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David and Art
Monday 4:44am, 6:44am, 8:44am and 5:44pm

Art reveals the world to us in new ways.  On KWBU, we have a new weekly feature focusing on art.

The module is hosted by David Smith, an American historian with broad interests in his field.  He’s been at Baylor University since 2002 teaching classes in American history, military history, and cultural history.  For eight years he wrote an arts and culture column for the Waco Tribune-Herald, and his writings on history, art, and culture have appeared in other newspapers from the Wall Street Journal to the Dallas Morning News.

The very first record he remembers listening to when he was little was Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic’s recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and that set him on a lifelong path of loving music and the arts.  He’s loved history for almost as long, and finally saw them come together in his career.  He believes that history illuminates the arts and the arts illuminate history—that they co-exist and are best understood together.

Follow David on Twitter @DavidASmith12

Latest Episodes
  • When it comes to cultural artifacts around the world, the rules of Indiana Jones no longer apply
  • Pieces of art from nearly 2000 years ago might soon be back where they started.
  • In a previous episode of David and Art, David Smith previously discussed the death of artist Brice Marden, but the artists personal life leads to this weeks episode.
  • Remembering artist from a prominent generation who continued developing his style long after the public attention had shifted away.
  • Remembering a Belgian painter who brought dream images and the unconscious into his art.
  • This summer, the Pope sat down with 200 artists to find common ground in what they both do.
  • Building cultural institutions is a public responsibility, not just a private one.
  • The Dutch painter Vermeer is going into assisted living facilities to help people there feel less isolated.
  • If you haven't considered dance to be a form of public art, take a ride on the subway.Taking tap dance into places where people least expect it is a good way of turning anywhere into an art space.
  • Music written for a concert on a river hundreds of years ago became a classic that's still popular.On his way to becoming one of the best-loved composers in England, one German-born musician wrote tunes intended to be played on a boat.