THIS WEEK’S NEW EPISODE
This week’s guest is Susan Crane! She’s a historian, a professor at the University of Arizona, and the author of “Nothing Happened: A History.” We talk about why the Mona Lisa only got famous after it was stolen from the Louvre; what museums have historically meant to people, and how they’ve been reshaped over time; and the ongoing political battles about what goes in a museum and how it’s presented.
Find the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify — or find your favorite app here!
BEHIND THE SCENES
🏛️ The origin story, pt. 1
If you’ve been following my work before this podcast, then the fact that I’m into museums may be a bit surprising. My last original podcast, Follow Friday, was all about internet culture, and a lot of the shows I’ve been fortunate enough to produce at LightningPod have been technology & business podcasts.
Call ‘Em Like Museum is, in part, a reflection of something I realized after COVID-19 shutdowns ended: Making the effort to go to a place, in person, and experience something, with other people, is so radically different — and for me, preferable — to doing the same sort of thing online.
I’ve read, and I’m sure you have too, that people are increasingly spending their time alone, on their devices, at home. To me, museums are a wonderful way to push back on that frictionless isolation. There’s still room in my heart for a deep scroll into the depths of Wikipedia (shoutout), but I have never regretted leaving the house to go to a museum.
If nothing else, I hope this podcast encourages you to do the same.
— Eric
IN MY INBOX
🤖 George Lucas, AI art, and Philadelphia’s “best people”
CC BY-SA 4.0 - Gage Skidmore
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will have “a hanging garden, an amphitheater for performances, a garden with monumental sculptures of Star Wars characters and iconic figures like Rosie the Riveter, and a rain fountain that doubles as a renewable cooling mechanism for the building.” [Architectural Digest]
Dataland, the new AI art museum in LA, “excels at the capitalist logic of optimization and very big numbers, which unfortunately also fumbles the artistic process in a few specific ways.” [Frieze]
Stolen paintings by Cézanne, Renoir, and Matisse have been recovered in northern Italy and five suspects have been arrested: “They were professionals. But we were better.” [Smithsonian Magazine]
At the Salvador Dalí Museum, a new project “tracks where and how long participants look as they view paintings from the Spanish Surrealist artist … The goal is to discern how various content impacts art appreciation.” [University of South Florida St. Petersburg]
An “unapologetic micromuseum” about Philadelphia’s people is opening in Philly: “Because Philadelphians don’t care what others think of them, the city breeds the worst behavior and its best people.” [NBC Philadelphia]
THE GIFT SHOP
🎁 “Nothing Happened: A History”
Everyone who subscribes to this newsletter before November 10 has been entered into our Gift Shop Giveaway! (Full rules here)
(Not subscribed yet? You can do that right here.)
One of the prize packages, themed to this week’s episode, will include a whole lot of nothing … or, more accurately, a copy of Susan Crane’s insightful book, “Nothing Happened: A History.” The winner will also get stickers, postcards, and maybe some surprise goodies!
💪 How to help the podcast:
Tell a friend: Forward this email to a museum lover in your life
Leave a review: On Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify
Before we go… I love this photo of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, taken by Reddit user Ok_Principle8906. Guess I gotta go see it!
