Raw Material (SFMOMA Podcasts

Raw Material is excited to share The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine – Volume I with our listening audience — because we know how much you love ART about ART! Local writers Olivia Peña and Josiah Luis Alderete interweave their perspectives on the history of the Mission Muralismo movement with stories from the muralists themselves. This zine expands st…

In Episode 7, Babette reconnects with EJ, and we hear her loud and clear. Babette talks with KQED’s Pendarvis Harshaw + former Oakland head librarian Dorothy Lazard about what makes Oakland soulful. NIAD artists Deatra Colbert and Halisi Noel-Johnson tell us about being Black and legendary. Featured: Deatra Colbert, Nan Collymore, Susan Goldman, Pe…

In Episode 6, Babette is welcomed into the home of artist Mildred Howard. Twice. Listen to Mildred speak about letting her materials inform her, reflecting light through glass bottles, and giving Black women their flowers.Featured: Elizabeth Catlett, Mildred Howard, Evangeline Montgomery, Betye Saar, and Babette Thomas. Cover art: Evangeline's Gard…

In Episode 5, Babette connects with artist Cheryl Fabio to discuss the work, impact, and foresight of her mother, poet and activist Sarah Webster Fabio. Rapper and fellow writer Nappy Nina reflects on the role of community in building an art career and practice.Featured: Cheryl Fabio, Sarah Webster Fabio, Evangeline Montgomery, Nappy Nina, and Babe…

In Episode 4 of Visions of Black Futurity, Babette shares an update on their search for Evangeline. Plus, we hear two episodes of Rightnowish hosted by Pendarvis Harshaw, exploring what it looks like to build liberated Black spaces in the Bay Area.Featured: Deanna Van Buren, Pendarvis Harshaw, Tajai Massey, Evangeline Montgomery, and Babette Thomas…

In Episode 3, Babette tries to answer the question, “Where will we host our Black art spaces of the future?” In the woods, by the ocean, or in a city center? They turn to artists who deal with matters of space, place, and land: Octavia Butler, Richard Mayhew, and Bay Area artist Sage Stargate. Follow us, as we trace the footsteps our ancestors have…

In Episode 2 of Visions of Black Futurity, Babette visits a museum with no walls: the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Museum in Joshua Tree, CA. Purifoy tells us what led him to the desert and Cauleen Smith creates a Black, feminist utopia in the spaces he built. Even our dreams have rhythm, let’s go together, moving through time + space — funkin to th…

In Episode 1 of Visions of Black Futurity, Babette Thomas takes us on a journey through time. We travel to a 1968 Black arts exhibition in Oakland, California, called New Perspectives in Black Art. It was the first of its kind in the country and, in this episode, we meet the woman behind it all, a Black artist and curator named Evangeline "EJ" Mont…

Babette sets the sonic table for Season 7 of Raw Material with a playlist of songs inspired by the ethos of the Black Bay Area during the 1960s and 1970s. Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3pfCBgYFeatured: Evangeline Montgomery, and Babette Thomas Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamae…

Call 415-915-1784.Cover art: Evangeline's Garden by Jeanna Penn @jinamaeBy SFMOMA

The art of postwar German artist Anselm Kiefer and the poetry of Holocaust survivor Paul Celan are both layered, dense, and hard to read. Sometimes the best starting point is through the layered, dense, and idiosyncratic ways that an individual processes trauma. So grab a spelunking hardhat and together we'll mine these layers of metaphor and mater…

This episode talks about a number of pieces by Alexander Calder. Calder is most well known for his mobiles, giant hanging pieces that move subtly with the currents in the room.This episode was produced by Accession. More episodes at accession.fm.By SFMOMA

Roxane Gay reflects on Kara Walker's Christ's Entry into Journalism (2017).The Way I See It, "Roxane Gay and Kara Walker's Christ's Entry into Journalism" was produced by the BBC in association with the Museum of Modern Art New York. More episodes at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bf6.By SFMOMA

The best-selling novelist and essayist, Olivia Laing explores the influential abstract artist Agnes Martin (1912-2004). Martin – a gay, working class woman who forged a path in a male-dominated art world – embraced solitude and didn’t have her first solo show until she was 46.This episode was produced by Reduced Listening © Frieze. More episodes at…

Art History For All guides you through Roberto Matta’s surreal mental landscape, Invasion of the Night (1941), and explores its connections to physics and psychology. This episode was produced by Art History for All. More episodes at arthistoryforall.com.By SFMOMA

This episode focuses on Betye Saar (b. 1926). In a 1975 interview, she discusses the diverse sources for her art and how she prevailed in the face of racism and gender discrimination.This episode is produced by the J. Paul Getty Museum Museum. More episodes at getty.edu/recordingartists/.By SFMOMA

“A painting is not a picture of an experience. It is the experience.”— Mark RothkoThis episode is produced by The Lonely Palette. More episodes at http://www.thelonelypalette.com/.By SFMOMA

Connor is a portrait of President William Howard Taft. He's hanging on a wall, but is anybody looking at him?This episode is produced by Everything Is Alive. More episodes at https://www.everythingisalive.com/By SFMOMA

This episode, "The Many Deaths of a Painting" was produced by 99% Invisible. More episodes at 99percentinvisible.org.By SFMOMA

Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material's "summer mixtape," from SFMOMA.Season update: Raw Material is temporarily suspending this season to create space for more urgent stories and conversations. Black lives matter.By SFMOMA

Welcome to Raw Material from SFMOMA! Start here for a quick introduction to our seasonal arts + culture podcast, by SFMOMA Content Producer and Raw Material creator Erin Fleming.By SFMOMA

Sayre Quevedo, Raw Material’s podcaster-in-residence for Season 6, is at the end of his journey. It all started with a curiosity about the surprising ways humans are connected, and a wild plot to make his way to various artists through “degrees of separation.” When we first meet Sayre, he’s stealing love letters back from an ungracious ex. In this …

After a series of false starts, rabbit holes, and mind maps, the time has come for Sayre to (possibly) meet internationally acclaimed artist Nikhil Chopra, the sixth degree of separation. Nikhil is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, splayed upon the floor. Sayre is intimidated, alone, and buried behind a crowd of Nikhil’s friends and fans. Will the…

Nooshin Rostami is a United States–based Iranian artist living in exile. While her father was dying in Iran, Nooshin was 6000 miles away from home. How will she process her grief without physical contact—without seeing her sisters, her mother, and the body of her father? What will it take to cross the insurmountable distance between her and her clo…

The sounds of rain, a family kitchen, a song, a late-night conversation—do the moments they encapsulate make us who we are? In this episode, Sayre Quevedo travels through artist Yetunde Olagbaju’s memory via a series of intimate recordings that constitute what they call a “living archive.”By SFMOMA

Jazmin Jones is pathologically inept at returning phone calls. In an attempt to clear her conscience (and voice-mail box), the artist decides to make a series of anxiety-inducing phone calls she’s put off for far too long. Listen in as Jazmin painfully catches up with friends, family, and accusatory ex-lovers.…

Sayre Quevedo begins Raw Material season six by breaking into his ex-boyfriend’s apartment. His goal is to retrieve twenty-two love letters he wrote to a man who doesn’t deserve them. Join Sayre as he searches for signs, symbols, closure, and perhaps, real connection.By SFMOMA

Season 6 Trailer: Six Degrees by SFMOMABy SFMOMA

Season 5 of Raw Material takes inspiration from a 41 x 37-foot scale model of the city that was recently unearthed, refurbished, and distributed in pieces to neighborhood libraries. Listen in as residents tell stories of life in this vibrant, diverse, and ever-changing frontier city. Produced by award-winning radio documentarians the Kitchen Sister…

Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material, from SFMOMA.By SFMOMA

A short, holiday bonus episode of Season 4 of Raw Material: Luvvers.By SFMOMA

Facing persecution in her native Uganda and unwilling to live an inauthentic life, fierce queer artist Leilah Babirye made a choice. She fled her home to discover a world of sexual and artistic exuberance in a new creative community on Fire Island, New York. Learn more about her extraordinary life and her bold body of work in this episode of Luvver…

The connection between the art world and the queer scene has not always been as openly discussed as it is today. Delve into the complex relationships between art, activism, and queer identity, and discover the power of making noise through making art.Photo: Douglas Crimp by T.L. Litt, 1990.Interview with Douglas Crimp is courtesy of SFMOMA's Open S…

Through looking at a variety of relationships, Chelsea investigates the many ways desire can be expressed. Hear the famed love letters Frida Kahlo sent to Diego Rivera, as well as to the lesser-known, though no less poetic answering machine messages left by Chelsea’s husband.By SFMOMA

Sex sells. In this episode, Chelsea Beck analyzes the history of persuasive sexual imagery, and imagines a world where titillation fosters compassion rather than divisiveness.Image: Carolee Schneeman, "Interior Scroll," (1975). Courtesy Carolina Nitsch, NY; photography by Anthony McCall.By SFMOMA

Nayland Blake doesn’t create art to express who they are, they create art to investigate the possibilities of identity. Hear the artist discuss their explorations of the queer, BDSM, kink, and furry scenes, and learn more about their unique approach to one of art’s oldest subjects—sex. Image © Nayland Blake, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.…

Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material, from SFMOMA.By SFMOMA

In the long history of portraits of First Ladies of the United States, none has drawn a reaction quite like the painting of Michelle Obama by Baltimore native Amy Sherald. Hear the artist discuss art in the age of Instagram. This episode is produced by WNYC Studios and Note to Self. More episodes at .…

Carolee Schneemann and Yoko Ono have created provocative art throughout their careers. Learn how these artists have dedicated their lives to exploring the pleasures and the vulnerabilities of the human body. This episode is produced by WNYC Studios and MoMA. More episodes at https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/pieceofwork.…

Back when Patti Smith and Judy Linn were kids, they used art to shape the world around them, posing for each other in photographs and starring in each other’s home movies. Hear Linn discuss how the two young Brooklynites weren't just "dreaming a future, they were dreaming a present."This episode is produced by The Kitchen Sisters © The Kitchen Sist…

An Oklahoman of Osage heritage, Maria Tallchief rose to stardom through years of hard work and dedication. Peek behind the curtain at the globetrotting life of America's first prima ballerina—her loves, her losses, her joys, and her sorrows.This episode is produced by Stuff You Missed in History Class © Stuff You Missed in History Class 2014. More …

Hazel Scott was a child prodigy, a New York jazz icon, the first African American woman to host her own television series, and an outspoken critic of discrimination in all its forms. Find out how her courage made her a role model for many and a target for some.This episode is produced and hosted by Nathan DiMeo © The Memory Palace 2016. More episod…

Many people know Georgia O’Keeffe for her flower paintings and depictions of the New Mexico landscape. Discover the very different setting that captured O’Keeffe during her time as a commissioned artist for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company—now the Dole Food Company— and how an initial distaste turned into great inspiration.This podcast was hosted and…

Gertrude Stein is often credited as a driving force behind Modernism and Cubism while her lifelong partner, Alice B. Toklas, is frequently left out of the story. Learn about this power couple and their roles as movers and shakers in the world of 20th century art.This episode is produced by Stuff You Missed in History Class © Stuff You Missed in His…

Women artists are often compared to one another but not to their male contemporaries. Learn how Mary Cassatt became one of the most important Impressionist painters of—and ahead of—her time by using the nineteenth-century Paris Opera House as an unlikely backdrop for feminist commentary. This episode is produced and hosted by Tamar Avishai © The Lo…

Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material's "summer mixtape," from SFMOMA.Music used in this this track: Klymaxx “Meeting In The Ladies Room.” Remix by Bernadette Cooper.By SFMOMA

“There is something cartoonish about life in California… something out of proportion, fantastical, even a little absurd.” End this season’s road trip back in the Bay Area, and explore the Emeryville mudflats, where artists upended the monumental, high-cost model of the Land Art movement with whimsical, communal, ephemeral sculptures. Play a road tr…

“It looks crazy, surreal, like a mirage or magic. You want to walk towards that, don’t you?” Join hosts Jessica Placzek and Maddie Gobbo as they continue their West Coast road trip with a visit to the “happiest place on Earth”: Disneyland. Explore the designs and decisions that go into creating the seductive simulation of Walt Disney’s amusement pa…

“Great leaders in all ages have sought the desert and heard its voice.” Land artists such as Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson found inspiration in the desert, but they were not the only—or the first—to do so. Hear three artists’ reflections on our relationship to the Great Basin and the art it has provoked.Artists featured in this episode: Katie …

“If that had been men, doing that for a day, it would have been famous. Everyone would have known about it. But since it was women . . . it’s just gone.” Encounter some of the historically overlooked women of the Land art movement, who often worked in stark opposition to the “plundering of the earth” approach of their male contemporaries. Then leav…