TLP Interview with The Cheeky Scholar

Hub and Spoke. Audio Collective. Hey again, it's Tamar. I'm back today with another interview, but it's not me interviewing someone. It's actually someone interviewing me. Earlier this year, when I was about eight months pregnant with my now seven-month-old, I had a really, really great conversation with Dr. Laura Ayad

host of the podcast The Cheeky Scholar. And at first we cast our net kind of wide, talking about the role of artists in society, about my favorite museums, you know, kind of bog standard stuff. But then we got into it. We got into it. Because Lara and I are both in the parlance of the moment, free speech bros. And if you're going to be a good artist

or a good art critic, you can't be afraid of censorship. And you sure as hell can't practice it. This is what we came to realize over the course of our conversation. You have to open your mouth. You have to look at the world with open eyes, with an open mind. And nothing shuts all those things, mouth, eyes, mind, more than fear. Fear of offending,

fear of going against the grain, fear of saying the wrong thing even when you're trying to say the right thing, or fear that full-on disagreeing with the party line of your quote-unquote side will put the whole of your values, your entire moral compass, in question.

What will everyone think of me? What if I call into question the tactics of my own side? Am I still allowed in the club? Am I still a good person?

Full disclosure, it's this fear and these questions that made me almost not share this conversation. But look, that's nuts. When you listen, you'll see why that's nuts. Why I was a little apprehensive and why I did it anyway.

Freedom of speech is one of the most foundational tenets we have in a liberal society. We don't need Norman Rockwell to tell us that. And this has always been the case, regardless of who had the cultural power to cancel whom. In this conversation, we dive into a lot of the stuff that you'd expect out of me.

Anselm Kiefer and Lodge Ghetto photographs, post-Holocaust memory. and also Dr. Seuss, Peter Pan, The Muppet Show, and also the role of artists and the role of museums. Like I said, it was sprawling, and it was great,

and I'm really proud to share it. After the break, my conversation with Cheeky Scholar, Dr. Lara Ayad. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Cheeky Scholar.

This is the podcast where smart and cheeky scholars share their knowledge about history, art, and culture, and bust a whole lot of myths along the way. I'm your host, Dr. Lara Ayyad. If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back.

For this episode, I had a chance to sit down with Tamar Abishai. Tamar is the creator and host of the Lonely Palette podcast. Now, if you've listened to The Lonely Palette before, you know that Tamar goes around the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with a microphone, and she interviews unsuspecting passersby, asking them what they think of the artworks that are on display, what the artworks look like, and how it affects them emotionally. Tamar also goes deep into the history of the artworks that are on display, providing cultural context.

She ultimately brings art history to the masses. If you haven't checked out the show, I highly recommend you go ahead and search for it in your podcast feed. So I was really excited to sit down with Tamar and talk about art, and in particular, to talk about what the role of the artist is in society today, and what the role of art museums should be. For instance, we talked about questions like, should museums exhibit art that some people consider offensive?

And is censorship always the answer to art that could be considered offensive or having offensive imagery? And when does censorship go too far? Coming out of the conversation, I kept thinking about what Tamar said about artists, because she argues that artists are journalists with emotions.

She also says that museums should steward art as a reflection of society, both the good and the bad parts. So stay tuned for this one. I think you're going to really like it. so tamar welcome to the cheeky scholar how are you doing uh thank you i'm i'm not bad uh i'm eight months pregnant so i'm a little achy but uh otherwise the this the flesh is

weak but the spirit is willing that's such a good way of putting it well congratulations again on your expecting. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you're growing the family too, right? So this is not your first rodeo. No, this is my third, third and final. Oh my goodness. Ladders being pulled up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's very exciting. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. So I understand. So first of all, I just want to say to Mar, I want to give a shout out because when I was first thinking about doing this podcast, you were one of the first people I turned to, to ask for advice on how to create one and everything. And you gave me such good advice, including, you know, a lot of you, you told me a lot of people think that they should

make a podcast based on what they want to say, but you told me make a podcast based on what you'd want to hear as a podcast listener. And that was one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever gotten. So thank you for that. That's been really, it's been really inspirational and it's actually given me concrete direction and where to take this project. So yeah. That's awesome. Oh, I'm so glad

to hear that. That was a, that was a hard one lesson myself. And I think that's actually something that, that so many podcasters, it's like, like no judgment, you know? I mean, why, why make a podcast if you don't feel like you have something to say. But if you want people to listen, you got to know to what they want to hear. And I think that's striking that balance because you don't

want to be totally captured by your audience and you don't want to make something that, you know, like you censor yourself or you, you know, you kind of take on a persona that isn't