Recording Artists

Did you know Robert Rauschenberg was fired by John Cage? Us either—until we heard Rauschenberg telling his side of the story to Barbara Rose in one of the interviews in Getty’s archives. We’re sharing clips from the archive as bonus episodes while you’re waiting on season four. In this first episode, you’ll hear Robert Rauschenberg explain how he stopped designing stage sets for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company all while gaining ...

Robert Rauschenberg is one of the best-known artists of the 20th century, in part because he never stopped exploring new mediums and styles. His work with new technology, however, is often overlooked. In 1960, a chance meeting with Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver led them to eventually co-found Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a nonprofit that paired artists with scientists and engineers to use the most cutting-edge new ...

Laser physicist Billy Klüver had always been interested in art. So when he started working at Bell Labs in New Jersey in the late 1950s, he began going into Manhattan and meeting artists—and in short order he was collaborating with them. He co-founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to facilitate these partnerships and worked to find corporate sponsors, with mixed success.

In this second episode of the season, we get to k...

Artist Fujiko Nakaya is best known for her ethereal sculptures made with fog. But her very first fog sculpture, which kicked off decades of working with this unusual and highly technical material, came about almost by chance—and thanks to her ties to Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). At 91, Nakaya is still making fog sculptures that compel audiences to consider the environment and our impact on it in new ways.

In this thir...

In season three of Recording Artists, artist and futurist Ahmed Best examines the groundbreaking art-science organization Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Through the stories of E.A.T.’s co-founders, artist Robert Rauschenberg and Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver, as well as artist Fujiko Nakaya, who continues to make technology-inflected artworks, this season investigates how artists and engineers collaborated to explore...

In this special live episode of Recording Artists, season two host Tess Taylor speaks with Getty Research Institute curator Pietro Rigolo about the making of the series, what she discovered through the letters, and artists’ stories and letters that didn’t make the cut. Author Maya Binyam joins them to bring the letters to life via dramatic readings.

This program is co-presented with the Los Angeles Review of Books.

The Getty Patron P...

In 1975, Meret Oppenheim’s small painting Würgeengel, or Angel of Death, is included in a sprawling exhibition organized by famous curator Harald Szeemann. She had painted it over 40 years earlier, when she was only 16 years old. The only problem now is that the curator has totally misunderstood her artwork—and placed it in a sexist context in the show. Rather than meekly accept this, Oppenheim writes Szeemann a deeply personal let...

In the mid-1960s, Nam June Paik is living in a run-down studio in SoHo, struggling to make ends meet. But even as he jokes about his ongoing battle against cockroaches, he is building his network, seeking out support for his artist friends, and always experimenting with form. Paik’s vibrant personality is on full display in a letter from this period to musician David Tudor. Partially typewritten, partially handwritten, and full of ...

On May 20, 1962, the morning after his first child is born, Benjamin Patterson writes a touching birth announcement to his own parents. The letter covers all the usual details—the baby’s weight and height, how the birth went, what the hospital is like—but its form is totally unique. Most of the letter is written in the voice of his newborn son, Ennis. Patterson, then a young, struggling musician and composer living as an American e...

By 1956, M. C. Richards has earned a PhD in English, taught poetry at Black Mountain College, gotten married (and divorced) twice, dedicated herself to pottery, helped found an artists’ cooperative alongside creators like John Cage, and become deeply romantically involved with avant-garde musician David Tudor. Tudor is often on the road, but luckily Richards is an incredible letter-writer. In her notes to him, she plays with langua...

It’s July 1942, and the artist Marcel Duchamp has recently arrived in New York City after fleeing the Nazis in Vichy France. As he settles in, he writes to his longtime friend and fellow artist Man Ray, who is living in California. In this casual letter, Duchamp asks Man Ray for help. He needs buyers for his latest artwork: a suitcase containing miniatures of many of his most famous pieces, from the mass-produced urinal he signed h...

In 1944, Frida Kahlo is at a crossroads, both in terms of her health and her career. In April of that year, with World War II dragging on, she writes to her gallerist—and former lover—Julien Levy. In this tender and personal letter, she moves from the logistical challenges of sending art across national borders during wartime, to describing her painful new steel corsets, to asking after her many friends in New York, where Levy live...

In season two of Recording Artists, titled Intimate Addresses, host Tess Taylor dives into the lives of six artists. From personal letters pulled from Getty’s archives, discover more about artists you’ve probably heard of like Frida Kahlo and meet some who might be less familiar like Benjamin Patterson. Listen as they collaborate, fight for justice, ask for money, work through pain, and affirm their resilience. Anna Deavere Smith r...

This episode focuses on Alice Neel (1900–1984). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artists Simone Leigh and Moyra Davey. Neel is known for striking, expressionistic portraits of family, friends, lovers, and neighbors in Spanish Harlem. In interviews from 1971 and 1975, she discusses inequality, economic hardship, and her own mental health challenges.

Additional Resources

• Estate of Alice Neel, David Zwirner Gallery
• Cindy Nemser Pape...

This episode focuses on Lee Krasner (1908–1984). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artists Lari Pittman and Amy Sillman. In interviews from 1972, 1975, and 1978, the first-generation abstract expressionist discusses her formation as a painter, the progression of her work, her relationships with fellow artists, and her role as guardian of Jackson Pollock’s legacy.

Additional Resources

• Pollock Krasner Foundation
• Cindy Nemser Papers ...

This episode focuses on Betye Saar (b. 1926). Joining host Helen Molesworth are artist Linda Goode Bryant and art historian Marci Kwon. Saar is the only California artist in this series, and her work has been deeply influenced by the region’s cultural landscape. In a 1975 interview, she discusses the diverse sources for her art and how she prevailed in the face of racism and gender discrimination.

Additional Resources

• Betye Saar,...

This episode focuses on Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011). test Joining host Helen Molesworth are artist Rodney McMillian and art historian Alexander Nemerov. Frankenthaler made large abstract paintings by pouring thinned paint directly onto the horizontal canvas. In interviews from 1969 and 1971, she discusses the inspiration for this radical innovation as well as other early influences. test

Additional Resources

• Helen Frankenthal...