Art History Happy Hour

When we started Art History Today and its podcast, State of the Arts, we wanted to show how art and its history make and inform the news. Because many of our topics are stories that have continued to develop, we're using today's episode to review updates to four of our previous episodes. FYI, we're also continuing to update our coverage of these stories through posts to our Facebook page, and also, to the original blog posts for each episode.  

The rise of organizations like ISIS (or ISIL) has brought attention to the looting and destruction of ancient artifacts in the Middle East. In today's episode, Colette LeRoux and Gina Konstantopoulos join us to discuss the history of looting and iconoclasm in the Middle East, and how contemporary events and civil strife are impacting research in their fields.

In today's episode we discuss the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, whose offices in Paris were attacked on January  7th, 2015. Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy, having produced cartoons that have invited criticism and even violent action for decades. In its images, we can see the continuation of a long tradition of French satire, the characteristics of which we focus on in the episode.

On November 12, 2014, the auction house Christie's hosted its annual fall auction of major works of postwar and contemporary art in New York. With sales totaling $852.9 million, the auction now stands as the highest-grossing auction in history, and has led some to speculate that the billion-dollar auction is imminent. In this episode, Natasha Degen, an expert on the art market, joins us in discussing how the art market works, as well as its history and future, and its relationship to larger social and economic trends.

In today's episode, we discuss one of the most popular and controversial artists of the last century, Thomas Kinkade (1958–2012). Kinkade's works often depict a pristine, idyllic, timeless past that continues to resonate with viewers. Many in the art world, however, have consistently criticized Kindade for glossing over the more problematic aspects of our collective past, as well as for his business and studio practices. 

In this episode, we look at the ongoing debate over the proposed expansion plans of two beloved NYC museums: MoMA and the Frick.  - See more at: http://www.arthistory.today/#sthash.200u0nvd.dpuf

Happy Halloween! In today's episode we discuss Romanticism, a period that produced some of our favorite creepy images in the history of art. Romantic artists like Caspar David Friedrich, Francisco Goya, William Blake, and Théodore Géricault explored themes of death, despair, the sublime, and madness––perfect for your Halloween enjoyment!

The biggest show of the year in New York (and maybe America, or the world) closed this weekend: the retrospective of Jeff Koons at the Whitney Museum of American Art. While Koons is a controversial figure who has achieved more commercial than critical success, the consensus about this show seems to be that the works, in the end, are indeed masterpieces. In this episode, we put aside the hype and look very closely at three sculptures spanning the artist's career, in order to see if there is more than meets the eye.

In August, The Art Newspaper reported that Donald Olson, an astrophysicist at Texas State University, had pinpointed the exact moment that Monet painted his work Impression: Sunrise to 13 November 1872. The report described this moment as the "birth of Impressionism." In today's episode, we discuss the painting and unravel some of the problems of this claim.

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and political activist who has been named the most influential artist alive. A retrospective of his work has been touring the U.S., and his name is constantly in the news (whether for his art, his run-ins with Chinese authorities, or his internet memes). While his activism has earned him international acclaim, it tends to overshadow his art; in this episode, we focus on looking closely at three of his major works, in order to understand the importance of his choices as an artist (and not only as an activist).