Museum Confidential

For the Season 10 premiere of Museum Confidential, we travelled all the way to the land of witches and whales in order to experience once of the best museum collections in the country. On this episode we have an in-gallery chat with Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, CEO and Executive Director of The Peabody Essex Museum, originally established in 1799.

Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) turns 25 this year. On our Season 9 finale we light out to the Pacific Northwest for a fascinating conversation with MoPOP CEO Michelle Y. Smith.

1946, in the wake of the Allies winning World War II, Sir Winston Churchill came to the US and gave his famous (and famously cautionary) "Iron Curtain" speech at a small college in Mid-Missouri. That school, Westminster College, is the home of America's National Churchill Museum, which celebrates the life, work, thought, and leadership of the "British Bulldog." How does a museum dedicated to the man who saved Western liberal democracy endeavor to stay relevant at a moment when, around the world, democracy itself seems endangered? Our guest is Timothy Riley, Director and Chief Curator of this museum.

Ralph Steadman is an English artist and illustrator best known for his long collaboration with the iconoclastic Hunter S. Thompson, notably illustrating "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Their partnership helped define "Gonzo" journalism. On this episode we catch up with Ralph, who turns 89 next month, and his daughter, Sadie, to discuss a career spanning exhibition now on view at Oklahoma State University.

As Season 9 resumes, we travel to New Jersey's Montclair Art Museum to experience the Museum's stunning new installation, Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge / Native Art and a chat with Laura Allen, the acclaimed curator behind the long-gestating project. Featuring artists including Shan Goshorn, Fritz Scholder, Holly Wilson, Oscar Howe, Rose Simpson, and dozens of others, the installation reimagines and presents a new template for what it means to display Native Art.

While our midseason break here at MC continues, we would like to introduce our beloved listeners (that would be you) to something special. It's a podcast called Immaterial: 5,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time; it's produced by our pals over at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We dig it. You will, too. For more episodes, or more information, please visit HERE.

Four years ago, deep in the pandemic, we travelled to Frank Lloyd Wright's Arizona compound, Taliesin West, to see how they were weathering the unprecedented challenges. We just went back to see what was learned and what remains with Niki Stewart, Chief Learning and Engagement Officer for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.