Category: Episodes

Episode 23: Rock Steady

Published March 9, 2020

AH4A is back with an episode that ROCKS! Allyson discusses the rock art at Serra da Capivara National Park, Piauí, Brazil, and what its story reveals about what we do (or don’t) value.

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Episode 22: Gilded Gingerbread

Published December 24, 2019

An icon of the head of John the Baptist (c. 1680) from Yaroslavl is the focus of this last episode of 2019, prompting a discussion of how Russia has been viewed across history.

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Episode 21: A Paintbrush in Her Hand

Published November 25, 2019

Indigenous Canadian artist Daphne Odjig’s painting Bathed in Sunlight (1983) and the larger story of Odjig’s career prompt us to think about Native art and how it is (or isn’t) included in the mainstream contemporary art world.

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In Focus: Conservation Horror Stories

Published October 31, 2019

It’s Halloween 2K19 and Allyson is sharing a very specific type of horror story–art conservation horror stories! Listen in, and then share your own tales of artsy mishaps by emailing allysonh[at]arthistoryforall.com!

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Episode 20: Big Odalisque Energy

Published October 28, 2019

There are lots of different types of bodies in the world, but artist Fernando Botero focuses on the rounder kind–in this episode, Allyson tells you about Botero’s 1998 painting L’Odalisque, and talks about how it relates to body image and ideas of the “other.”

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Episode 19: The Casco and the Yacht

Published October 1, 2019

Allyson discusses Filipina artist Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s Girls with Baskets (1966), and how colonialism, class, and global politics affect even the most sentimental of art.

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Episode 18: As Much Worker as Woman

Published August 26, 2019

Allyson discusses Myra Albert Wiggins’s The Lacemaker (1899, Portland Museum of Art), workin’ hard for the money, and types of labor that we might not see as labor. This one’s for you, needleworkers!

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Episode 17: First Lady to Travel Over Sea

Published June 25, 2019

Esther Mahlangu’s Untitled, 2008 has simple geometry, but a complex context–Allyson talks about its connections to commerce, soccer, and… BMWs?

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Episode 16: Invasion of the Night

Published May 27, 2019

It’s a mind-bending episode as Allyson guides you through Roberto Matta’s surreal mental landscape, Invasion of the Night (1941), and explores its connections to physics and psychology.