The Rabkin Interviews

Holland Cotter is the chief art critic and a senior writer at The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer for criticism. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Holland. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:The Metropolitan Museum of ArtJoe Feddersen’s Charmed“Joan Jonas: A Trailblazer Shines at MoMA” by Holland Cotter (The New York Times, March 2024)Civilian Warfare Gallery“The Topic Is Race; the Art Is Fearless,” by Holland Cotter (The New York Times, March 2008)Henry David ThoreauBorobudur Temple“Native Modern Art: From a Cardboard Box to the Met” by Holland Cotter (The New York Times, July 2024)Siena: The Rise of Painting, exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard (Columbia University Press, 2024)Agnes Martin: Paintings,Writings,Remembrances by Arne Glimcher (Phaidon Press, 2012)ArtforumHyperallergicEmily DickinsonGertrude Stein

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Nomad Producer, Maybird and Jozeque. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers in the spaces where they work made by Kevin J. Miyazaki. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Robin Givhan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and senior critic-at-large for The Washington Post. She is one of eight writers to win the 2024 Rabkin Prize. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with Robin. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:I Just Keep Talking by Nell Irvin Painter (Knopf Doubleday, April 2024)“America’s tents are pitched on shameful truths,” by Robin Givhan (The Washington Post, April 2024)“The ethnicity question: New York and Europe take different line” by Robin Givhan (The New York Times, October 2002)Freedom Monument Sculpture ParkThe National Memorial for Peace and JusticeBryan StevensonStumbling stonesFlyboy In The Buttermilk: Essays On Contemporary America by Greg Tate (Touchstone Books, 2015)The Art of Grace: On Moving Well Through Life by Sarah Kaufman (W.W. Norton & Co., 2015)“The Only One: As a black man and the creative director of Vogue, André Leon Talley is at the intersection of many worlds,” by Hilton Als (The New Yorker, October 1994)“Virgil Abloh’s wondrous success” by Robin Givhan (The Washington Post, November 2021)Institute of Contemporary ArtFigures of Speech by Virgil Abloh, exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2021

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Flint, ZISO, Captain Joz, and dannyminus. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

TK Smith is an arts writer, cultural historian, and the newly appointed curator of the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. He is one of eight writers to win the 2024 Rabkin Prize. For the first time in the prize’s history, the Rabkin Foundation commissioned portraits of the winners in the spaces where they write and conducted interviews with them about their lives and ideas. Here is Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime journalist and the foundation’s new executive director, in conversation with TK. It has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:Beverly Buchanan, Art Papers, Fall/Winter 2020Duane Linklater: mymothersside, Frye Art Museum exhibit, 2021Malcolm Peacock, Studio Museum in Harlem residency, 2024-25Imani PerryMonument Lab“A Boxcar on East 4th Street” by TK Smith (Monument Lab, August 2023)“A Stage for Aiyyana” by TK Smith (Monument Lab, May 2023)“The Dirty South” exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts“A Cosmos of Southern Black Expression” by TK Smith (Art in America, July 2021)Benny AndrewsMichi MekoBloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler (Seven Stories Press, 2005)Christopher Robert JonesBlue by Derek JarmanKJ AbuduThe Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Hatchett Book Group, 2018) Art on My Mind: Visual Politics by bell hooks (The New Press, 1995)Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa (Aunt Lute Books, 1987)

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Music by Ariel Shalom, Flint, Sémø and Just for Kicks. These interviews are accompanied by newly commissioned portraits of these writers made by Kevin J. Miyazaki in the spaces where they work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com

Welcome to The Rabkin Interviews. In this episode we preview a series of conversations between the eight winners of the 2024 Rabkin Prize and Mary Louise Schumacher, a journalist and the new executive director of the Rabkin Foundation.

Mentioned in this episode:The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz (Random House, 1996) Kevin J. MiyazakiCarolina MirandaAX Minarashid shabazzAndrás Szántó

This project is produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. Our production team includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer, and Johnathon Olsen, editor. Original music is HaHaHa by Ariel Shalom and Present in the Past by Flint. These interviews will be accompanied by portraits of the Rabkin Prize winners in the spaces where they work made by Kevin J. Miyazaki.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com