Audio Podcast
National Gallery of Art Audio Podcasts
This audio series offers entertaining, informative discussions about the arts and events at the National Gallery of Art. The series includes three programs: Art talk provides engaging conversations between top cultural figures; Backstory permits listeners to step behind the scenes of a world-class museum with host Barbara Tempchin and guests; and NOTABLE LECTURES gives access to special Gallery talks by well-known curators, historians, and authors.
December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009
December 2009
Notable Lectures
Reading of "The Fisherwoman" by Toni Morrison from Robert Bergman's book A Kind of Rapture, in conjunction with the exhibition Robert Bergman: Portraits, 1986–1995
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Behind the Scenes
Graft by Roxy Paine
Molly Donovan, associate curator, department of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art, Washington
In 2009 the National Gallery of Art commissioned American sculptor Roxy Paine to create a stainless steel Dendroid, as the artist calls his series of treelike sculptures, for the Sculpture Garden. In this podcast produced on the occasion of the completed work—the first contemporary sculpture installed in the Sculpture Garden in the nearly 10 years since it opened—associate curator Donovan talks to host Barbara Tempchin about Graft.
November 2009
Behind the Scenes
In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age
Sarah Kennel, associate curator, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington
The extraordinary range and complexity of the photographic process—from the origins of the medium in the 1840s to the advent of digital photography at the end of the 20th century—are explored in a comprehensive exhibition and accompanying guidebook. On the occasion of In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age, Kennel talks to host Barbara Tempchin about the major technological developments in the 170-year history of photography.
Editions with Additions: Working Proofs by Jasper Johns
Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art, Washington
The prints of Jasper Johns are heralded for their beauty as well as their conceptual and psychological complexity. A group of the artist's working proofs—prints pulled during the working process on which Johns made drawn and painted additions, recently acquired from the artist by the National Gallery of Art—are showcased here as independent works of art for the first time. On the occasion of the exhibition, curator Fine talks to host Barbara Tempchin about this extraordinary body of work.
October 2009
Behind the Scenes
Robert Bergman: Portraits, 1986–1995: A Conversation with the Photographer
Sarah Greenough, senior curator, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, and photographer Robert Bergman
Using a handheld 35mm camera and available light, American photographer Robert Bergman spent nearly a decade making a series of large color portraits that address not only his subjects' physical presence but also their psychic state. On the occasion of Bergman's first solo exhibition, Greenough talks to the artist about his exceptional ability to reveal the common humanity of each of his subjects.
Behind the Scenes
Hendrick ter Brugghen's "Bagpipe Player"
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator, northern baroque painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Dutch artist Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588–1629) is the most important of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, artists who traveled to Rome in the early decades of the 17th century, and who returned to Utrecht having embraced the radical stylistic and thematic ideas of Caravaggio. In this podcast produced on the occasion of a new acquisition, Wheelock talks to host Barbara Tempchin about Ter Brugghen's Bagpipe Player, the first painting of this stylistic group to enter the Gallery's collection.