About Art

Latest Episodes:

Episode 223: Art Raises the Questions, Not the Answers | Bart van der Heide Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

Bart van der Heide is Director of Museion in Bolzano, Italy. Before joining Museion, Bart held leadership and curatorial positions at institutions including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunstverein München. Throughout his career, he has championed museums as places where contemporary art, civic life, and community come together.

This conversation explores museums as spaces of imagination, belonging, and public trust. Bart reflects on the exhibition that transformed his life, what artists have taught him about leadership, and why institutions must evolve from within to meet the needs of both their communities and the people who work inside them.

Together Bart and Heidi Zuckerman discuss contemporary art, organizational culture, mutual aid, public responsibility, collective experience, and the evolving role of museums in shaping the future.

A thoughtful conversation about leadership, imagination, and why art continues to matter.

Episode 222: Art Actively Gives Meaning to the Toil of Existence | Lisa Edelstein & Robert Russell Jul 14, 2026

Show notes

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with actor, writer, and artist Lisa Edelstein and artist Robert Russell.

Recorded as they celebrate their collaborative exhibition Palace in Time at the Skirball Cultural Center, this conversation explores partnership, artistic practice, Jewish ritual, memory, storytelling, and the ways we create meaning through the objects, relationships, and traditions that shape our lives.

Lisa discusses her evolution from actor to painter, drawing on family photographs to create intimate works that explore narrative, memory, and the Jewish experience. Robert reflects on his paintings of everyday objects, the sacredness of attention, and how ordinary things become vessels for history, devotion, and remembrance.

Together they speak about creativity, discipline, vulnerability, seeing, collecting, marriage, and the experience of building individual artistic practices while supporting one another's creative lives.

Lisa Edelstein is an actor, writer, and artist whose paintings transform family photographs into deeply personal explorations of memory, identity, and storytelling. Her work has been exhibited at Charlie James Gallery, Anat Ebgi, GAVLAK, and is included in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Robert Russell is a conceptual painter whose work explores memory, mortality, iconography, and ritual through paintings of everyday objects. He received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been exhibited internationally and is represented by Anat Ebgi Gallery.

A conversation about attention, making meaning, and the ways art helps us understand ourselves and one another.

Episode 221: Who Protects an Artist’s Legacy? | Daisy Murray Holman Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

Daisy Murray Holman is Executive Director of the Artists Legacy Foundation.
She and Zuckerman explore the often unseen work of supporting artists beyond the present tense: archives, artists’ estates, preservation, catalogues raisonnés, and the emotional and structural care required to sustain artistic legacies over time.
Murray Holman also reflects on the legacy of her mother, painter Elizabeth Murray, and what it means to inherit not only artwork, but responsibility.
A conversation about care, stewardship, continuity, and why artists matter enough to protect across generations.

Episode 220: Within My Language in These Paintings, There's a Lifetime to Work Out - with Jennifer Guidi Jun 30, 2026

Show notes

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with artist Jennifer Guidi.

This episode was recorded live before an audience at the Orange County Museum of Art in conjunction with And so it is., Guidi's solo exhibition curated by Heidi Zuckerman.

Born in Redondo Beach, California, Guidi received a BFA from Boston University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is held in major public and private collections worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris.

Known for her luminous paintings that draw inspiration from nature, meditation, ritual, and the California landscape, Guidi has developed a distinctive visual language rooted in repetition, mark-making, color, and the exploration of consciousness.

In this conversation, Heidi and Jennifer discuss artistic practice, meditation, motherhood, ritual, silence, creativity, nature, and the relationship between awareness and intention. They also explore the role of repetition in art, the influence of landscape on memory and perception, collecting, community, and the lifelong process of discovering one's own visual language.

Together they reflect on inspiration, failure, trust, surrender, and the ways creativity can help us connect more deeply with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

A thoughtful conversation about art, awareness, and what it means to devote a life to making.

Episode 219: Art Changes Everything - with Diane Brown, RxArt Founder Jun 23, 2026

Show notes

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with Diane Brown, founder of RxART.

For more than twenty-five years, Diane has worked at the intersection of contemporary art and healthcare, commissioning leading artists to create projects for hospitals and medical facilities across the United States. Through RxART, artists including Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Rashid Johnson, Laura Owens, Rob Pruitt, Will Cotton, Mickalene Thomas, and many others have transformed clinical environments into spaces that support healing, imagination, and human connection.

In this conversation, they discuss the origins of RxART, the relationship between art and healthcare, public engagement, philanthropy, empathy, access, and the growing body of research demonstrating the positive impact of art on physical and emotional well-being.

They also explore childhood, fear, resilience, collaboration, neuroplasticity, the role of environment in shaping experience, and the ways artists help us navigate uncertainty through creativity, beauty, and wonder.

At the heart of the conversation is a simple but profound idea: art is not separate from life. It has the capacity to comfort, connect, transform, and change how we experience the world around us.

A thoughtful and inspiring conversation about healing, imagination, and why art matters.

Episode 218: "Nothing We Do Is Quick” - with Gemini G.E.L. Jun 16, 2026

Show notes

Ann Grinstein and Suzanne Felsen are co-directors and co-owners of Gemini G.E.L., one of the most influential artists’ workshops and publishers in the world.

Founded in Los Angeles in 1966 by Stanley Grinstein, Sidney Felsen, and master printer Ken Tyler, Gemini G.E.L. has collaborated with generations of artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Serra, David Hockney, Ellsworth Kelly, and many others, helping expand the possibilities of printmaking, editioned works, and artistic experimentation.

In this conversation with Heidi Zuckerman, they discuss collaboration, craftsmanship, innovation, family legacy, risk-taking, and the unique relationships that develop between artists and master printers over decades of working together.

They also explore the history of Gemini, the evolution of printmaking, artistic freedom, the role of experimentation, collecting, and what it means to sustain a creative institution for sixty years.

A fascinating conversation about process, patience, trust, and the often-unseen collaborations behind some of the most important works of contemporary art.

Episode 217: Transformational, Not Transactional - with Susan Taylor Jun 09, 2026

Show notes

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with Susan Taylor, Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Since 2010, Susan has led NOMA through a period of transformation, growth, and institutional reflection, expanding the museum’s engagement with artists, audiences, education, and community while helping shape conversations around what museums can and should be today.

In this conversation, they discuss leadership, cultural stewardship, community, resilience, contemporary art, public trust, education, New Orleans, nature, and the evolving role of museums in contemporary society.

Together they explore the balance between tradition and innovation, the importance of local culture within global conversations, intergenerational engagement, the relationship between art and public space, and the idea that museums should be transformational rather than transactional.

The conversation also touches on Hurricane Katrina, COVID, the NOMA sculpture garden, creative aging, spirit photography, Louisiana landscape painting, and the ways institutions can create spaces for connection, reflection, and belonging.

A thoughtful and expansive conversation about museums, leadership, and the role art plays in shaping civic and cultural life.

Episode 216: “The Knowledge Is Waiting for Us” - with Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff Jun 02, 2026

Show notes

Anna-Maria is the Director of the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, part of the Finnish National Gallery and one of the leading institutions dedicated to Finnish art from the 19th century to today. Previously the museum’s chief curator, she has organized major international exhibitions and is known for her scholarship on Nordic art, women artists, symbolism, and cultural history.

In this conversation, they discuss museums, scholarship, curatorial practice, silence, attention, accessibility, and the evolving role of cultural institutions. Together they explore how art history is shaped, who gets remembered, the importance of networks and mentorship, and the responsibility museums have in creating meaningful dialogue between historical works and contemporary audiences.

The conversation also touches on Helen Schjerfbeck, exhibition making, Nordic identity, women artists, esotericism, and the ways art connects knowledge with something more intuitive, emotional, and human.

A thoughtful and expansive conversation about art, perception, and cultural memory.

Episode 215: About Art: Your Questions Answered May 26, 2026

Show notes

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman answers questions submitted by listeners.

Together, the questions became a conversation about creativity, collecting, burnout, beauty, confidence, museums, meaning, and how to live a more artful life.

Some questions are practical. Some are philosophical. Some are deeply personal.

This episode reflects the curiosity, thoughtfulness, and emotional intelligence of the About Art community — and the many ways art shapes how we see, feel, connect, and move through the world.

Episode 214: Art, Survival, and Choosing Joy - with Hank Willis Thomas May 19, 2026

Show notes

What does it mean to live a meaningful life—and how do we know what truly matters?

In this episode of About Art, Heidi Zuckerman is joined by artist Hank Willis Thomas and curator Rujeko Hockley for a deeply personal and expansive conversation about attention, time, and the choices that shape a life.

Beginning from a place of reflection—on family, career, illness, and change—they explore how priorities shift over time, what it means to be present, and how we learn to identify what is essential. The conversation moves fluidly between the personal and the universal: parenting, partnership, creative work, and the quiet but profound question of how we want to live.

Hank speaks candidly about his recent experience with cancer and how it reshaped his thinking, while Rujeko reflects on turning 40, motherhood, and the evolving balance between ambition and fulfillment.

At its core, this is a conversation about perspective—about joy, gratitude, and the possibility of choosing how we move through the world.

In this episode, they explore:

how life events reshape priorities and perspective
the relationship between attention and meaning
parenting, partnership, and evolving identity
art as a reflection of how we live
why joy may be the most essential form of privilege

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