The Shape of Art: Place, Relevance, and the Living Force Between Adorer and Adored

Bette Midler recently made headlines for tweeting a picture of three girls at a museum distracted by their phones instead of admiring the art. Yet the context in which we view art tends to be just as compartmentalized and distracting as a phone. Today on the podcast, we look at varying visions of art in cultural context — from the paleolithic caves to Indian temples to modern performance art — and move towards a conclusion that art, perhaps, isn’t just in the object. It’s in the state and qua...