© 2024 KALW 91.7 FM Bay Area
KALW Public Media / 91.7 FM Bay Area
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Spot: The Secret Lives of Paintings

Kandinsky was inspired to paint "Impression III (Concert) (Impression III [Konzert])" in 1911 after attending a concert by Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet no. 2, opus 10.

This week on KALW's showcase for the best stories from public radio podcasts and independent radio producers...

Excerpt from “Seeing & Illustrating Music,” produced for WBUR’sStylus, originally aired December 2014.

Credit Vasily Kandinsky, Kleine Welten XII (Small Worlds XII), from the portfolio Kleine Welten, 1922.

50 years before Vasily Kandinsky’s“KleineWelten XII” was created, the artist was 30 years old, and a lawyer with zero artistic training under his belt. It took a bolt of perspective; a singular, physical experience that was so powerful and surprising that it changed the course of Kandinsky’s life. The podcast Stylus from WBUR in Boston takes us back to that moment on the streets of Moscow in the late 19th century. 

This piece features art historian and lecturer Ben Street. It was excerpted from a longer episode about vision and sound, which you can find at stylusradio.org. You can also find the podcast on SoundCloud.  

Nocturne,” produced by Cathy FitzGerald & Neville Edwards, featured on Re:sound, originally aired in 2009.

Every day, thousands of people pass through the doors of the National Gallery in London, and every evening, a handful of men and women patrol the silent galleries, spending their nights with the likes of Cézanne, Rembrandt, Hepworth, Beale, Degas, Bacon, Monet, van Gough... But what happens when the last visitor leaves? “Nocturne" explores the uncanny secret life of artworks, through conversations with cultural historian Marina Warner, author Tracy Chevalier, poets AoifeMannix and Jacob Sam LaRose, and the staff whose job it is to patrol the silent galleries at night.

This piece was produced by Cathy FitzGerald and Neville Edwards for Antenna International’s audio tour of the museum, and it aired on Re:sound from the Third Coast International Audio Festival in 2009. You can listen to more from Third Coast’s archives at thirdcoastfestival.org, where you’ll also find a link to subscribe to the Re:sound podcast.

This week's episode featured music from: Black Mother Super Rainbow, JonBrion, Kevin Shields, and TheMirettes.

If you have a suggestion for a podcast or an audio project we should feature, please drop us a line at thespot@kalw.org.

Tune in next week for another episode of The Spot, only on 91.7 KALW San Francisco.