Join Getty president Jim Cuno as he talks with artists, writers, curators, and scholars about their work.

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Images and transcripts:
http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/series/art-ideas/

Art + Ideas Podcast

"The reason why African Americans began these places of leisure and relaxation in the outdoors was because they were excluded from going to the white establishments."

Around the turn of the 20th century, African Americans seeking to escape racism in the South began moving to Southern California in larger numbers. Like others who migrated to the Golden State at the time, they also came in search of new opportunities and seaside recreation. But discrimination prevailed, even out West, and Black Americans found themselves barred from accessing public pools, parks, and beaches. As a result, Black entrepreneurs and community builders created their own gathering spots, such as Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach and Ocean Park in Santa Monica, where people of color could enjoy surf and sand. 

These successful leisure sites weren’t embraced by everyone—it wasn’t long before white residents, local developers, and members of the KKK launched campaigns of harassment. In 1922, African Americans were forced to give up plans for a beachfront project in Santa Monica. A few years later, the oceanfront property owned by the Bruce family was seized by the city through eminent domain and the resort was shut down. Today, many of these stories of Black resourcefulness and self-determination—thwarted by racist policies—have been forgotten, if not intentionally obscured. But there have been some attempts to make amends, including California’s Governor Gavin Newsom recently signing into law a new bill that will return the oceanfront property taken from the Bruce family almost a century ago to their descendants.

In this episode, historian Alison Rose Jefferson discusses these stories as documented in her book, Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era, and the need for a more inclusive look at America’s past.

California Leisure Sites Pioneered by African Americans

“You look at the thinking behind the creation of the building, but then also at the material needs. And you merge the two to really build an in-depth understanding of the building, and a path forward to preserving it.”

From the sculptural curves of the Sydney Opera House to the sliding walls and windows of the Eames House, the hallmarks of modern buildings make them easy to spot. Modernist architecture—with its signature use of industrial materials and innovative, sleek designs—emerged in the early 1900s and dominated the post–World War II building boom. Unfortunately, many of the iconic buildings from this period are now in serious need of repair but lack clear conservation plans due to the use of untested building methods and materials. How do you fix concrete that’s been damaged by ocean water, or remove graffiti to preserve stainless steel? In response to such dilemmas, the Getty Foundation created the Keeping It Modern initiative, an international grant program focused on the conservation of significant 20th-century architecture. Launched in 2014, Keeping It Modern has to date supported a total of 77 projects in 40 countries. 

In this episode, Antoine Wilmering, senior program officer at the Getty Foundation, discusses the importance and ongoing impact of Keeping It Modern.

Protecting Modernist Architecture for Generations to Come

Deborah Grant, James Ensor

Here’s a sneak peek of Art + Ideas, a podcast in which Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, talks with artists, writers, curators, and scholars about their work.

Art + Ideas Trailer

Weekend bike trips to visit Medieval churches of southern England with his father; an excavation digging in Roman Canterbury at age fourteen. And so Colin Renfrew’s lifelong fascination with the past began. Renfrew talks about his life and career of piecing together ancient fragments, how the field of archaeology has evolved, and what role governments play in this dynamic and political discipline. Renfrew is retired professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of the British Academy.

Colin Renfrew on a Life in Archaeology

Edmund de Waal, potter and author, chats about the life, legacy, and lore of porcelain. He takes us to porcelain’s very beginnings in China, recounts its journey to Europe, layover in Tennessee, and expansion to the rest of the world. Edmund parallels this history with his own philosophy related in his most recent book, "The White Road: Journey into an Obsession"—a philosophy that speaks to the physical and spiritual journey of an artist, learning to reject more than one accepts and appreciating the various shades of white that appear as a story unfolds.

Edmund de Waal on The White Road

It’s where John Cage staged his first Happening, Fridays were often dedicated to art classes, and all faculty, staff, and students participated in the college’s operations from farming to construction. Located in the mountains near Asheville, NC, Black Mountain College was an experimental school founded upon the idea of “learning by doing.” We stop by the Hammer Museum’s exhibition, "Leap Before you Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957", to talk to Helen Molesworth, curator of the exhibition and chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Helen Molesworth on Black Mountain College

When art historian T. J. Clark visited the Getty Museum in 2000, he came upon a gallery that featured two paintings by seventeenth century French painter Nicolas Poussin (the National Gallery, London’s "Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake" and the Getty’s "Landscape with a Calm") and found himself returning over and over again. In 2008, Clark documented his reflections of the two landscapes, their opposing depictions of life and death, and exploration into the depths of visual complexity in his book, "The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing." Clark visits the Getty’s Poussin painting in the Getty’s galleries and discusses how his perspective of the painting has changed over past decade.

T. J. Clark on Poussin

“He was always about the particular. The completely particular. This particular shape, this particular form, this particular color…everything is completely unique and particular,” so says Yve-Alain Bois, art historian and professor of art history at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, about the celebrated, late artist Ellsworth Kelly. In this conversation, Bois shares what he learned about Kelly’s life, artistic process, and interest in the particular while working on the artist’s catalogue raisonné.

Yve-Alain Bois on Ellsworth Kelly

Artist Pipilotti Rist and historian and "North of Dixie: Civil Rights Photography Beyond the South" author Mark Speltz.

Pipilotti Rist, Mark Speltz

Kimi ni Todoke OP 1

The Getty works in Los Angeles and around the world to conserve and interpret the world's artistic legacy.

Colin Renfrew on a Life in Archaeology

Getty

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