Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Jean-Michel Basquiat has created some of the most highly valued American paintings ever to go on auction. Basquiat sought to remake art history in his image, and I would say he was successful. His triptych, Horn Players, is one of the artworks required for the AP Art History curriculum studied by American high school students. In the middle of February 1981, a group exhibition opened at P.S.1 in New York. The show featured over a hundred different artists from the underground art scene. There were paintings, drawings, photographs, objects and graffiti all mixed together in an explosive portrait of the post-punk scene. The show was called New York/New Wave and many affectionately referred to it as the armory show of the 80s. The armory show was of course the famous exhibition from 1913 that introduced European modern art to the American audience. This time though, it wasn’t European artists upending the New York gallery scene. This time, the revolution was coming from inside the community. Among the artists on display was a 20 year old by the name of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He had previously made a name for himself as a graffiti artist. Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz created a text-based project SAMO spraypainting messages around new york. They were particularly active in the area where numerous gallery spaces were located. SAMO often sought to be a little bit humorous, but also gives an outsider’s perspective on the art world with phrases like “SAMO AS AN END TO PLAYING ART” or “SAMO FOR THE SO-CALLED AVANT-GARDE”. Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Piet Mondrian is best known for painting primary colored squares and rectangles. For this episode, fellow art teacher, Jeff Arndt and I talked about the big ideas that led Mondrian to make such simple work. He pushed the ideas of modern abstract art farther than anyone else. Mondrian limited himself to basic elements of simple lines, shapes and colors to focus on the principles of design like balance and proportion.A common misconception about Mondrian is that his personal life was as bland as his art. Mondrian was actually quite charming. He took pains to be elegantly dressed at all times, he was kind and and avid dancer. He was said to be great at the foxtrot and the charleston in particular. The ladies loved him, and he had multiple relationships including an engagement he called off in 1911, but he never married. I think my favorite odd bit though is according to a biographer, among the women of Amsterdam, Mondrian “developed a reputation for interesting, prolonged kisses, sometimes lasting for more than half an hour.” but back on point, he loved dancing and he loved music. While he was in Paris, he was particularly fond of the black American musicians that passed through including greats like Louis Armstrong. Mondrian talked about how the pianist accompanying Armstrong “allowed the bass line played with his left hand to fall out of sync, contrasting with the rhythmically varied ‘melody’ played by his right hand” Mondrian was all about the rhythm.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dancing at the Louvre is part of Faith Ringgold's series of 12 story quilts called The French Collection and it is on the AP Art History list (it is one of 250 artworks American high school students study for AP Art History courses, which give them the chance to earn college credit).In her Dancing at the Louvre quilt, Ringgold is writing the story of Willa Marie Simone, a fictional character that seems to be inspired a bit by Ringgold and her mother. Willa moves to Paris, meets major figures like Henri Matisse,the iconic artist, Josephine Baker, the American born French singer, dancer and actress who became the first black woman to star in a major motion picture and Rosa Parks, the legend of the civil rights movement. Over the series of 12 story quilts, known as the French Collection, Willa Marie Simone goes on many adventures and becomes a successful artist and businesswoman. In Ringgold’s life, she had been taught to admire the achievements of men like Pablo Picasso who innovated by copying African masks. In her education, she was told to study art education because fine arts was only for men. She looked at all of these societal bariers and envisioned a figure who could push past them. In Ringgold’s story, the protagonist is a black woman and the white male european artists, have a walk on role. The Louvre is an iconic cultural institution, home to some of the finest artworks in the history of the world and Ringgold’s Willa Marie Simone feels unintimidated. She joyously flouts conventions and dances in the hallowed halls.In this episode, I mentioned The Art Explora Academy from the Art Explora Foundation, which was kind enough to include some of my episodes in their media library and gave my show it's first big break. Check out The Art Explora Academy here: Academy.ArtExplora.orgWho ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am sick with Covid and with the ups and downs of the illness, I wasn't sure when I would be up for recording this week. Consequently, I made this a mini episode with no guest, which is fine because it is on a topic that pretty much no guest wants to talk about anyways, JMW Turner's painting, The Slave Ship.Just as a side note, while I am mildly miserable at times, my experience of Covid would be a lot worse if I weren't up to date on my vaccines. Please be sure to get vaccinated if you are able to. It not only protects you, but also helps to protect those around you.Turner's painting of The Slave Ship from 1840 was originally titled "Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying" and the event that inspired this work is exactly as horrific as it sounds. The captain of the ship was throwing men overboard in order to collect insurance money on those lost at sea, or to use a more accurate term, murdered. In this episode, I mentioned that one of my favorite fellow Airwave Media podcasts, The Constant, did an episode about how ships would be sent to sea to sink for the insurance money.Check out that episode here: The Constant | ShipwrecklessWho ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was asked to create an episode about how art affects the brain. I found there is quite a bit of research conducted by neuroscientists around the world indicating that engaging with the arts makes people smarter, happier, and healthier.Let me know what you think of this episode. Do you want to hear more like this? Are there other topics you want me to cover? Email whoartedpodcast@gmail.comWho ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick Cave is a contemporary artist whose work is part fashion, part sculpture, part performance and entirely fascinating. For this episode, I spoke with Kaitlyn and Corbie, fellow art teachers and hosts of the podcast Those Art Teachers.You can find Those Art Teaches on your favorite podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts (remember leaving them a rating/review really helps podcasts become more visible) and follow them on Instagram.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Georges Seurat | A Sunday on La Grande JatteIn 1894, George Seurat began going out to an idyllic little island away from the urban center of Paris. It was a place where people of various classes would relax. While the image is of people at leisure, Seurat was anything but relaxed. He was a disciplined artist on a mission to create a work that would be significant in art history. He spent years developing this work. He made dozens of preparatory sketches to work out the composition and technique. While the 1890s was the heyday for Impressionists, Seurat was part of a new breed. Some consider him a post-impressionist or neo-Impressionist. Today his technique is called pointillism, but in his day, Seurat preferred the term divisionism. He was dividing the image into discrete bits, carefully painted, uniform dots of paint like pixels that make up our digital images. While his process was careful and hand-crafted, Seurat was fascinated by science. He developed his approach after reading the works of scientists like Michel Eugene Chevreul and Ogden Rood. One of the key concepts that Seurat latched onto had to do with how color is perceived in relation to its surroundings. Seurat read about the trouble restoring tapestries because they could not simply dye to match a piece, they had to account for surrounding colors. Seurat’s idea was that by dividing the image into discrete dots of color, the painter could arrange combinations that would heighten the contrast and make the colors more vibrant. Seurat wanted to make his work even more vibrant by painting a frame of colored dots around the perimeter of his painting and that was offset by a clean white painted frame.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I am giving you an episode of another art history podcast. The show is called Art of History. It is hosted by Amanda Matta, who is everyone’s favorite TikTok royal commentator and just generally smarter than me. Art of History is another Airwave Media podcast, and she is absolutely killing it. If you listened to my episode on Fragonard’s The Swing, you may recall, I did about 5-10 minutes on it but Amanda goes way deeper so, please give Art of History a listen, and if you like it please follow her show, leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. That is one of the easiest, totally free ways to support your favorite podcasters.Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1991, Marvel became the first comic book company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The newspapers declared “Spider-Man is coming to Wall Street.” It seems a bit unlikely that a character that’s part nerdy teen and part bug would become the face of the company and one of the most iconic figures in comic book history. Of course, everyone loves a good underdog story so for this mini episode, we are going to cover how Stan Lee and his friends created the Amazing Spider-Man.In this mini episode, I referenced Jack Kirby and Jim Davis. If you want to learn more about either of those artists, listen to the episodes linked below.Jack KirbyJim DavisWho ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, my guest is the one and only Cassie Stephens. She is an amazing art teacher well known for her unique style and wonderful lessons in all media. Find her books, podcast, lesson plans, and more on her website.Our subject for this episode is Christian Dior. Dior was an influential designer in the mid 20th century. He made a splash in the design world when he introduced "The New Look" in his first collection just after starting his own design company after World War 2. His work was structured in the top, narrow in the waist contrasted with a big, flowing skirt. The use of so much fabric was seen as decadent in some circles, but Dior was seeking to move past the rationing and austerity of the war era and bring the joy back with his fresh designs. Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.Connect with me:Website | Twitter | Instagram | TiktokSupport the show:Merch from TeePublic | Make a DonationAs always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices