Art Snap

This episode’s work of art was Claire’s pick, by her perhaps all-time favorite artist, Sandy Skoglund, called “Fox Games” (1989). Skoglund is an American born installation artist and photographer, currently teaching at Rutgers University while actively creating and exhibiting around the world.

Her Installation Art delights lovers of Pop Art and Surrealism with colorful and clever commentary. Creatures and treats invade the mundane worlds as if a brightly colored plague has infected the space. We are left wondering if this abundance is a delight, or a threat! One thing the viewer knows for sure: you simply can’t look away.

Some favorite Installations discussed in the podcast include “Radiactive Cats,” 1980, “Fox Games,” 1989, “The Wild Inside,” 1989, and “Cocktail Party,” 1992. Learn more about this work at the Denver Art Museum.

Listen and follow along using the link in our bio!

Images:
1. “Fox Games” 1989, Sandy Skoglund. Denver Art Museum. Denver, Colorado. Zach said he really liked the fox that was just sitting in a chair waiting for a cocktail!
2. Sandy Skoglund, born in Massachusetts in 1946 hand sculpts and paints elements for her intriguing Installations.
3. Sandy Skoglund making sure each detail is assembled correctly for “Fox Games,” 1989.
4. Fox Games” in reverse color scheme (1989).
5. Sandy Skoglund making sure each detail is assembled correctly for “Cocktail Party,” 1992.

Ep. 7 - "Fox Games" (1989) by Sandy Skoglund This episode’s work of art was Claire’s pick, by her perhaps all-time favorite artist, Sandy Skoglund, called "Fox Games" (1989). Skoglund is an American born installation artist and photographer, currently teaching at Rutgers University while actively creating and exhibiting around the world. H...

Bonus Chat: Faith Ringgold, Followup on Frank Lloyd Wright, and Environmental Conservation Zach and Claire check in with each other and chat about the legacy and passing of Faith Ringgold at 93, followup on the recent Frank Lloyd Wright episode, and even get into a little environmental conservation.

In this week’s episode, Zach brings Judy Chicago’s iconic feminist work, “The Dinner Party” (1979), which debuted at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to both rave reviews and stark criticism. Listen using the link in our bio!

Laid out as a dinner party, the formal table is set for 39 distinguished guests complete with elaborate handmade runners and 3D ceramic plates. It’s a table celebrating famous women in history and the female archetype - a place where women usually prepared the meal and then receded out of view.

Nothing like it had been done before, a push to bring the stories and histories of these women into the modern narrative. Do you have a favorite place setting?

A revolutionary artist with works spanning over 60 years, Judy Chicago continues to push the conversation with her themes of identify, self-exploration, and challenges to the status quo.

See it in person at the Brooklyn Museum. .chicago



Images:
1. The Dinner Party
2. The Dinner Party
3. Judy Chicago for Time Magazine, 2018 Most Influential People
4. Virginia Wolf place setting
5. Sojourner Truth place setting
6. Emily Dickinson place setting

Ep. 6 - "The Dinner Party" (1979) by Judy Chicago This week, we look at Judy Chicago’s iconic feminist work, “The Dinner Party” (1979), which debuted at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to both rave reviews and stark criticism. Laid out as a dinner party, the formal table is set for 39 distinguished guests complete with elaborate handma...

Happy Birthday, Claire! To our creative maven who brings life and color to the world around her. And for dreaming up the idea for this podcast. ❤️

It’s not a painting or a sculpture... but another form of art that deserves attention as we meander through the world of famous works of art together.

In this episode, Claire brings Fallingwater, designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family in 1935, and constructed between 1936 - 1938. The woodland residence in the Appalachian Mountains of rural Pennsylvania has become an iconic work of organic architecture.

Built partly over a waterfall along the Bear Run River, the home embodies the idea that the surrounding natural world can be seamlessly incorporated into the design and made an experiential part of the living spaces. It blends in with its environment while presenting a unique and daring engineering challenge.

It’s on the UNECSO World Heritage List, the Smithsonian named it one of the “Places to See Before You Die,” and called “best all-time work of American architecture” by the American Institute of Architects.

To visit in person, find out more at fallingwater.org and learn about how the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has preserved and maintained the property since 1963.

Now is your chance to visit this incredible work of art and architectural history!

Images:
1. Fallingwater from the exterior
2. Interior of the home and living spaces
3. The cantilevered elements of each floor, flying over the waterfall focal point
4. Frank Lloyd Wright portrait. Frank Lloyd Wright. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

Ep. 5 - "Fallingwater" (1938) by Frank Lloyd Wright It’s not a painting or a sculpture... but another form of art that deserves attention as we meander through the world of famous works of art together. In this episode, Claire brings Fallingwater, designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family in 1935, and constructed b...

Bonus Chat: Listener Feedback on Rothko, Art Snobs, & A Hot Dog Cart In this week's bonus chat, Zach and Claire sift through some feedback from the recent Rothko episode, Claire explores why some people feel like art is pretentious, and Zach just wants to work at a hot dog stand on Long Island.

Whether you love his works or you’re moved to apathy by them (instead of tears!), you have to admit that Mark Rothko has made a huge impact on the art world - and many people have strong opinions about it.

One of Zach’s favorite artists, Zach chooses a piece by Rothko in episode 4 to look at the transcendental and often emotional journey his pieces can take the viewer on. Can Claire be convinced?

🖌️ See the piece discussed in person at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Spain.
🖌️ Or check out the Rothko Room at the Phillips Collection Museum in Washington, D.C.
🖌️ Or the the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Field trip anyone?

If you’re enjoying the show, please rate us and follow along wherever you get your podcasts!

Image notes:
1. “Untitled” (Green on Maroon), 1961, Museo Nacional Thyssen-BornemiszaInv. 258 x 229 cm (101.5” x 90.1”)
2. Mark Rothko
3. The Rothko Room at the Phillips Collection
4. The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas

Ep. 4 - "Untitled" (1961) by Mark Rothko Whether you love his works or you're moved to apathy by them (instead of tears!), you have to admit that Mark Rothko has made a huge impact on the art world - and many people have strong opinions about it. One of Zach's favorite artists, Zach chooses a piece by Rothko to look at the emotional journe...

Celebrating International Women’s Day, we’re highlighting another favorite - Jaune Quick-to-See Smith - an inspiring voice and maker.

An artist, teacher, curator, and activist, she has been creating and sharing her works for over 50 years. As a young woman, she was told that “Indians don’t go to college,” and “women cannot be artists.” She got her art education degree anyhow and began making art, eventually finding ways to share and show her works.

A storyteller, she uses color, humor, and pointed reflection in her art that examines myth and stereotypes. Not taking no as an answer so many years ago, now she is sharing the journey of indigenous peoples and tribes navigating racism, destruction of their native landscapes, and often the fight to be heard.

A citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation of Montana, she was born on the reservation but lived much of her life in New Mexico. She’s an inspiration to us and to many around the world. 



Image Credits:
1. Brad Trone/The New York Times
2. “Indian Madonna Enthroned,” from 1974. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
3. Orchestrating a Blooming Desert, 2003, oil on canvas

Always one of my favorite pieces. I would love to see an art class create a piece in the same style - maybe with an object found in nature or commonly around the house! Where are my art teachers at?

“Display Stand with Madonnas” by Katharina Fritsch
1987-1989; Aluminum, plaster, and paint

“Artist Katharina Fritsch has often worked with mass-produced objects from consumer culture, removing them from their original contexts and altering their scale, texture, and/or color to conjure both the familiar and the fantastical. The Virgin Mary has been a recurring figure in Fritsch’s art since the early 1980s, and in this case the”original” source is itself a multiple: a souvenir of Our Lady of Lourdes sold at a pilgrimage site in France. For Display Stand with Madonnas, the artist created 288 identical plaster reproductions of the statuette, stacking them as if set out for sale in a department store. Painted an almost hallucinogenic yellow, the work becomes a mesmerizing shrine to the enduring iconography of the pure and selfless Virgin figure, and to its perpetual salability as commodified image. The work’s overlapping associations call to the complex value systems that underpin our ideal versions of self, and suggest how an image of femininity can be codified, packaged, and sold.”

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Caption from the Hirshhorn Museum

            

Bonus Chat: Dawoud Bey, Pinhole Cameras, & Lost Art Zach and Claire catch up between episodes to talk about Zach's recent visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to see Dawoud Bey's solo exhibition, "Elegy" - and Claire wants to know what happened to the Salvator Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece that mysteriously disappeared after it was sold...

Zach and Claire are putting their latest Art Snap ideas to paper, even while on the road!

🖌️ For those of you who haven’t met us yet, we’re the creators of Art Snap, a new podcast giving you a quick skim of our favorite famous works of art.

🖌️ Claire is an art teacher, artist, and art history lover - Zach is a museum geek, traveler, and aspiring collector. Listen and follow using the link in our bio! .pod

In this episode, and nearing artist Yayoi Kusama’s 95th birthday, we look at some of her early works from the 1950’s – 60’s, the “Infinity Nets” series. With their simple color palettes and somewhat repetitive pattern, they seem to go on forever – into infinity! A part of the artist’s meditative practice, the act of creating them was a way to focus and calm the mind. An important foundation of her practice and future body of work, this series has always been one of Claire’s favorites.

Listen to this episode using the link in our bio as we explore the “Infinity Nets” and learn more about one of the most successful living artists.

Like what you hear? Please rate us and follow along!

Picture notes and credits:
1. Portrait of Yayoi Kusama, 2013. Photo © Gautier Deblonde. Courtesy Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc., Ota Fine Arts, Toyko / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London. © Yayoi Kusama.
2. Close up of a white on black infinity net painting
3. Yayoi Kusama at her New York studio, 1961. Image © Yayoi Kusama Inc.
4. Yayoi Kusama, Red Nets No. 2.A.3, 1960, oil on canvas, 71.1 x 55.9 cm. Sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong, March 31, 2018, Lot 1075.
5. The cover portrait of Kusama’s autobiography, “Infinity Net,” published in 2015

Ep. 3 - "Infinity Nets" (1950s - 1960s) by Yayoi Kusama Nearing artist Yayoi Kusama’s 95th birthday, we look at some of her early works from the 1950’s – 60’s, the “Infinity Nets” series. With their simple color palettes and repetitive pattern, they seem to go on forever – into infinity! A part of the artist’s meditative practice, the act...

It’s make art Friday! 🖌️ Get those creative juices flowing - grab a brush or pen or anything and make some art, just in time for a fantastic weekend. Or catch up on the lastest podcast episodes of Art Snap using the link in our bio! 🎨

In 1988, three new sculpture courts were created at the Louvre Museum, Paris, in the Richelieu wing. A beautiful space with vaulted ceilings create a perfect moment to experience the sculpture collection.

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Art comes in all forms. Spending the morning reading with a cup of tea and a favorite mug by our friends at .

Bonus: Venice Biennale & Claire Rants About Art Education Zach and Claire catch up between episodes to celebrate 2,600 downloads of the new podcast (thank you, all!) along with a little chat about travel plans to see the upcoming Venice Biennale art exhibition and a good, old-fashioned rant from Claire about the plight of art education. Learn more about th...

The studio room at the Sorolla museum in Madrid is one of our favorite spaces.

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In episode 2, Zach and Claire take a look at one of Zach’s favorite pieces - Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture Maman (1999). At over 30 feet tall and 33 feet wide, the work is massive and, as we learn, is an ode to the artist’s mother.

Listen using the link in our bio and see it in person at the Tate Modern Museum in London. Field trip anyone?

Picture Notes and Credits: 
1. Standing outside of the Tate Modern Museum in London
2. The marble eggs encased in mesh
3. Louise Bourgeois by Helmut Lang, 1997
4. Plate 7 of 9 from “Ode à Ma Mère,” (1995). Drypoint and engraving. Photo: Digital Image ©MoMA, NY
5. At the Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain

Ep. 2 - "Maman" (1999) by Louise Bourgeois In episode 2, Zach and Claire take a look at one of Zach's favorite pieces - Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture Maman (1999). At over 30 feet tall and 33 feet wide, the work is massive and, as we learn, is an ode to the artist’s mother. Check out an image of the work on our Instagram - or see it in per...

Wishing we were at the right now.

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One of Zach’s favorite pieces at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Portrait of a Princess of the House of Este
Painting on panel (poplar), about 1435-1440
The sitter for this portrait may have been Margherita Gonzaga (1418-1439), wife of Leonello d’Este whose emblem - a two-handled crystal vase - is depicted on her sleeve. The work reflects the fashion at the Este court for elegant portraits, rich in naturalistic details and subtle heraldic references (emblems, colours).
ANTONIO DI PUCCIO, known as PISANELLO
Pisa, before 1395 - Rome or Naples, 1455



            

It’s Friday! Find a pen, paint, paper, plaster, wire... anything and create something wonderful this weekend. Unleash your inner artist.
     

A sunny day look at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. One of my favorite museum courtyards, and I can’t wait for a visit this year.
Opened in 1992, the collection is highly prized for its focus on modern and contemporary artists, including Picasso and Dali. Picasso’s painting, Guernica (1937), is housed there alongside many of the great 20th century artists.

Zach visited the National Gallery of Art to see the new Mark Rothko exhibition - Paintings on Paper. Research for an upcoming episode, perhaps? Although most often known for his large abstract works on canvas, this exhibition brings together more than 100 paintings on paper, many on view for the first time. If you’re in the Washington, D.C. area, be sure to check it out! Open now until March 31, 2024.

In episode 1, Claire and Zach look at “Europe After The Rain II” by Max Ernst, painted between 1940 - 1942. One of Claire’s favorite pieces, Ernst’s surrealist masterpiece uses color and technique to express personal and collective tragedy as the people of Europe suffer through two major wars.
Listen using the link in our bio and see it in person at the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. 
This image has been cropped to meet posting size guidelines. Check out the full width image online! Oil on canvas, 21 9/16 × 58 3/16 in | 54.8 × 147.8 cm