen to philo...
May 06, 2020•33 min•Season 4Ep. 109
How do you reimagine a century-old reference series for the digital age? In 1919, a French archaeologist started the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, or CVA, with the ambitious goal of cataloging every ancient painted vase in the world. Nearly 400 volumes, compiling some 100,000 vases, have been published to date by museums, making the CVA one of the most important resources for researchers working on ancient Greek art and culture. Getty’s most recent addition to the CVA is the first born-digital, ope...
Apr 29, 2020•36 min•Season 4Ep. 108
Cultural heritage sites around the world are under threat not only from catastrophic events like war and natural disasters but also from daily use and lack of resources. In 2010, archaeologist Larry Coben founded the Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI) to address the challenge of preserving sites in areas of great poverty. He pioneered an approach that provides training and support to communities living near cultural heritage sites, empowering them to turn preservation into economic opport...
Apr 15, 2020•36 min•Season 4Ep. 107
One of the many outcomes of the civil rights movement of the 1960s was the start of serious academic study of art of the African diaspora, including by African American artists. The Getty Research Institute has launched an initiative committed to collecting materials related to this field, beginning with plans to acquire the Betye Saar archive in fall 2018. And in summer 2019 Getty worked alongside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the MacArthur, Ford,...
Apr 01, 2020•40 min•Season 4Ep. 106
In 1966, at the age of forty-one, Sidney Felsen moved from the world of accounting to that of art, founding the artists’ workshop and fine-art print publisher Gemini GEL in Los Angeles. With Gemini GEL, Sidney quickly got to work with some of the biggest artists of the twentieth century: Man Ray, Josef Albers, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg, to name a few. And Gemini GEL continues its work with new generations of artists, including Julie Mehretu, Tacita Dean, and David Hammons. In this ep...
Mar 18, 2020•41 min•Season 4Ep. 105
What was the world like from 500 to 1500 CE? This period, often called medieval or the Middle Ages in European history, saw the rise and fall of empires and the expansion of cross-cultural exchange. Getty curator Bryan C. Keene argues that illuminated manuscripts and decorated texts from Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Europe are windows through which we can view the interconnected history of humanity. In this episode, he discusses his recent book Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encoun...
Mar 04, 2020•42 min•Season 4Ep. 104
Since its inception, Getty has recognized philanthropy in the arts as vital to its mission, with the Foundation as one of its four main programs, alongside the Museum, Research Institute, and Conservation Institute. From its early grants to other LA institutions to its robust, strategic, international grantmaking program today, the work of the Getty Foundation has grown and evolved since it began in 1985. In this episode, Foundation director Joan Weinstein discusses how the philosophy behind the...
Feb 19, 2020•45 min•Season 4Ep. 103
From his childhood in Australia spent reading about the ancient world to his current role as director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Tim Potts has always thought globally. Potts’s broad experiences as a PhD student at Oxford, banker at Lehman Brothers, and director at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, Fitzwilliam in England, and Kimbell in Texas have shaped his approach to the Getty’s collections and programs. In this episode, Potts discusses how he came to the museum and how the inst...
Feb 05, 2020•41 min•Season 4Ep. 102
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a prolific printmaker whose work explored painful themes such as hunger, poverty, and death. To achieve her powerful results, she employed a wide range of printing techniques and created numerous drawings and working proofs as part of her process. A new exhibition at the Getty Research Institute, Käthe Kollwitz: Prints, Process, Politics , showcases her working methods through pieces donated as a partial gift in 2016 by Dr. Richard. A. Simms. Simms, born in New Orl...
Jan 22, 2020•29 min•Season 4Ep. 101
Southern California has always faced wildfires, but in recent years the threat has grown. Both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa are situated in the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounded by brushland, making them particularly vulnerable to the increased fire risk. In October 2019, the eponymous “Getty Fire” roared through the Santa Monicas near the Getty Center for days. But the Getty staff were prepared for just such a situation. In this episode, we hear about the preparation for and respons...
Jan 08, 2020•44 min•Season 4Ep. 100
At the start of the twentieth century, American printmakers portrayed the modernizing world around them, from towering skyscrapers and deserted city streets to jazzy dance halls and boisterous movie theaters. Many of these printmakers were recent immigrants to the United States, and many were women—that these groups in particular could make careers as artists is indicative of the immense social changes of this period. In this episode, Getty curator of drawings Stephanie Schrader and the Huntingt...
Dec 11, 2019•39 min•Season 4Ep. 99
French painter Édouard Manet is perhaps best known for his large scale paintings like Olympia and Le déjeuner sur l’herbe , both of which stoked controversy when they were first displayed. But in later life, with his health deteriorating, the artist shifted his focus to luscious still lifes, delicate pastels and watercolors, and portraits of social types like the parisienne or the dandy. The exhibition Manet and Modern Beauty focuses on this often overlooked period of Manet’s career, from the la...
Nov 27, 2019•52 min•Season 4Ep. 98
One of the most successful artists of the Italian Renaissance, Titian was the master of the sixteenth-century Venetian school and admired by his royal patrons and fellow artists alike. Several of his contemporaries, including the authors and art theorists Giorgio Vasari, Francesco Priscianese, Pietro Aretino, and Ludovico Dolce, wrote accounts of Titian’s life and work. In this episode, Getty assistant curator of paintings Laura Llewellyn discusses what these “lives” teach us about Titian and th...
Nov 13, 2019•49 min•Season 4Ep. 97
Today on Art + Ideas, we’re bringing you an episode from Getty’s new podcast, Recording Artists . In season one, Radical Women, host Helen Molesworth uses archival interviews to explore the lives of six women artists—Alice Neel, Lee Krasner, Betye Saar, Helen Frankenthaler, Yoko Ono, and Eva Hesse. Molesworth also speaks with contemporary artists and art historians to make sense of what it meant—and still means—to be a woman and an artist. This episode focuses on Lee Krasner (1908–1984). Artists...
Nov 12, 2019•41 min
Ray Kappe’s buildings, frequently featuring extensive spans of glass and warm wood, are known for their embrace of their often unusual sites and the California landscape. But Kappe’s impact on Southern California extends well beyond his own architectural practice. His work as an educator and as founding director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) ensure that Kappe’s unique approach to building continues to inspire generations of architects. In this episode, Ray Kappe,...
Oct 30, 2019•40 min•Season 4Ep. 96
From painted cave temples in China to pyramids in Egypt to earthen cathedrals in Peru, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) works globally to conserve artworks, architecture, and cultural heritage sites. An integral part of this effort is conducting scientific research, developing tools and educating and training professionals to manage conservation projects in situ. In this episode, John E. and Louise Bryson Director of the GCI, Tim Whalen, discusses past initiatives as well as what the futur...
Oct 16, 2019•44 min•Season 4Ep. 95
This episode commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the opening of the Bauhaus, the influential school founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany. Revered for its experimental art and design curriculum, the Bauhaus sought to erode distinctions among crafts, the fine arts, and architecture through study centered on practical experience and a variety of traditional and experimental media. Two exhibitions from the Getty, one of which is online, explore the Bauhaus curriculum from the p...
Oct 02, 2019•46 min•Season 4Ep. 94
