John Kapusta's Self-Realization Nation: How Artists of the Creative Counterculture Made a New America (U California Press, 2026) is the story of an unexpected group of performing artists who led one of the most influential artistic movements in contemporary American history. After World War II, personal fulfillment emerged as a defining American cultural ide ... Show More
Jul 4
Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
With The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Rachel Silveri takes a fresh look at the desire to unify art and life, an ambition long regarded as foundational to the European historic ... Show More
58m 59s
Jun 26
Cleo Nisse, "Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, European painting underwent a profound transformation as artists increasingly painted on canvas instead of wood or walls. Nowhere was more important to this shift than Venice, where painters experimented with canvas with rema ... Show More
47m 14s
Jun 22
Rebecca Kosick, "Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press" (Wayne State UP, 2026)
Can publishing change the world? In Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press Rebecca Kosick (Wayne State UP, 2026), an Associate Professor in Comparative Poetry and Poetics at the University of Bristol, tells the story of The Alternative Press. Beginning in Detroi ... Show More
45m 5s
Sep 2025
T.J. Clark & Caroline Arscott: Those Passions - On Art & Politics
Art historian T.J. Clark began his academic career with two groundbreaking works on the art of mid-nineteenth century France, expounding materialist theory of art that has remained his watchword for five decades, with books on Poussin, Cézanne, Picasso and modernism. Those Passio ... Show More
1h 10m
Oct 2025
Adair Rounthwaite, "This Is Not My World: Art and Public Space in Socialist Zagreb" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
This Is Not My World: Art and Public Spaces in Socialist Zagreb (U Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the Group of Six Authors—a collective of young artists who staged provocative art events in the public spaces of socialist Yugoslavia during the 1970s and early 1980s. The book ana ... Show More
1h 1m
May 2019
44. Worldly Affiliations and Indian Modernism with Sonal Khullar
This week we speak with Sonal Khullar, Associate Professor Art History, on modern Indian art, nationalism, feminism and interdisciplinarity, based on her book Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity and Modernism in India, 1930-1990.(University of California Pr ... Show More
1 h
Feb 2022
Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota University Press, 2021). In the book, Wang asks readers to reconsider the term “global” and “world” in relation to the (often simplistically ... Show More
1h 8m
Apr 2021
History of Modern Art with Klaire Trailer
<p>The <em>History of Modern Art with Klaire</em> is a new podcast where artist and educator Klaire Lockheart will explore Modernism through a 21st century intersectional feminist lens. Over the course of this series, Klaire will cover Orientalism, Postimpressionism, Modernism, F ... Show More
5m 15s
Mar 2024
Navigating Cheesiness, Kitsch, and the Quest for Authenticity: Episode 24 of The Painting Podcast
This episode delves into the fine line between cheesiness, kitsch, and high art. From the pastoral scenes of Gainsborough to the consumer culture critiques of Warhol and the polling experiments of Komar and Melamid, we examine how artists challenge and redefine our notions of tas ... Show More
29m 25s
Apr 2021
R. Armstrong and R. Hughes "The Art of Experiment: Post-Pandemic Knowledge Practices for 21st-Century Architecture and Design" (Routledge, 2020)
The Art of Experiment: Post-Pandemic Knowledge Practices for 21st-Century Architecture and Design (Routledge, 2020) is a handbook for navigating our troubled and precarious times. In search of new knowledge practices that can help us make the world livable again, this book takes ... Show More
1h 15m
Jul 2024
Best of Design Matters: Oliver Jeffers
Working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture, Oliver Jeffers joins to talk about his career making art and telling stories. His new book, Begin Again, explores humankind’s impact on itself and our planet, asking the big question: Where do we ... Show More
1h 5m