Artroverted

Abraham Burickson Episode 3 Show Notes

Our conversation was taped on May 29, 2020.

In this episode, I speak Abraham Burickson the co-founder and artistic director of Odyssey Works. An organization that designs immersive experiences for an audience of one that’s interdisciplinary, and poised on the boundary between art and life.

In our conversation, we discuss the challenges of crafting and executing Odysseys, the power of performance art, and the future of individualized immersive experiences in the age of zoom.

Trained as an architect of buildings, Abraham translates his experience into being an architect of experiences. He discusses his time working with the Whirling Dervishes in New York and Turkey, Odysseys past and present, and their transcendental effects on the participant.

About Abraham:

Abraham Burickson is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Odyssey Works, an interdisciplinary performance group that makes bespoke performances for one-person audiences. Trained in architecture at Cornell University, Burickson’s work spans writing, design, performance, and sound art. For more than a decade with Odyssey Works, he has continually sought to push the boundaries of interdisciplinarity and participatory art, working in collaboration with poets, actors, sound artists, composers, psychologists, designers, architects, filmmakers, and more in an attempt to develop an artistic process that is as rigorous in its craft as it is devoted to the continual re-evaluation of traditional form. Since 2002, the group has produced work in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Ithaca, and Seattle. In 2009 he started the Odyssey Lab, a series of intensive interdisciplinary retreats devoted to the study of basic questions in art. He is the winner of the 2018 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize, and his work has been profiled in the New York Times, Vulture, FastCompany, KALW, ArtInfo, the Stanford Storytelling Project, the SF Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, ARTE television, Metro NY, The Alcalde, and elsewhere. He has lectured at such places as the Brooklyn Museum, Cornell University, Fordham University, The GoGame, and Southern Exposure Gallery. In 2010, Charlie, a collection of his poems, was published on Codhill Press. His book, co-written with Ayden LeRoux, Odyssey Works:Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2016.

About Odyssey Works:

Imagine waking up to find yourself immersed in a performance that is all about you. Since 2001, Odyssey Works has been creating immersive, durational experiences for an audience of one. Our team is made up of artists in dozens of disciplines who study the life of one individual and use whatever means necessary to create intimate, meaningful performances that last days, weeks, or months, and occur not on a stage but interwoven with the life of our audience of one. The experiences are transformative; most of our participants change jobs, move, make new commitments to loved ones shortly after their Odysseys.

Odyssey Works Website: http://www.odysseyworks.org/

Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One publication page: http://www.odysseyworks.org/publications

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License).

Mark A Roglan Episode 2 Show Notes

Our conversation was taped on June 5, 2020.

In this episode, I speak with Mark A Roglan, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

We discuss his career path, projects, and the role of university museums and the Meadow’s status as a satellite embassy for Spanish culture.

About the Meadows Museum:

The Meadows Museum is the leading U.S. institution focused on the study and presentation of the art of Spain. In 1962, Dallas businessman and philanthropist Algur H. Meadows donated his private collection of Spanish paintings, as well as funds to start a museum, to Southern Methodist University. The museum opened to the public in 1965, marking the first step in fulfilling Meadows’s vision to create “a small Prado for Texas.” Today, the Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. The collection spans from the 10th to the 21st centuries and includes medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, and major paintings by Golden Age and modern masters.

Meadows Museum: https://meadowsmuseumdallas.org

About Mark:

Dr. Mark A. Roglán is the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum and Centennial Chair in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. He has been director of the Museum since January 1, 2006. He joined the Meadows Museum as interim curator and adjunct assistant professor of art history in October 2001. He became curator of collections in January 2002 and senior curator in June 2004. He also serves as adjunct associate professor in the Division of Art History at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts. Under his leadership the museum has increased its attendance; has developed a major program of international exhibitions; has created meaningful fellowships; produced insightful publications; constructed a new sculpture garden and outside spaces; made major acquisitions; formed new ways of educating and connecting with art for impaired people; as well as established strategic alliances with major museums, most importantly with the Museo Nacional del Prado. Before coming to the Meadows Museum, Dr. Roglán worked as a curatorial fellow and a research associate in the 19th-century painting and sculpture department of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain. Prior to his tenure at the Prado, Dr. Roglán served as a drawings department assistant with the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. During the previous academic year, he studied at Tufts University through a Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Scholarship. Among other fellowships and honors, Dr. Roglán was awarded an Erasmus European Union Scholarship for a year-long study at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. Dr. Roglán received master's degrees in both world history and art history and a doctorate in 19th-and 20th-century art from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. In 2013 he obtained an MBA from the Cox Business School at SMU. Dr. Roglán has contributed to many publications in the areas of19th-and 20th-century Spanish art, has given many national and international lectures, and has curated important exhibitions. He has many distinctions and awards, including being knighted with the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, a knighthood sanctioned by King Juan Carlos I for his contributions to Spanish art.

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License).

Our conversation was taped on April 25, 2020.

In our debut episode, we speak with Amy Lewis Hofland, Senior Director Crow Museum of Asian Art at the University of Texas at Dallas. We discuss her career trajectory from an elementary school art teacher to a university museum director. Starting with an internship at the Metropolitan Museum to meeting the Dalai Lama. She has shepherded the collection from a private family collection to a university museum with a global reach.

The collection is the largest collection devoted specifically to the Arts of Asia in the Southwest, and “an expression of how Dallas is designing the Asian art history of its own city.”

She discusses the challenge and benefits of going digital, including Crow Unscripted that’s live-streamed through the Museum's Facebook page. Her development as a leader, mentors, and the need to be a museum without walls.

Our discussion was taped at the outset of the pandemic and during the shelter in place order issued in Dallas. She speaks eloquently about the future and the need to create and contemplate during this time:

I think the world will be different. We’re not going back to normal. I’m almost calling this a pre-set: what do we need to design to be in place for us to know that we’re living this life that’s more closely connected between what we want to be and how we show up to the world. (36:30)

Wish for the Art World: All internships are paid. Museum visitors understand the importance of joining the insertions they support and that because of technology that artists make themselves more accessible to communities.

Since our taping, the museum announced plans to reopen Friday, September 18 with regular weekly hours every Friday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Crow Museum website: https://crowcollection.org/

Museum’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrowMuseum

About Amy:

Senior Director Amy Lewis Hofland leads the Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas, the preeminent museum dedicated to the arts and cultures of Asia in the southern United States. On staff since the museum’s inception in 1998, Hofland’s footprint can be found throughout the museum, including her recruitment and hire of leading Asian art scholars; launching the Crow Museum as the first “wellness museum” in the United States, and molding the museum’s award-winning education programs to emphasize collaboration and collective learning; helping to draw over 100,000 museum visitors a year. In 2018, Hofland led the acquisition of the Crow Museum to The University of Texas at Dallas, helping to ensure the care and preservation of the permanent collection in perpetuity and the planning of a second museum location on campus, making the Crow the only museum in the region with two distinct locations. Hofland holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts degree in art education from the University of North Texas, where she was part of the distinguished Marcus Fellow program. In addition to her work at the Crow Museum, Hofland is a noted author, speaker, and community leader serving on various board leadership positions in the Dallas-Fort Worth community. She is also working to create Dallas as a City of Compassion and recently formed and co-chaired The Compassion Council for the Dallas Arts District.

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License).

Welcome to Artroverted, a new podcast about the art world. Each week we speak with leaders and change-makers in the arts. From artists to museum directors and everyone in between. We discuss their experiences, the communities they serve, and why they’ve dedicated their lives to art.

The majority of season 1 was recorded April thru June 2020 during the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and is an insightful snapshot into the art world’s resilience and the power of art.

When it comes to art, it doesn’t matter if you’re an introvert or an extrovert.

Follow us on Instagram @artrovertedpodcast for more information about our guests.

Please join us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen for Artroverted launching on August 28th.