4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2024
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
After more than 25 years reviewing art, the Financial Times’ US art critic Ariella Budick is full of sage advice on how to approach museums and exhibitions, and how to discover our personal taste. Her biggest tip is that art is a form of communication, “a cry in the wilderness”, and “you’re just listening”. So don’t run to the wall label and forget to look at the work. Approach the art first, then see if it sparks you to learn more.
-------
We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. We’re on X @lifeandartpod and on email at [email protected]. We are grateful for reviews on Apple and Spotify. And please share this episode with your friends!
-------
Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Ariella’s recent review of a Renaissance mysteries exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://on.ft.com/3WKBhUl
– Her take on the Joan Jonas retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York: https://on.ft.com/3K4SGzK
– The review of Hannelore Baron that she mentioned: https://on.ft.com/4bI9NCW
– Ariella also recently published her MoMA top 10 picks: https://on.ft.com/3UIOSZK
-------
Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart
-------
Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. |
0:03.8 | I'm Lila Raptopoulos. |
0:06.1 | The US art critic Arellella Butick is one of my favorite explainers at the Financial Times. |
0:11.2 | I often look up her art reviews after I've seen a show at a museum in New York as I'm trying |
0:15.6 | to form my own opinion on it. |
0:18.0 | Aurella's reviews do a few things. |
0:20.1 | They place the artist in context. |
0:22.1 | They consider whether the exhibit did them justice. |
0:24.8 | They cover a huge variety of shows across time periods and the world. |
0:29.4 | And they often make me laugh a lot. |
0:32.0 | Recently, she wrote a scathing review of a video art exhibition at the Museum of Modern |
0:35.9 | Art by the artist Joan Jonas. In it, |
0:38.6 | she wrote that the show was like walking a puppy. You're curious about every leaf, but in the end, |
0:43.9 | you just, quote, spend an eternity nosing the same unpromising patch of sidewalk. Ariella is with me |
0:50.7 | to talk about the craft of being an art critic and how we can be more adventurous and trust our judgment when it comes to art. |
0:57.3 | Areella, hi. Welcome to the show. |
0:59.2 | Hi. Thank you. |
1:00.7 | Thank you so much for being here. |
1:02.3 | So to start, I wonder, you have such an incredible job. Can you tell us how you became an art critic? |
1:08.3 | Sure. I have a PhD in art history and my husband has a PhD in music |
1:14.3 | composition and he got a job first. And so I needed to stay in New York. And so I just started writing |
1:24.9 | reviews for Newsday, which is a newspaper on Long Island. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forhecz Topher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Forhecz Topher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.