52 min
057: Radical Tradition | Radio Juxtapoz Radio Juxtapoz
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- Arts
We often have those moments, the ones we literally denote as those where history stops for just one second to rewrite and reinvent itself. In America, you talk of 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Kennedy and MLK being shot, the night Obama was elected. This past Saturday may have been another, where the media call that Biden had won the electoral college sent seismic waves throughout the world. Those are instantaneous moments of history, where in a second, life is different. They are the rarest of times.
Perhaps that is why we wanted to share this conversation the week after an election and period of time that is so dominated by instantaneous social media communication. On November 21, 2020, the Toledo Museum of Art will open Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change, an exhibition that spans centuries and speaks to just how labor intensive oral history and physical storytelling can be. There is a beauty in the quilt, not only as an object of warmth and the process to create them, but as the museum notes "quilts have been used to voice opinions, raise awareness, and enact social reform in the U.S. from the mid-nineteenth century to the present." American history is so engrained in the history of quilts, from cotton production to the industrial revolution to civil rights, gender equality, queer rights, you tend to forget that these stories are not just part of an Outsider Art tradition but the very fabric of our lives. And how these two opposing words, "Radical" and "Tradition" are the hallmarks of how we grow and heal as a country in flux.
From Gee's Bend quilts, the AIDS Memorial Quilt to the contemporary works of Bisa Butler, there is a lot to understand about the dynamics of quilts and their place in the pantheon of American art. In episode 057 of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak with Radical Tradition curator Lauren Applebaum of the Toledo Museum of Art on how the pandemic changed her daily life at the museum, the history of Outsider traditions in institutional arts, Toledo's unique history in art and the intricacies of curating an art show on radical traditions while the country itself was going through radical changes on streets across America.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 057 was recorded via Skype from Toledo, San Francisco, London, October 27, 2020. Radical Tradition is on view at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio starting on November 21, 2020.
We often have those moments, the ones we literally denote as those where history stops for just one second to rewrite and reinvent itself. In America, you talk of 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Kennedy and MLK being shot, the night Obama was elected. This past Saturday may have been another, where the media call that Biden had won the electoral college sent seismic waves throughout the world. Those are instantaneous moments of history, where in a second, life is different. They are the rarest of times.
Perhaps that is why we wanted to share this conversation the week after an election and period of time that is so dominated by instantaneous social media communication. On November 21, 2020, the Toledo Museum of Art will open Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change, an exhibition that spans centuries and speaks to just how labor intensive oral history and physical storytelling can be. There is a beauty in the quilt, not only as an object of warmth and the process to create them, but as the museum notes "quilts have been used to voice opinions, raise awareness, and enact social reform in the U.S. from the mid-nineteenth century to the present." American history is so engrained in the history of quilts, from cotton production to the industrial revolution to civil rights, gender equality, queer rights, you tend to forget that these stories are not just part of an Outsider Art tradition but the very fabric of our lives. And how these two opposing words, "Radical" and "Tradition" are the hallmarks of how we grow and heal as a country in flux.
From Gee's Bend quilts, the AIDS Memorial Quilt to the contemporary works of Bisa Butler, there is a lot to understand about the dynamics of quilts and their place in the pantheon of American art. In episode 057 of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak with Radical Tradition curator Lauren Applebaum of the Toledo Museum of Art on how the pandemic changed her daily life at the museum, the history of Outsider traditions in institutional arts, Toledo's unique history in art and the intricacies of curating an art show on radical traditions while the country itself was going through radical changes on streets across America.
The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 057 was recorded via Skype from Toledo, San Francisco, London, October 27, 2020. Radical Tradition is on view at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio starting on November 21, 2020.
52 min