Office Hours: Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw talks ‘30 Americans’

In the latest episode of “Office Hours,” a Penn Today podcast, Professor of History of Art Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw explains the curation process behind the Barnes Foundation’s “30 Americans” exhibit.

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw
Professor of History of Art Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw. (Image: Eddy Marenco)

Welcome to the “office hours” of Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, professor of the history of art in the School of Arts and Sciences. 

Here, in the latest episode of Penn Today's “Office Hours” podcast series, which explores the minds of the University’s academic talents in a more unbuttoned setting, Shaw explains the event that shaped her career, the behind-the-scenes process of curating the new “30 Americans” exhibit at the Barnes Foundation that highlights contemporary art from influential African-American artists, and what her profession of choice might have been in a world where she didn’t end up as a scholar of art. 

Flowers cover top half of a figure while they wear a floral-patterned pair of tights
Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2008. The piece is made with fabric, fiberglass, and metal. (Image: The Barnes Foundation)

5:11: The event that shaped her career.

12:57: How her participation in “30 Americans” came to be.

17:20: Considerations for curating “30 Americans.”

31:34: What her job would be if she was not in academia.

42:21: What she thinks is an overrated virtue.

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