Can a statue change American history?
How do we decide who gets a statue? What happens when you realize how many people deserve a statue but never got one? What’s the difference between a “forensic sculpture” for an interpretive exhibition, and one you’d put in a fine art show? Why are some museums just not complete without a bronze statue of the main characters? Are there “statues of limitations”?
Ivan Schwartz (Founder and Director of StudioEIS), joins MtM host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners) to discuss “Sculpting History.”
Along the way: hagiography, phalanges, and ketchup bottles made of bronze.
Talking Points:
1. What is a “Forensic” Sculpture?
2. Sculptor as Visual Storyteller
3. How to Sculpt a President
4. A Phone Call from the Archives
5. Telling History Like It Is
6. Statues of LImitation
How to Listen:
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-the-museum/id1674901311
Listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6oP4QJR7yxv7Rs7VqIpI1G
Listen at Making the Museum, the Website:
https://www.makingthemuseum.com/podcast
Links to Every Podcast Service, via Transistor:
https://makingthemuseum.transistor.fm/
Guest Bio:
Ivan Schwartz is the founder and director of StudioEIS. He is a sculptor, painter, and designer, with a keen interest in American history and the use of sculpture in the development of our national symbols. With a degree in sculpture from The College of Fine Arts at Boston University, he packed up and spent a year working in Pietrasanta, Italy in the early 1970s. He was the recipient of a distinguished alumni award from Boston University in 2003, and has shown his work in New York since 1981. Ivan was a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts until the end of 2009 and was also a founding board member of Art Omi, an international arts workshop. He was also President of Innovators in America, 2009-2011, working closely with Sir Harold Evans. The StudioEIS archive was acquired by the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas, Austin, in 2014 in association with a new area of study on American symbols.
StudioEIS has created hundreds of projects in its 50-year history; most notably for: The National Constitution Center, The New York Historical Society, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Virginia Women’s Monument, and The National Museums of African American History and Natural History. The studio has explored the American Presidency, Military History and Civil Rights history extensively. Current Projects include the Clara Luper Memorial that will be unveiled in May in Oklahoma City and Theodore Roosevelt & Barack Obama Presidential Libraries.
Ivan has been seen recently on the CBS Sunday Morning program and at the Lyndon Johnson Library in conversation with Doris Kearns Goodwin on the subject of Abraham Lincoln. His film: “Lest We Forget, Statues of Limitation,” can be seen on Vimeo.
About Making the Museum:
Making the Museum is hosted (podcast) and written (newsletter) by Jonathan Alger. This podcast is a project of C&G Partners | Design for Culture.
Learn more about the creative work of C&G Partners:
https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/
Links for This Episode:
Ivan by Email:
ivan@studioeis.com
StudioEIS Online:
“Lest We Forget: Statues of Limitation” on Vimeo:
Links for Making the Museum, the Podcast:
Contact Making the Museum:
https://www.makingthemuseum.com/contact
Host Jonathan Alger, Managing Partner of C&G Partners, on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanalger
Email Jonathan Alger:
alger@cgpartnersllc.com
C&G Partners | Design for Culture:
https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/
Making the Museum, the Newsletter:
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