Musician Rafiq Bhatia feels compelled to capture his improvisations—fleeting moments of sound—in recordings. Like sound, light is transient. But James Turrell’s works, which inspired Bhatia’s composition, contain and present light, allowing us to forge a deeper relationship with an ephemeral substance. Find full transcripts and more information about this episode at https://www.nga.gov/music-programs/podcasts/rafiq-bhatia-james-turrell-new-light.html. Subscribe directly to Sound Thoughts on Art from the National Gallery of Art on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app

Rafiq Bhatia and James Turrell’s "New Light"

Messages, meanings, movements—how does art history help us understand our world? Join curators, historians, artists, musicians and filmmakers as they explore art and its histories in a search for our shared humanity. Download the programs, then visit us on the National Mall or at www.nga.gov, where you can explore many of the works of art mentioned.

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Howardena Pindell discusses how social issues and the prospect of societal change impact her art and life. In her artistic practice, Pindell’s work reflects a fascination with gridded, serialized imagery and surface texture. She often employs lengthy, metaphorical processes of destruction/reconstruction. Even in her more politically charged work, Pindell reverts to these thematic focuses to address issues of homelessness, AIDS, war, genocide, sexism, xenophobia, and apartheid. Watch the lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcw9iriBvU Learn more about Howardena Pindell’s work in the Gallery’s collection: https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.10097.html Pindell’s work “Free, White and 21" is featured in “The Double,” on view July 10–October 31, 2022: https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2022/the-double-identity-and-difference-in-art-since-1900.html The Elson Lecture Series features distinguished contemporary artists who are represented in the Gallery's permanent collection. The Honorable and Mrs. Edward E. Elson generously endowed this series in 1992. Find out more about the Elson Lecture Series on our website: https://www.nga.gov/audio-video/elson.html Still haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channels?    National Gallery of Art ►►https://www.youtube.com/NationalGalleryofArtUS   National Gallery of Art Talks ►►https://www.youtube.com/NationalGalleryofArtTalks

Howardena Pindell on Social Change

Guitarist Sonia De Los Santos hails from Mexico, where as a child she was exposed to different musical influences. In Auguste Renoir’s “Young Spanish Woman with a Guitar,” De Los Santos sees echoes of her younger self. Her song “Sueña” is an ode to dreams. 
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Season 2, Episode 8: Sonia De Los Santos and Auguste Renoir’s “Young Spanish Woman with a Guitar”

Maria Schneider composed “Bulería, Soleá y Rumba” in the wake of a cancer diagnosis. Inspired by American artists such as Robert Henri and George Bellows, Schneider discusses “art for life’s sake” that tells a story of people—like the evocative figures in Bellows’s The Lone Tenement.

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Season 2, Episode 7: Maria Schneider and George Bellows’s “The Lone Tenement”

This work reminds jazz trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis of the proud, hard-working generations that raised him. A history of struggle may suggest the minor key, but Marsalis ultimately chose upbeat music to celebrate those who fought and made it work.

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Season 2: Episode 6: Delfeayo Marsalis and Hawkins Bolden’s “Untitled”

Clint Smith, Renée Stout, and Hank Willis Thomas present on the role of history and memory in shaping American culture and identity. This is the third talk of the three-part series "John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art: Afro-Atlantic Histories," which gathers literary and visual artists to reflect on how art responds to and shapes both official and overlooked narratives wrought by the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies. Watch the entire video by Hank Willis Thomas titled “A Person is More Important Than Anything Else…,” commissioned by NY Live Arts for the Year of James Baldwin: https://hankwillisthomas.com/WORKS/Video/2 
Watch the lecture: https://youtu.be/oM6_4MmmzJU

John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art and Community Celebration 2022: Afro-Atlantic Histories, Session III: “Blackness is not peripheral to the American project; it is the foundation”

Rafiq Bhatia and James Turrell’s "New Light"

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