Recording Artists
This podcast features artists speaking directly about their work and lives, using archival recordings from the Getty Research Institute. Each episode offers an intimate, first-person perspective on creativity and artistic practice. It is a valuable resource for art lovers, students, and researchers interested in the voices of significant artists.
Episodes
Introducing OMMM: Our Museum Mindfulness Meditation Podcast
Today, we're sharing the first episode of OMMM, Getty's newest podcast and first video podcast.This series encourages you to engage with works of art mindfully, wherever you are. Part art history, part mindfulness meditation, each episode focuses on one work of art and uses it as an inspiration for meditation and reflection. Long-time museum educator and meditation practitioner Lilit Sadoyan trans
Introducing ReCurrent: Backlot and Barrio
Check out season two of ReCurrent, a Getty podcast about what we gain by keeping the past present.Hosted by Jaime Roque, this season explores cultural stories hidden in photographs, archives, and everyday places. Hear from artists, activists, and communities where Getty stories continue to unfold.On this episode, Backlot and Barrio, Jaime spends time with photographer George Rodriguez, whose camer
Experiments in Art and Technology: We Are, Ourselves, Information Processors (Bonus)
How does a mid-20th-century experimental art and science group help us make sense of our social media ecosystem today?In this extended excerpt from Stanford professor Fred Turner, you’ll hear how the origins of our media landscape date back to the 1940s and the push to counter fascist authoritarianism through democratized access to information. He also explores the unexpected role experimental art
Introducing If Objects Could Talk, a Podcast for Kids and Their Families
Check out Getty’s first podcast for kids and their families, If Objects Could Talk!Listen as artifacts leave the museum vault and come alive to share their side of the story. Featuring objects from Getty's antiquities collection, each episode introduces listeners to the history, creation, and everyday use of incredible items like an Egyptian cat statue, an ancient kind of dice, and a glass flask s
What could be more beautiful than a laser? (Bonus)
Laser physicist Billy Klüver really loved his lasers. But what divided the beauty of the laser (at least in Klüver’s eyes) from art? As the co-founder of the nonprofit group Experiments in Art and Technology, drawing the line between art and engineering came up a lot. In this bonus episode, we’ll hear Klüver talk about disciplinary boundaries in artist-engineer collaborations, and about his belove
I Thought It Was a Jewish Delicatessen (Bonus)
What do engineers get out of working with artists? In a series of talks designed to attract new engineers and artists to the group Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), engineers Fred Waldhauer and Robby Robbinson discuss how working with artists turned them from “aesthetic primitives” to true collaborators, even if they never quite fit in with the “arty crowd.” Hear how they approached thei
It’s a Likely Threat (Bonus)
What makes good art good and what makes that experience stick with you? Engineer Billy Klüver, who co-founded the nonprofit group Experiments in Art and Technology, has a great answer to that question—but we couldn’t fit it in our third season. In this bonus episode, we’ll hear Klüver talk about discomfort, threats, and the power of good art.Stay tuned for more bonus episodes.
Why Doesn’t He Dance a Little Better? (Bonus)
Did you know Robert Rauschenberg was fired by John Cage? Us either—until we heard Rauschenberg telling his side of the story to Barbara Rose in one of the interviews in Getty’s archives. We’re sharing clips from the archive as bonus episodes while you’re waiting on season four. In this first episode, you’ll hear Robert Rauschenberg explain how he stopped designing stage sets for the Merce Cunningh
Introducing ReCurrent: The Recipe of Us
Check out Getty’s newest podcast, ReCurrent, a series about what we gain by keeping the past present. In this inaugural episode, host and producer Jaime Roque shares a heartfelt journey through his family’s history and the role of food in preserving cultural heritage.Hear the rest of the series and learn more at getty.edu/recurrent. Look for it and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Fujiko Nakaya: The Most Beautiful Way
Artist Fujiko Nakaya is best known for her ethereal sculptures made with fog. But her very first fog sculpture, which kicked off decades of working with this unusual and highly technical material, came about almost by chance—and thanks to her ties to Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). At 91, Nakaya is still making fog sculptures that compel audiences to consider the environment and our im
Billy Klüver: Better Than Another Golf Course
Laser physicist Billy Klüver had always been interested in art. So when he started working at Bell Labs in New Jersey in the late 1950s, he began going into Manhattan and meeting artists—and in short order he was collaborating with them. He co-founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to facilitate these partnerships and worked to find corporate sponsors, with mixed success.In this second
Robert Rauschenberg: A Very Small Club
Robert Rauschenberg is one of the best-known artists of the 20th century, in part because he never stopped exploring new mediums and styles. His work with new technology, however, is often overlooked. In 1960, a chance meeting with Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver led them to eventually co-found Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a nonprofit that paired artists with scientists and engineer
Season 3—Experiments in Art and Technology
In season three of Recording Artists, artist and futurist Ahmed Best examines the groundbreaking art-science organization Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Through the stories of E.A.T.’s co-founders, artist Robert Rauschenberg and Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver, as well as artist Fujiko Nakaya, who continues to make technology-inflected artworks, this season investigates how artists an
Recording Artists Live
In this special live episode of Recording Artists, season two host Tess Taylor speaks with Getty Research Institute curator Pietro Rigolo about the making of the series, what she discovered through the letters, and artists’ stories and letters that didn’t make the cut. Author Maya Binyam joins them to bring the letters to life via dramatic readings.This program is co-presented with the Los Angeles
Meret Oppenheim: Femme Fatale Is an Insult
In 1975, Meret Oppenheim’s small painting Würgeengel, or Angel of Death, is included in a sprawling exhibition organized by famous curator Harald Szeemann. She had painted it over 40 years earlier, when she was only 16 years old. The only problem now is that the curator has totally misunderstood her artwork—and placed it in a sexist context in the show. Rather than meekly accept this, Oppenheim wr
Nam June Paik: I Don’t Want to Be Over Whelmed by Glory
In the mid-1960s, Nam June Paik is living in a run-down studio in SoHo, struggling to make ends meet. But even as he jokes about his ongoing battle against cockroaches, he is building his network, seeking out support for his artist friends, and always experimenting with form. Paik’s vibrant personality is on full display in a letter from this period to musician David Tudor. Partially typewritten,
Benjamin Patterson: Full Moon, Warm, Silver Clouds
On May 20, 1962, the morning after his first child is born, Benjamin Patterson writes a touching birth announcement to his own parents. The letter covers all the usual details—the baby’s weight and height, how the birth went, what the hospital is like—but its form is totally unique. Most of the letter is written in the voice of his newborn son, Ennis. Patterson, then a young, struggling musician a
M. C. Richards: I Am Dancing with These Words Around You
By 1956, M. C. Richards has earned a PhD in English, taught poetry at Black Mountain College, gotten married (and divorced) twice, dedicated herself to pottery, helped found an artists’ cooperative alongside creators like John Cage, and become deeply romantically involved with avant-garde musician David Tudor. Tudor is often on the road, but luckily Richards is an incredible letter-writer. In her
Marcel Duchamp: Write Me Often, Just a Line or Two
It’s July 1942, and the artist Marcel Duchamp has recently arrived in New York City after fleeing the Nazis in Vichy France. As he settles in, he writes to his longtime friend and fellow artist Man Ray, who is living in California. In this casual letter, Duchamp asks Man Ray for help. He needs buyers for his latest artwork: a suitcase containing miniatures of many of his most famous pieces, from t
Frida Kahlo: Do You Think of Me Some Time?
In 1944, Frida Kahlo is at a crossroads, both in terms of her health and her career. In April of that year, with World War II dragging on, she writes to her gallerist—and former lover—Julien Levy. In this tender and personal letter, she moves from the logistical challenges of sending art across national borders during wartime, to describing her painful new steel corsets, to asking after her many f
Season 2—Intimate Addresses
In season two of Recording Artists, titled Intimate Addresses, host Tess Taylor dives into the lives of six artists. From personal letters pulled from Getty’s archives, discover more about artists you’ve probably heard of like Frida Kahlo and meet some who might be less familiar like Benjamin Patterson. Listen as they collaborate, fight for justice, ask for money, work through pain, and affirm the
Eva Hesse: Oh, More Absurdity
This episode focuses on Eva Hesse (1936–1970). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artist Mary Weatherford and art historian Darby English. Hesse is one of the most influential artists of her generation, despite having a career that lasted only 10 years. In a rare 1970 recording, made only a few months before her death, Hesse discusses the trajectory of her practice, her distinctive materials, and t
Yoko Ono: A Kind of Meeting Point
This episode focuses on Yoko Ono (b. 1933). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artists Catherine Lord and Sanford Biggers. In an interview from 1990, Ono reflects on her influences, her years on the international avant-garde scene, and the impact of her marriage on the reception of her work.Additional ResourcesBarbara Rose Papers Finding Aid
Helen Frankenthaler: Let ’er Rip
This episode focuses on Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011). test Joining host Helen Molesworth are artist Rodney McMillian and art historian Alexander Nemerov. Frankenthaler made large abstract paintings by pouring thinned paint directly onto the horizontal canvas. In interviews from 1969 and 1971, she discusses the inspiration for this radical innovation as well as other early influences. testAdditi
Betye Saar: Working My Mojo
This episode focuses on Betye Saar (b. 1926). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artist Linda Goode Bryant and art historian Marci Kwon. Saar is the only California artist in this series, and her work has been deeply influenced by the region’s cultural landscape. In a 1975 interview, she discusses the diverse sources for her art and how she prevailed in the face of racism and gender discrimination.
Lee Krasner: Deal with It
This episode focuses on Lee Krasner (1908–1984). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artists Lari Pittman and Amy Sillman. In interviews from 1972, 1975, and 1978, the first-generation abstract expressionist discusses her formation as a painter, the progression of her work, her relationships with fellow artists, and her role as guardian of Jackson Pollock’s legacy.Additional ResourcesPollock Krasner
Alice Neel: Viva la Mujer
This episode focuses on Alice Neel (1900–1984). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artists Simone Leigh and Moyra Davey. Neel is known for striking, expressionistic portraits of family, friends, lovers, and neighbors in Spanish Harlem. In interviews from 1971 and 1975, she discusses inequality, economic hardship, and her own mental health challenges.Additional ResourcesEstate of Alice Neel, David Z
Season 1—Recording Artists: Radical Women
In this season of Recording Artists, host Helen Molesworth delves into the lives and careers of six women artists spanning several generations. Hear them describe, in their own words, their work, relationships, and feelings about the ongoing march of feminism. Contemporary artists and art historians join the conversation, offering their own perspectives on the recordings and exploring what it mean
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