Since 1958, the Archives of American Art’s oral history program has preserved the distinct voices and human memory of the American art world in more than 2,500 interviews. Articulated draws on those interviews of the famous and the forgotten, featuring firsthand accounts from artists, dealers, writers, and other key figures, in dialogue with today’s thought leaders. Their expansive conversations and often surprising memories challenge us to see the world and our shared history in new and unimagined ways.
Credits:
Ben Gillespie, Arlene and Robert Kogod Secretarial Scholar for Oral History
Michelle Herman, Head of Digital Experience
Deanna Luu, Graphic Designer
Musical Theme: “Sound and Smoke," composed by Viet Cuong and performed by the Peabody Wind Ensemble with Harlan Parker conducting
Articulated is supported by the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
Throughout decades of protecting workers and their rights, the United Farm Workers union has been a significant nexus for artists and activists. In this episode, listen to three artists who have been instrumental in illustrating and activating the labor advocacy of the UFW, as Barbara Carrasco, Carlos Almaraz, and Ester Hernandez recount the importance of collective action and working alongside Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
Artistic education takes many shapes, as artists pass down skills and traditions to see them transformed by new hands. In this episode, hear how the classroom shaped artists, both as learners and teachers. Stories include Anni Albers's descriptions of lessons with Paul Klee at the Bauhaus and her own teaching at Black Mountain College, Carmen Lomas Garza on the activism that shaped her time as a student teacher, and Lee Krasner's memorable training moments along her artistic journey among others.
As mass media exploded and the American art scene bloomed in the 1950s and 60s, Rosalyn Drexler and Sturtevant pushed back on corrosive cultural assumptions. Drexler's collage paintings dissect popular attitudes towards fame, violence, and women, and Sturtevant's replicas spur questions around originality, reception, and perception. Hear how each artist made her own way in her own words.
The fourth in a series on healing and belonging, this episode reflects on art as community care work. In her 2020 pandemic oral history interview, photographer Cinthya Santos-Briones describes tending for her Brooklyn neighbors during a harrowing time. She mentions the care and connection she experienced during sound baths performed by the artist Guadalupe Maravilla. Maravilla, also based in Brooklyn, spoke to us more recently about his sound baths and installations that aim to effect communal healing. This is a bilingual episode in English and Spanish; a full transcript and translations are available at aaa.si.edu/articulated.
Art emerges through communities within their environments, and in this episode, installation artists Carolina Caycedo and Lita Albuquerque reflect on creating in dialogue with the earth and its inhabitants. From ecological and cultural preservation to the transformation of our relationship with nature, Caycedo and Albuquerque discuss the potential for connection they hope to enable through their work.
The Archives of American Art collects primary source materials—original letters, writings, preliminary sketches, scrapbooks, photographs, financial records and the like—that have significant research value for the study of art in America.
Find out how to give your papers, records, recordings, or other primary source material to the Archives of American Art.
Internship, fellowship, and volunteer opportunities provide students and lifelong learners with the ability to contribute to the study and preservation of visual arts records in America.
Original material can be consulted by appointment in our Washington, D.C. Headquarters.
Select holdings are available on microfilm at the Archives' offices in Washington, D.C. and at our New York Office.
Copies of unrestricted microfilm materials can be obtained through one of our affiliated research centers.
