Raw Material

Art History For All guides you through Roberto Matta’s surreal mental landscape, Invasion of the Night (1941), and explores its connections to physics and psychology.

This episode was produced by Art History for All. More episodes at arthistoryforall.com.

This episode focuses on Betye Saar (b. 1926). In a 1975 interview, she discusses the diverse sources for her art and how she prevailed in the face of racism and gender discrimination.

This episode is produced by the J. Paul Getty Museum Museum. More episodes at getty.edu/recordingartists/.

“A painting is not a picture of an experience. It is the experience.”

— Mark Rothko

This episode is produced by The Lonely Palette. More episodes at http://www.thelonelypalette.com/.

Connor is a portrait of President William Howard Taft. He's hanging on a wall, but is anybody looking at him?

This episode is produced by Everything Is Alive. More episodes at https://www.everythingisalive.com/

This episode, "The Many Deaths of a Painting" was produced by 99% Invisible. More episodes at 99percentinvisible.org.

Catch a sneak peak of what’s coming this season on Raw Material's "summer mixtape," from SFMOMA.

Season update: Raw Material is temporarily suspending this season to create space for more urgent stories and conversations. Black lives matter.

Welcome to Raw Material from SFMOMA! Start here for a quick introduction to our seasonal arts + culture podcast, by SFMOMA Content Producer and Raw Material creator Erin Fleming.

Sayre Quevedo, Raw Material’s podcaster-in-residence for Season 6, is at the end of his journey. It all started with a curiosity about the surprising ways humans are connected, and a wild plot to make his way to various artists through “degrees of separation.” When we first meet Sayre, he’s stealing love letters back from an ungracious ex. In this final episode, where does this experiment leave him?

After a series of false starts, rabbit holes, and mind maps, the time has come for Sayre to (possibly) meet internationally acclaimed artist Nikhil Chopra, the sixth degree of separation. Nikhil is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, splayed upon the floor. Sayre is intimidated, alone, and buried behind a crowd of Nikhil’s friends and fans. Will the two finally connect, or will fate have it otherwise?

Nooshin Rostami is a United States–based Iranian artist living in exile. While her father was dying in Iran, Nooshin was 6000 miles away from home. How will she process her grief without physical contact—without seeing her sisters, her mother, and the body of her father? What will it take to cross the insurmountable distance between her and her closest connections? Her answer: light.