rabkin foundation

Emily Watlington Rabkin Interview Dropped

It has turned out to be an enlightening pleasure to listen to the interviews with the recipients of this year’s Rabkin Foundation awards, and none moreso than the conversation with Emily Watlington.

I’d already had the pleasure of working with Emily in 2022; she was my editor when I wrote about Mormon Architecture for Art in America, and I became a fan and follower of her writing work as well.

With Mary Louise Schumacher, she talks about some of the nuances and challenges of writing about art and disability. They also talk about Watlington’s attuned sensibilities brought to bear on the Venice Biennale, which purported to bring attention and critical consideration to many historically marginalized artists. Watlington’s diaries and in-depth review reveals that it often did just the opposite.

Rabkin Interview 2024 with Emily Watlington [rabkinfoundation substack]

Whoomp, There It Is: My Rabkin Interview Just Dropped

OK, I have not listened to it myself, but I can already tell from the links included in their post that they left in the part where I cried.

Aaand maybe where I said I quietly boycotted the Hirshhorn while it was wrapped in that Nicholas Party scrim. Love you guys!

[AFTER HEARING IT UPDATE: I llol’d that the Rabkin folks actually used the Hirshhorn clip to announce the interview on their Instagram. Love it. And I forgot that while I did acknowledge my pettiness, I also point out, I’m not wrong. Overall though, I think my favorite quote will be, “Again, with the Manet.” It feels undeniably weird to say, “listen to me!” but it actually turned out OK.]

Rabkin Interviews 2024: Greg Allen [rabkinfoundation.substack]

Holland Cotter Rabkin Interview Dropped A Minute Ago

I got caught up on listening to it pretty quickly last week, but I have been slow to post a link to Holland Cotter’s conversation with Rabkin Foundation executive director Mary Louise Schumacher.

Cotter talked about growing up free range in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and picked the Met for his workplace photo. Which after so many years at the Times, is probably the place he’s written about the most.

Cotter and Schumacher did not talk about his donation of the prize money to the the International Association of Art Critics and the Forge Project, to support emerging and Native American arts writing and fellowships, for which mad respect. [As ARTnews notes, the NY Times prohibits its full-time employees from accepting cash awards, and these days a full-time arts writing job is rarer than even the most generous awards.]

2024 Rabkin Foundation Award Recipient Holland Cotter [rabkinfoundation substack]

Robin Givhan Rabkin Interview Dropped

Technically it was released yesterday, but I just finished listening to the second interview with a 2024 Rabkin Prize recipient, Washington Post critic Robin Givhan.

In addition to her own work and career, Givhan spoke to Mary Louise Schumacher about visiting the Equal Justice Institute’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Birmingham, Alabama; and the same searing kicker in Hilton Als’ profile of André Leon Talley that has stuck with me for 25 years, too.

TK Smith Sets The Rabkin Interview Bar High

And here I thought I could be chill and grateful and just acknowledge the congratulations as they came in, while I processed the shock of being included by the Rabkin Foundation among an inspiring but frankly daunting group of writers, but I guess not.

The first of the series of interviews Rabkin Foundation executive director Mary Louise Schumacher recorded with this year’s award recipients dropped, and it’s great. Curator, writer, and cultural historian TK Smith talked with Schumacher about hope and repatriation; the unsustainability of art writing; Beverly Buchanan’s Marsh Ruins [visited here last year for a NYT story by another Rabkin recipient Siddhartha Mitter]; Derek Jarman’s Blue; and much more.

If they’re all like this, I think I will have to post about each one, including, when the time comes, my own. I hope I make even half as much sense.

The Rabkin Interviews: 2024 Rabkin Prize winner TK Smith [rabkinfoundation]