Epis. 315: What goes on behind the scenes of a museum (specifically MoMA), and why it matters, with Fernando Dominguez Rubio, author of Still Life: Ecologies of the Modern Imagination at the Art Museum, part 1 - a podcast by Michael Shaw

In the first of several parts with Fernando Domínguez Rubio, a professor of communications at UCSD and author of Still Life: Ecologies of the Modern Imagination at the Art Museum, he talks about:

How he got started with the massive eight-year project of this book, beginning with his post-doctoral thesis interviewing numerous people who work at the Museum of Modern Art; how he gained entry into the museum (hint: via the Conservation dept.); the hidden labor that’s done at the museum, as part of something he calls “mimeographic labor,” a process to make objects of ‘the same;’ how most art in the world is in storage – it isn’t seen art – which is definitively the case for museums; how much invisible labor goes into what visitors see in a museum, and to what extent that labor, spread around various parts of the museum and its numerous artworks, is sustainable.

Further episodes of The Conversation Art Podcast

Further podcasts by Michael Shaw

Website of Michael Shaw