Month: May 2019

Talking Art History with Getty Research Institute Director Mary Miller

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
Talking Art History with Getty Research Institute Director Mary Miller
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How has the field of art history changed in the last 30 years? This episode centers on this question through a discussion with Mary Miller, the recently appointed director of the Getty Research Institute. She describes her academic career studying the art of the ancient Maya at a time when this field didn’t fit comfortably into most art history departments, delves into the evolving role of the Getty Research Institute’s library, archives and scholarly programs, and closes the discussion with her thoughts on what lies ahead for the GRI.

An American Odyssey: Mary Schmidt Campbell on Artist Romare Bearden

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
An American Odyssey: Mary Schmidt Campbell on Artist Romare Bearden
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With an artistic career that began with political cartoons in his college newspaper, Romare Bearden moved between mediums and styles throughout his life, although his artistic breakthroughs did not come without hard work. Over the course of a long career that spanned a tumultuous period in the fight for representation and civil rights for African Americans in the United States, Bearden became a deeply influential artist. Art historian Mary Schmidt Campbell delves into Bearden’s fascinating life and career in her new book An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden, which is the topic of this podcast episode.

Campbell is President of Spelman College and Dean Emerita of the Tisch School of the Arts. She served as the vice chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities under former president Barack Obama.

The Provocative Anti-Establishment Anti-Art of Fluxus

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
The Provocative Anti-Establishment Anti-Art of Fluxus
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How is dripping water into a vessel a musical performance? Or the release of a butterfly into a space? Or washing one’s face?

These three events are all proposed in scores created by Fluxus artists, an international, anti-art community of composers, poets, visual artists, and performers dedicated to testing and blurring the line between art and life. These three performances are also just some of the many Fluxus scores being enacted as part of the LA Philharmonic’s season-long Fluxus Festival, organized in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute.

As the Fluxus Festival draws to a close, conductor and composer Christopher Rountree, who curated the festival, and GRI curator Nancy Perloff discuss evocative scores by John Cage, La Monte Young, Ben Patterson, George Brecht, and others.