Become an Art Aficionado on Your Coffee Break

 

One of the wonderful things about many the art museums, besides filling their halls with artworks that challenge our thinking, is they also often have a excellent art education resources. Of course with our busy schedules, who has time to go to museum lectures or visit artist open studios?

Fortunately there are several free video podcast available from museums and art organizations featuring interviews, discussions and studio visits.  Many of the podcasts are under 10 minutes, perfect for a quick coffee break.

Now you can sharpen your art aficionado skills to be able to pick apart a conceptual Rauschenberg as easily as you can appreciate a Renoir.

Here are my Favorite Video Podcast (in descending order).  What are Yours?

 

TateShots is by far one of the top arts video podcast and have over 250 episodes.  No surprise as they are probably the best contemporary art museum in the world.   They feature mid-carrier and established artists often visiting their studios and museum exhibits.

 

KQED: Spark Art Video Podcast is about San Fransisco Bay Area Artist of all mediums.  The program is highly relevant and interesting to even those not in the region.  The primary focus is around studio or gallery visits with emerging and and mid-carrier artist alike.   Over 230 episodes.

 

National Gallery of Art Videos is a collection of documentaries, artist interviews and lectures.   With 54 episodes, this is an actively growing collection of art history refreshers with inclusion of contemporaries like Brice Marden.

 

Art21 is professionally produced ongoing documentary series (well known for it’s DVD video series) of mid-carrier and established artists.    This video podcast have shorter length then their video counterpart and is releasing content regularly with over 100 episodes.

 

KQED: Gallery Crawl is produced by the same group that does the Art Spark.  This podcast focus on emerging artist exhibiting in the SF Bay Area.  There are 65 episodes and growing slowly.  recommend even if you don’t live in the Bay Area.

 

LACMA  is a mix of video and audio interviews, projects plans and studio visits and give an snapshot of what is going on recently in Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, there are no new episodes after 2010, but there are a several gems with established artist like Burden, Irwin and Baldessari.

 

Whitney.org a video podcast from the Whitney in NYC is a different type of museum podcast.   The hosts often use sign language for the hearing impaired and make for an fresh perspective on the exhibits and the museum spaces.

 

The Art of Photography – For the photography fans out there, this is practical video podcast for dialog and discussion of all things photographic.   Pick and choose from the archive of topics that interest you.   85 episodes and growing.

 

Getting Started Using Video Podcasts:

  1. I find using iTunes is most convenient to getting the latest updates.
  2. Start by click on the podcast links above to take you to iTunes website.
  3. Click “view in iTunes” that will open the podcast page in your iTunes.
  4. Select the “subscribe free” button.  It will ask for a confirmation, then will begin
    downloading the latest episode.
  5. The older episodes in light grey can be downloaded at your leisure.

Tip:  when ready to remove the episode, just select and delete, when prompted, be sure to “move to trash” otherwise it will remain on your hard-drive.

Liked this Post?  Subscribe to my RSS feed or E-Newsletter and get loads more!