Skip to main content

Broad City‘s Abbi Jacobson Is Hosting A Podcast About Modern Art

"While I love contemporary art, I have a TON of questions."

“In a world of paint, canvas, and plaster of Paris, one woman dares to ask the question…what the hell is that?”

Recommended Videos

Abbi Jacobson of Broad City is partnering with the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and WNYC Studios to produce a 10-episode podcast on modern art, called A Piece of Work. While Jacobson is most famous for her role on Broad City, she started out her career as an artist. “I went to art school,” she explained, “and I’m actually also an illustrator. And while I love contemporary art – I love it – I have a ton of questions. So for this podcast, I’m going to MoMA, and I’ll get to look behind the scenes. I’m going to wander the galleries, and I’ll be talking to artists, curators, and friends – people like, Questlove, Hannibal Buress, Samantha Irby, Tavi Gevinson, RuPaul.”

Given how visual modern art can be, it’s a bit of a curious subject for a podcast. And yet, so much of contemporary art is based on larger ideas about the nature of art and representation itself, and so many its seminal works are built around provoking a particular viewer reaction. There’s actually something sort of genius about distilling a discussion of those works down to just those two things: an audio capture of the viewers’ reactions, and a disembodied discussion of the ideas behind them.

Plus, I love Broad City‘s weird, freewheeling take on modern city life, and there’s no topic better suited to “weird and freewheeling” than modern art.

Each episode will center on a specific topic, analyzing two or three representative artworks with special guests and curators from the MoMA.

  • Episode 1: Everyday Objects
  • Episode 2: Abstraction
  • Episode 3: Monochromes
  • Episode 4: Light
  • Episode 5: Minimalism
  • Episode 6: Performance
  • Episode 7: Video
  • Episode 8: Pop Art
  • Episode 9: Design
  • Episode 10: Text-Based Art

Entertainment Weekly has a full write-up of who’ll guest-star on which episode, and which specific works will be discussed for each topic, along with an audio sample of the podcast.

(Via Entertainment Weekly; image via The Met)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Filed Under:

Follow The Mary Sue: