Art

Art

episodes

Interviews with artists and scholars of art about their new books.

Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof, "The Burgeoning European Print Trade: The Distribution of Prints Via the Plantin-Moretus Press of Antwerp" (Harvey Miller, 2025)

April 8, 2026

The Burgeoning European Print Trade

Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof
Hosted by Jana Byars

Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof join Jana Byars to talk about their new book, The Burgeoning European Print Trade: The Distribution of Prints Via the Pl…

Bimbola Akinbola, "Transatlantic Disbelonging: Unruliness, Pleasure, and Play in Nigerian Diasporic Women's Art" (Duke UP, 2025)

April 6, 2026

Transatlantic Disbelonging

Bimbola Akinbola
Hosted by Abigail Celis

In Transatlantic Disbelonging: Unruliness, Pleasure and Play in Nigerian Diasporic Women's Art (Duke University Press, 2025), Bimbola Akinbola redirec…

Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)

April 4, 2026

The Cory Arcangel Hack

Eivind Røssaak

The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines of B…

The Club: Where American Artists Found Refuge in Belle Epoque Paris

April 2, 2026

The Club

In Belle Époque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the …

Vojta Hybl, "Rocks: A Guide to the Stones Around Us and the Stories They Tell" (Frances Lincoln, 2026)

March 30, 2026

Rocks

Vojta Hybl
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

What is that rock you’ve just picked up? Which minerals is it made of, what’s unique about it and what can it reveal about Earth’s deeper story? …

The 50th Anniversary Tour of Patti Smith's Horses: A Conversation with Caryn Rose

March 28, 2026

Three Chords and Blessed Noise

Caryn Rose
Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan

Caryn Rose's Three Chords and Blessed Noise (2026) is an ode to the lost art of the tour diary. In November of 2025, Patti Smith and her band embarked…

Claire Goldstein, "Sun King's Cosmos: Comets and the Cultural Imagination of Seventeenth-Century France" (Northwestern UP 2025)

March 24, 2026

In the Sun King's Cosmos

Claire Goldstein
Hosted by Gina Stamm

In the Sun King's Cosmos: Comets and the Cultural Imagination of Seventeenth-Century France (Northwestern University Press 2025) explores the relation…

Jonathan Blackwood and Jasmina Tumbas, "Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space" (Routledge, 2025)

March 24, 2026

Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Jonathan Blackwood and Jasmina Tumbas
Hosted by Iva Glisic

Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space explores the production, discussion, and consumption of contemporary art across the post-Yugoslav region. …

Marc Chagall: Reflections of a Granddaughter

March 19, 2026

Marc Chagall

Hosted by YIVO Institute

Marc Chagall is widely recognized as the preeminent Jewish artist of the 20th century, but little is known of his work to preserve Jewish culture. In …

Georgios Boudalis, "On the Edge: Endbands in the Bookbinding Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean" (Legacy Press, 2022)

March 15, 2026

On the Edge

Georgios Boudalis
Hosted by Lauren Fonto

On the Edge: Endbands in the Bookbinding Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean by Dr Giorgios Boudalis (Legacy Press, 2022). The term endbands desig…

Lucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)

March 6, 2026

Adventurous Vents

Lucy Lavers, Judy Ovens, and Suzanna Prizeman
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy s…

Reginald Jackson, "Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls" (U Michigan Press, 2018)

March 1, 2026

Textures of Mourning

Reginald Jackson
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Reginald Jackson’s inspiring new book takes a transdisciplinary approach to rethinking how we read, how we pay attention, and why that matters deeply …

Syona Puliady, et al., "Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings" (U Washington Press, 2025)

March 1, 2026

Visualizing Devotion

Syona Puliady, Steven M. Vose and Lynna R. Dhanani
Hosted by Kshitij Jain

Textiles, embroidered with religious imagery, express lay piety in public and private shrinesThis beautifully illustrated volume highlights Jain devot…

Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)

February 27, 2026

Invisible Hands

Margaret S. Graves
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the internation…

Lynda Nead, "British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain" (Yale UP, 2025)

February 22, 2026

British Blonde

Lynda Nead
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the 1950s, American glamour swept into a war-torn Britain as part of a broader transatlantic exchange of culture and commodities. But in this proce…

Alexis Lerner, "Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

February 16, 2026

Post-Soviet Graffiti

Alexis Lerner
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of Toronto Press, 2025) is an empirically grounded ethnographic study of how gra…

Lucy Donkin, "Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages" (Cornell UP, 2022)

February 9, 2026

Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages

Lucy Donkin
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Dr. Lucy Donkin’s Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2022) illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in whi…

Polina Dimova, "At the Crossroads of the Senses: The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism" (Penn State UP, 2024)

February 6, 2026

At the Crossroads of the Senses

Polina Dimova
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Inspired by Richard Wagner’s idea of the total artwork, European modernist artists began to pursue multimedia projects that mixed colors, sounds, and …

Wisdom of the Goddess: The Divine Feminine in South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan Art

February 5, 2026

Wisdom of the Goddess

Hillary Langberg
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Hillary Langberg discusses Wisdom of the Goddess, an online exhibition she curated for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art featuring nine g…

Donna Stein, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art" (Skira, 2020)

January 26, 2026

The Empress and I

Donna Stein

In the 1970s, American curator Donna Stein served as an art advisor to Empress Farah Diba Pahlavi, the Shahbanu of Iran. Together, Stein and Pahlavi g…