The sounds of rain, a family kitchen, a song, a late-night conversation—do the moments they encapsulate make us who we are? In this episode, Sayre Quevedo travels through artist Yetunde Olagbaju’s memory via a series of intimate recordings that constitute what they call a “living archive.”
Jazmin Jones is pathologically inept at returning phone calls. In an attempt to clear her conscience (and voice-mail box), the artist decides to make a series of anxiety-inducing phone calls she’s put off for far too long. Listen in as Jazmin painfully catches up with friends, family, and accusatory ex-lovers.
Sayre Quevedo begins Raw Material season six by breaking into his ex-boyfriend’s apartment. His goal is to retrieve twenty-two love letters he wrote to a man who doesn’t deserve them. Join Sayre as he searches for signs, symbols, closure, and perhaps, real connection.
Season 6 Trailer: Six Degrees by SFMOMA
Season 5 of Raw Material takes inspiration from a 41 x 37-foot scale model of the city that was recently unearthed, refurbished, and distributed in pieces to neighborhood libraries. Listen in as residents tell stories of life in this vibrant, diverse, and ever-changing frontier city. Produced by award-winning radio documentarians the Kitchen Sisters, this season examines themes of urban development and identity in a city poised on the edge of the continent and built on landfill, steep hills, and...
Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material, from SFMOMA.
A short, holiday bonus episode of Season 4 of Raw Material: Luvvers.
Facing persecution in her native Uganda and unwilling to live an inauthentic life, fierce queer artist Leilah Babirye made a choice. She fled her home to discover a world of sexual and artistic exuberance in a new creative community on Fire Island, New York. Learn more about her extraordinary life and her bold body of work in this episode of Luvvers. Photo: Leilah Babirye
The connection between the art world and the queer scene has not always been as openly discussed as it is today. Delve into the complex relationships between art, activism, and queer identity, and discover the power of making noise through making art. Photo: Douglas Crimp by T.L. Litt, 1990. Interview with Douglas Crimp is courtesy of SFMOMA's Open Space, from a conversation with Claudia La Rocco at the Lab in San Francisco.
Through looking at a variety of relationships, Chelsea investigates the many ways desire can be expressed. Hear the famed love letters Frida Kahlo sent to Diego Rivera, as well as to the lesser-known, though no less poetic answering machine messages left by Chelsea’s husband.
Sex sells. In this episode, Chelsea Beck analyzes the history of persuasive sexual imagery, and imagines a world where titillation fosters compassion rather than divisiveness. Image: Carolee Schneeman, "Interior Scroll," (1975). Courtesy Carolina Nitsch, NY; photography by Anthony McCall.
Nayland Blake doesn’t create art to express who they are, they create art to investigate the possibilities of identity. Hear the artist discuss their explorations of the queer, BDSM, kink, and furry scenes, and learn more about their unique approach to one of art’s oldest subjects—sex. Image © Nayland Blake, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.
Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material, from SFMOMA.
In the long history of portraits of First Ladies of the United States, none has drawn a reaction quite like the painting of Michelle Obama by Baltimore native Amy Sherald. Hear the artist discuss art in the age of Instagram. This episode is produced by WNYC Studios and Note to Self. More episodes at .
Carolee Schneemann and Yoko Ono have created provocative art throughout their careers. Learn how these artists have dedicated their lives to exploring the pleasures and the vulnerabilities of the human body. This episode is produced by WNYC Studios and MoMA. More episodes at https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/pieceofwork.
Back when Patti Smith and Judy Linn were kids, they used art to shape the world around them, posing for each other in photographs and starring in each other’s home movies. Hear Linn discuss how the two young Brooklynites weren't just "dreaming a future, they were dreaming a present." This episode is produced by The Kitchen Sisters © The Kitchen Sisters 2015. More episodes at http://www.kitchensisters.org/.
An Oklahoman of Osage heritage, Maria Tallchief rose to stardom through years of hard work and dedication. Peek behind the curtain at the globetrotting life of America's first prima ballerina—her loves, her losses, her joys, and her sorrows. This episode is produced by Stuff You Missed in History Class © Stuff You Missed in History Class 2014. More episodes at www.missedinhistory.com/.
Hazel Scott was a child prodigy, a New York jazz icon, the first African American woman to host her own television series, and an outspoken critic of discrimination in all its forms. Find out how her courage made her a role model for many and a target for some. This episode is produced and hosted by Nathan DiMeo © The Memory Palace 2016. More episodes at http://thememorypalace.us/.
Many people know Georgia O’Keeffe for her flower paintings and depictions of the New Mexico landscape. Discover the very different setting that captured O’Keeffe during her time as a commissioned artist for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company—now the Dole Food Company— and how an initial distaste turned into great inspiration. This podcast was hosted and produced by Abigail Cain © Artsy 2017. You can find more episodes of The Artsy Podcast at on Apple Podcasts.
Gertrude Stein is often credited as a driving force behind Modernism and Cubism while her lifelong partner, Alice B. Toklas, is frequently left out of the story. Learn about this power couple and their roles as movers and shakers in the world of 20th century art. This episode is produced by Stuff You Missed in History Class © Stuff You Missed in History Class 2018. More episodes at https://www.missedinhistory.com/.
Women artists are often compared to one another but not to their male contemporaries. Learn how Mary Cassatt became one of the most important Impressionist painters of—and ahead of—her time by using the nineteenth-century Paris Opera House as an unlikely backdrop for feminist commentary. This episode is produced and hosted by Tamar Avishai © The Lonely Palette 2017. More episodes at http://www.thelonelypalette.com/.
Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material's "summer mixtape," from SFMOMA. Music used in this this track: Klymaxx “Meeting In The Ladies Room.” Remix by Bernadette Cooper.
“There is something cartoonish about life in California… something out of proportion, fantastical, even a little absurd.” End this season’s road trip back in the Bay Area, and explore the Emeryville mudflats, where artists upended the monumental, high-cost model of the Land Art movement with whimsical, communal, ephemeral sculptures. Play a road trip game that will broaden your concept of Land Art-- and make traffic more bearable. Artists featured in this episode: Joey Enos, Everett Turner, Gary...
“It looks crazy, surreal, like a mirage or magic. You want to walk towards that, don’t you?” Join hosts Jessica Placzek and Maddie Gobbo as they continue their West Coast road trip with a visit to the “happiest place on Earth”: Disneyland. Explore the designs and decisions that go into creating the seductive simulation of Walt Disney’s amusement parks and their utopian visions of the American landscape. Artist featured in this episode: Kim Irvine
“Great leaders in all ages have sought the desert and heard its voice.” Land artists such as Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson found inspiration in the desert, but they were not the only—or the first—to do so. Hear three artists’ reflections on our relationship to the Great Basin and the art it has provoked. Artists featured in this episode: Katie Peterson, Young Suh, Melissa Melero-Moose
“If that had been men, doing that for a day, it would have been famous. Everyone would have known about it. But since it was women . . . it’s just gone.” Encounter some of the historically overlooked women of the Land art movement, who often worked in stark opposition to the “plundering of the earth” approach of their male contemporaries. Then leave the macho art world in the dust with a fictional exercise in mediation. Artists featured in this episode: Judy Chicago, Nancy Holt, Mierle Laderman ...
“Earth turns to gold in the hands of the wise.” Meet visionaries who work with and against the landscape to yield something fruitful, shop the local farmers market, and then explore ways to beat the heat and build a home. Consider how far you would go to survive in a hostile landscape with a speculative story that envisions the fate of farming in a warming world. Artist featured in this episode: Baldassare Forestiere
“As long as you’re going to make sculpture, why not make one that competes with a 747, or the Empire State Building, or the Golden Gate Bridge?” Discover artists who did just that by creating monumental works meant to withstand time or succumb to its passage. Reflect on your own relationship to the land with a post-apocalyptic tale that might dig up more than you expect. Artists featured in this episode: Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria
Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material, from SFMOMA.
Art brings us together. In this episode, members of Bay Area art collectives discuss what it means to make work for, by and with their communities. They reflect on the power of art to heal, inspire, and break down systems of oppression. Artists featured in this episode: 100 Days of Action, Club Chai, Russell E.L. Butler. Photo: 100 Days of Action, by Ben Leon.
