In episode 106, Ann and Ben continue their conversation about the Western canon, the state of museums in the 21st century, and discuss breaking down the systems that are the foundation of the modern museum.

In this bonus episode, Ann and Ben talk about how they got into this art thing in the first place. Seems it helped to have artists in the family.

In s1e5, Ann and Ben talk about the Western art-historical canon and recent, important efforts to redefine it, to break it apart, to destroy it. How can/should museums embrace multiple voices and points of view? What happens to museum collections?

After the debut of the podcast Platemark, the most pressing listener question had to do with the positionality statement. That’s where Shafer and Levy introduce themselves by clarifying their gender, sexuality, and race (Shafer: cis-het white woman; Levy: cis-het white man). This bonus episode tackles the issue of positionality as well as the land acknowledgments (Shafer: Baltimore is on the land of the Piscataway Conoy people; Levy: Cleveland is on the ancestral land of the Erie people). There's a lot to unpack and it is uncomfortable. But that's the point.

In s1e4, Ann and Ben continue their conversation about value but turn toward artistic value rather than monetary value. Both Ann and Ben describe their own systems for evaluating a work of art. Ben’s system centers on reverse engineering a work and looking at the decisions made at each step. Ann’s system is a long and wide-ranging list of questions that get filed into emotional impact and visual impact. All of which is to say, there is no right or wrong way to approach a work of art.

In s1e3, Ann and Ben take a deep dive into value, beginning with market value. How is it established, who decides what the value of a work should be, how value is arrived at, and how it’s a totally subjective idea.