COVID Check-In with David Leopold

Virtual Memories Show
COVID Check-In: David Leopold

Author, archivist and curator David Leopold checks in from Bucks County, PA. We talk about curating art in a quarantine and organizing the Socially Distant Theater virtual exhibition of Al Hirschfeld’s drawings of solo shows, how museum audiences are changing over the years and his concerns that we’ll continue to drive away from in-person experience, missing JazzFest in New Orleans, making a social-distancing garden, bingeing on The Leftovers and Saki’s short stories, researching minstrel shows for an exhibition an exhibition on race & identity in George Herriman’s work, and contextualizing them as commedia dell’arte (while being sensitive about the potential for offense inherent in the subject matter), working on a Frontera music virtual exhibition for Arhoolie, going 6 weeks without leaving the farm he lives on, and more. Give it a listen! And go check out Socially Distant Theater!

You can listen to all these COVID Check-In episodes at The COVID-19 Sessions.

Listen to the conversation! Then check out the archives for more conversations from The Before Times.

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About our Guest

David Leopold is an author and curator who has organized exhibitions for institutions around the country including the Library of Congress, the Field Museum in Chicago, the James A. Michener Art Museum, and the New York Public Library. Internationally, he has organized shows for museums including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Filmmuseum in Berlin. He has been the archivist of Al Hirschfeld’s work for 25 years and has written extensively about twentieth century performance caricature. His most recent book is The Hirschfeld Century: A Portrait of an Artist and His Age.

Follow David on Twitter, check out the Ben Solowey Studio and the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, and listen to our full-length podcast

Credits: The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of David by him. It’s on my instagram.

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