Month: March 2022

“When I look at the law and also museum policy, it’s just so close to conceptual art making. You have a lot of material and you’re just trying to define how it lives in the world, except with the law, everybody agrees. With conceptual art, you have to convince people to believe in it.”

Gala Porras-Kim is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is both conceptually rigorous and visually compelling. Born in Bogotá and based in Los Angeles, Porras-Kim creates art that explores the relationship between historical objects and the institutions that collect and display them. From writing letters questioning how museums handle artifacts to creating sculptures that honor the spiritual lives of antiquities, Porras-Kim’s practice is part concept, part material manifestation.

The artist’s current exhibition, Precipitation for an Arid Landscape, focuses on the Peabody Museum’s collection of thousands of artifacts originally found in a giant sinkhole: the Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. The exhibition is one in a series of solo shows at the Amant Foundation in Brooklyn, Gasworks in London, and the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. The work is based partly on research Porras-Kim carried out while she was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard and an artist in residence at the Getty Research Institute.

In this episode, Porras-Kim muses about rummaging through museum archives, the rights of mummies, and potlucks in the Pink Palace.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-gala-porras-kim-makes-art-of-interrogation/ or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts

To learn more about Porras-Kim, visit
https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/meet-the-getty-research-institutes-newest-artist-in-residence/

To learn more about Precipitation for an Arid Landscape, visit https://www.amant.org/exhibitions/4-gala-porras-kim-precipitation-for-an-arid-landscape

“One of the hopes of this exhibition was really to try to enlist visitors’ bodily experience in their understanding of these works of art that can sometimes seem a little bit like they live entirely in our heads, a little bit intellectualized.”

Although Nicolas Poussin is widely regarded as the most influential painter of the 17^th century—the father of French classicism—he is not as well-known as many of his contemporaries, such as Rembrandt, Rubens, and Caravaggio. This is due, in part, to Poussin’s austere painting style and erudite subject matter, which often came from Roman history or the Bible. As a result, his work can sometimes feel a bit cold or remote to today’s audiences.

But earlier in his career, Poussin was inspired by dance. His paintings of wild revelry, filled with dancing satyrs and nymphs, emerged as his signature genre from that time. Poussin and the Dance, organized by the Getty Museum and the National Gallery in London, is the first exhibition to explore the theme of dance in Poussin’s work. By supplementing his delightful dancing pictures with new dance films by Los Angeles–based choreographers—this unique exhibition invites viewers into the world of Poussin in a fresh, relatable way.

In this episode, Emily Beeny, curator in charge of European paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and curator of Poussin and the Dance, joins Sarah Cooper, public programs specialist at the Getty, to delve into Poussin’s process and love of dance.

The exhibition, which received generous support from the Leonetti/O’Connell Family Foundation and is sponsored by City National Bank, is on view at the Getty Center through May 8, 2022.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit
https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-poussin-and-the-dance-shines-new-light-on-french-painter or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts

To explore the exhibition Poussin and the Dance, visit
https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/poussin_dance/

To watch the contemporary dance films from Poussin and the Dance, visit
https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/poussin_dance/video.html

To buy the book Poussin and the Dance, visit
https://shop.getty.edu/products/poussin-and-the-dance-978-1606066836

“You look at the thinking behind the creation of the building, but then also at the material needs. And you merge the two to really build an in-depth understanding of the building, and a path forward to preserving it.”

From the sculptural curves of the Sydney Opera House to the sliding walls and windows of the Eames House, the hallmarks of modern buildings make them easy to spot. Modernist architecture—with its signature use of industrial materials and innovative, sleek designs—emerged in the early 1900s and dominated the post–World War II building boom. Unfortunately, many of the iconic buildings from this period are now in serious need of repair but lack clear conservation plans due to the use of untested building methods and materials. How do you fix concrete that’s been damaged by ocean water, or remove graffiti to preserve stainless steel? In response to such dilemmas, the Getty Foundation created the Keeping It Modern initiative, an international grant program focused on the conservation of significant 20^th-century architecture. Launched in 2014, Keeping It Modern has to date supported a total of 77 projects in 40 countries.

In this episode, Antoine Wilmering, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation, discusses the importance and ongoing impact of Keeping It Modern.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit
https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-protecting-modernist-architecture-for-generations-to-come or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts

To learn more about Keeping It Modern, visit
https://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/current/keeping_it_modern or
https://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/current/keeping_it_modern/report_library/index.html

To read about the Patel Stadium conservation project, visit
https://www.getty.edu/news/it-is-indeed-a-holy-place

To buy the book Concrete: Case Studies in Conservation Practice, visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/concrete-case-studies-in-conservation-practice-978-1606065761https://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/current/keeping_it_modern

To buy the book Managing Energy Use in Modern Buildings: Case Studies in Conservation Practice, visit
https://shop.getty.edu/products/managing-energy-use-in-modern-buildings-case-studies-in-conservation-practice-978-1606066973