Congratulations to Glenn Peers, Professor of Art History in our department, for creating a podcast about the Byzantine Fresco Chapel at the Menil Collection, for the Clark Art Institute where he is completing a year-long residency.

Professor Peers tells the story of his podcast:

“This podcast asked a number of art historians in residence at the Clark Institute this past year to ruminate briefly on an object or experience that was especially meaningful to us as art historians but also as people. Before I came to SU, I taught at UT Austin, from where I would bring students for day trips to the Menil Collection in Houston. The Menil is special in that it has very strong holdings in many areas, including medieval and modern, due to the interest of the founders in spiritually oriented art, broadly and ecumenically conceived. So we could look at icons in the main pavilion, visit the Rothko Chapel, on the way home on a Friday stop off for dusk activation of James Turrell’s designs for a Quaker Meeting house, but the heart of the day was a visit to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum, which combined the best of all those other objects and spaces. The frescoes returned to Cyprus in 2012 (though not to their original site, which is in the Turkish north), so this podcast is deeply nostalgic too. That was probably the most meaningful place for me as an art historian, and I even have the tattoos to prove it.”

Take a listen: “Always About to Take Place." https://bit.ly/3j4QtYO