Episode 4: Rebecca Taylor

As much as we need creativity in this world, as much as I need it in my life, I’ve somehow always been afraid of it.

Perhaps it’s because my parents really didn’t approve of my artistic leanings as a child. As some people may see it, art has no use and it’s not a practical way to make a living. I was always told by my teachers that I made beautiful things, but I grew up feeling like I always needed permission to create. Even today, I have to remind myself that expression of the self is our true gift to the world and that it’s my job to try and understand it. There are so many barriers to entry when it comes to engaging with creative energy. Is there purpose behind it? Will I know what it’s about? Will it make me feel stupid? Do I belong in that space?

I believe our ability to consciously commit to exploring and empowering ourselves with it is at the heart of giving voice to our souls.

My guest this week, Rebecca Taylor, has an incredible way of making it ok to be curious about art. While highly knowledgable in the domain, she never made me feel like any question I had was too dumb, nor did she have a pretentious and exclusionary air about her. She has always oozed art to me, and I was very intrigued by her experiences and passion for it. What I observed about Rebecca was that she was brilliant at holding space for creative expression and helping it find it’s voice and platform to resonate with others. I thought her presence and perspective would be beneficial to my exploration around apprenticeship and mastery because she’s studied and been around the dynamic in the most traditional and contemporary ways. How does she observe the evolution of an artist? What insights might she have from the historical cannon of art that is relevant to the discussion?

It is not easy to follow your bliss and believe that it has value in this world. I hope you enjoy the dialogue we have around what compels us to be who we are and how we best share it.

Full Transcript

Emily Kwok: (00:33)
Welcome to the Master and the Apprentice where we explore the path from apprenticeship to mastery. Today, I am super excited to have a guest who I think is really incredible in terms of what she does. I've had the opportunity to engage with Ms. Rebecca Taylor a number of times on an audio app called Clubhouse, and I've been able to listen to what she's had to say about the art world, which is really her domain. She's an art's culture strategist and I would love to leave it at that and have Rebecca speak a little bit more deeply about what it is that she does. Rebecca, welcome to the podcast.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:11)
Thank you, Emily. Thrilled to be here and to talk to you a little bit about arts and culture, which is, as you said, my passion and general purview in the world, sort of my lens through which I look at everything. Yes, I am an arts and culture strategist, something that probably didn't even exist 10 years ago or at least certainly wasn't named as such, and it speaks to the evolution of the art world. I began my career in museums. I am, first and foremost, an art nerd. I love looking at art. There's no place I'd rather be really than in a museum, or an art studio, or an art gallery, really looking at contemplating feeling, being inspired intellectually and aesthetically creatively by work of art. So I studied art history. I also studied business because I come from a very practical world where art history degrees theoretically don't pay the bills.

Rebecca Taylor: (02:19)
So I have my undergraduate degree in business with a triple emphasis in finance, marketing, and international business, and a minor in art history. And then my master's degree is in modern art connoisseurship and the history of the art market, long mouthy words. We can talk about later more if you want to. But then I started working right out of grad school in museums. I worked first at MOCA, Los Angeles, then at the Getty museum, and then at MoMA and MoMA PS I. And they were various roles, but all in external affairs, communications, PR, marketing, social media, audience development, really thinking about who the museum was and how we communicated who we were. And that might be through wall labels, that might be through press releases, that might be through advertising, onsite signage visitor experience, every real aspect of how the museum communicated who it was, became part of my purview.

Emily Kwok: (03:26)
That's fascinating.

Rebecca Taylor: (03:28)
Yeah, it was... I mean, it's an amazing thing, if you love museums, to be able to be someone who interprets who they are and helps other people understand that, and provide entrance to that, and make them ideally more accessible, more understandable, more welcoming, more clear about who they are. So I did that for many years and then I went to work for an agency where I worked with both museum clients but also art market clients. So I really expanded my purview from not just being a museum nerd but also working in the art market, working closely with clients like Rabassa with our galleries, from Gagosian, to [Almiraj 00:04:14], to Skarstedt, and understanding the market components as well, and more than anything really, expanding my international purview. I started working very extensively with clients in the Middle East, Sharjah Foundation, eSakal, the Saudi Art Council, also working in Asia with Kukje Gallery in Seoul, with ART21 in Shanghai, and really understanding the international dynamics of the art world and also the various bespoke cultures. I think it all informs one another.

Rebecca Taylor: (04:51)
So now I work independently as an arts and culture strategist with... It just means that I help organizations solve problems. So for example, a museum in Doha might hire me to help them look at how they're communicating with the world, how they're attracting cultural tourism, what the visitor experience might be when they get there, assessing their mission, and their brand, and their image, and how consistent they're being across various platforms in conveying their identity, and whether that is consistent with who they actually want to be, whether the perception matches how they perceive themselves and what they're trying to accomplish. So really I just help arts organizations solve problems and figure out where we are and where do we want to go, and then chart the course between the two.

Emily Kwok: (05:46)
Wow. Holy smokes. I'm so... How shall I say? Geeking out at all the different ways that you engage with the art world, and not just art itself, but also, like you said, how it's received and how it's viewed by others. And maybe that's a great place to start because some people may know that I actually studied art. I have a BFA. That's what I did straight out of high school. I went to art school, and I had originally come to New York when I was 19 thinking that I was one day going to be a famous artist. I ended up becoming known for choking people, but in some way it's a creative expression, but really what I think my arts education taught me was, just as you said, I think it really helped me learn how to engage with the world, and to problem solve with gumption, and to also think about things in your own way so that you're contributing towards a greater good as opposed to doing things the way everybody else does.

Emily Kwok: (06:52)
And so, I've often expressed that what I've really appreciated about that time was that it taught me how to both subjectively and objectively experience something, consider the elements within it, deconstruct it, maybe reconstruct it in some way, and just appreciate it for what it is, and to know that that object may be received differently by others. And so it's taught me how to almost hold things lightly in a way so that I can learn how to engage in more complex spaces if you will. And one of the things that I think is difficult about art and I experience this myself and I see it happen amongst most people, is that... You said it earlier in your introduction that it can sometimes be... it's a little bit difficult to engage with, or sometimes there's types of art or forms of art that are inaccessible whether it's because of the way that particular medium is used or the expression of the artist is not necessarily understood. And I feel like most of us want to understand.

Emily Kwok: (07:59)
I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more about that in terms of how should one, a layperson, for example, approach art when they don't understand it, when it feels too abstract for them. Because I think that sometimes as creators, when we go into a space where we are taking our passion and we're seeing what we see, it's difficult to always translate what we see to everyone else. And do you have any insight as to how we should engage with art so that we can learn to appreciate it more versus feel like it's not for us?

Rebecca Taylor: (08:36)
Oh, I love that question. And when I was listening to you speak about what art had given you, this creative thinking process, it's why I'm such a big advocate for putting the A in STEM, from moving from STEM to STEAM. Because I really believe that creative thinking, close looking problem solving, creative, out of the box, thinking is how the world solves the biggest problems. Even in science, we need more creative thinking. And if we were training children earlier or empowering children earlier to think in this creative way, to trust their eye, to be able to look, I think we would see such profound results in society. So I'm a huge advocate of arts education for everyone beyond just people who want to actually work in the arts. I think it can completely inform who you are, how you experience society, how you experience culture.

Rebecca Taylor: (09:44)
I mean, one of the reasons I fell in love with art was it tied together everything else that interested me, history, literature, politics, religion. I mean, you name it. Art can explore it and it can explore some of the most difficult topics in ways that all of a sudden feel approachable and understandable. I mean, if we think about something like climate change, we look at the numbers and they almost fly right over our head in terms of what's happening to the world because of our behavior as a society. But when an artist like Olafur Eliasson actually shows you a melting ice cap in real time, out in front of a museum in Paris, you then can actually start to understand these real consequences. So for me, art has that unbelievable power to contend with these really serious problems in different ways and to make them in some ways more accessible.

Rebecca Taylor: (10:49)
But to your question, sometimes it's hard to enter into because we feel like it's not for us, maybe, or we don't know what we're looking at. So there's so many different ways to approach a painting. And of course, if I come in with an art history degree, I'm going to be applying all sorts of methodologies to how I look at a work of art. But you don't need that background in order to appreciate it or experience it. I did a talk earlier this week on Garnica, on Clubhouse. And when I look at Garnica, obviously I see so much.

Rebecca Taylor: (11:29)
But anyone can walk up to that painting and experience the pain. Even if you know nothing about Picasso, even if you don't know that it was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government towards the end of the regime, trying to protest Franco and the rise of fascism, even if you don't know that it's responding to a historical event in Garnica, a bombing that had taken place, that had actually murdered all of these women and children, you can walk up and have none of that background, know nothing about Picasso, know nothing about his foray into cubism and why this work is so groundbreaking, and still formally witness what it's telling you.

Rebecca Taylor: (12:15)
The message is so universal and so profound in how Picasso shows you the traditional Pieta, the mother and child, which in art history was often referred to. First of all, Pieta means compassion or pity, and was often the Virgin Mary holding dead Christ in her arms. And here you see it with a mother and a child. It's a universal suffering, it's a universal pain that you can access as a visitor without knowing any of the background. If you just let your eyes guide you, a conversation will start then between your eyes and your heart. I think it's a little harder for visitors when it's pure abstraction to enter into a work or particularly conceptual works of art, which require perhaps a little more background or a little more in depth contemplation to past the, "My kid could do that," mentality.

Rebecca Taylor: (13:18)
But if you pause long enough and you let yourself digest it, you do have entry points you probably don't even realize. And let your mind wander as you're looking and see where it takes you. You don't have to have an art history degree to experience certainly not the aesthetic pleasure where there is that but also the conceptual rigor. Even if you're not getting what the artist meant for you to have, that doesn't mean it's not an incredibly powerful and important experience. There's not a right answer, is, I think, the important thing to remember.

Emily Kwok: (13:58)
I love that answer. When you were speaking, it made me think about why and when did our own voice or our own curiosity become so buried? Because if I think to when I first engaged with art, it was as a young child, and it was through play, and curiosity, and making crafts, and painting. I'm just thinking back in my history, when did it all of a sudden become scary to question or voice your opinion on something that was an object made for expression, maybe a talking point, or a way for someone to share their feelings or thoughts about the world? It's a curious point for me. And I also think that so much of art is also about receptivity and being able to be present with what it is that you are seeing or experiencing and processing that.

Emily Kwok: (15:05)
And I wonder if some of what we value today as a society is not necessarily in the realm of receptivity and it's difficult for people to let themselves feel. Because I think that, when I tie the art world to this idea of apprenticeship and mastery, I think about being able to go very deep into a space, and what it is that we learn from that process? So I just wanted to share that because it came to me as you were speaking. I'm wondering if you could touch a little bit on your bio. You said that you had always been drawn to art and it's something that you loved doing. So maybe relating it to what I had just said, what was it that art invoked for you and how is it that it led you down this path where you've really made your entire life about it, and not only your life, but that it's very important for you to be able to find ways to share what's important to you with the rest of the world and helping the world problem solve?

Rebecca Taylor: (16:12)
So I did not have exposure to art as a child. And perhaps that's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about it, because what you're describing, that loss of that curiosity, I think, is something that comes with adulthood, that belief that there's a right or wrong answer. I think that what we teach kids in school, is that you can learn answers rather than just feel things. And if you take a child to a museum, they don't ever say things like, "I don't know," if you ask them what they're looking at. They will have an answer even if they know nothing about the work. Whereas if I take an adult who's not in art to a museum, the first thing they say is, "Explain this to me," as though their opinion is invalid.

Rebecca Taylor: (17:05)
And so bridging that gap between the child willingness to talk about something they know nothing about and that adult timidity, is, I think, so important for people being able to access art, restoring that curiosity, restoring that willingness to think we might have something valuable to add to the conversation even if we're not an expert in it, because we all have eyes and we all see. And in fact, I love when I'm wandering through a museum and I stumble on a school group and I listen to them asking the children questions. And sometimes those kids, I tell you, they see things I don't see because all they're doing is looking. They're not necessarily imposing all of this education and all of this experience on the work.

Rebecca Taylor: (17:58)
They see a formal element and they're willing to talk about it straight away whereas I might be immediately imposing something about the artist, something about this subject onto the work as I see it. And so that's what I love about children in museums, and I think if we encourage that rather than walking people in and presenting a final explanation, people would feel so much more comfortable going in and doing the same.

Rebecca Taylor: (18:28)
So you asked about me personally. However, I didn't have that experience as a child. I didn't experience art history really properly until high school. And I only took a course because it was an advanced placement elective and I was Uber nerd who was trying to take all the advance placement classes. So I took art history thinking, "God, this will be so boring, but at least I'll get college credit," and... Right? I know. It's so funny. That's what happens when you're 15. And I went in. I mean I started that course. I was on track to be either a journalist or a lawyer. Those were the two things that interested me at the time. And then I remember three weeks in, we were looking at these Cycladic sculptures and I was just sitting there like, "Holy... How did I live my whole life without this? How did I not know about this before? This is everything."

Rebecca Taylor: (19:36)
And that feeling grew every single week. And as we moved through time, as we moved through that textbook, Gardner's Art Through the Ages... I still have my completely battered copy of that book from high school. And as we moved through every period, I felt more and more entrenched as art as the lens through which I wanted to live and experience the whole world. And that became really true for me. My travels became organized around art, my friendships, my life, the way I do things, it's all driven and motivated by art. And what I love about that is that it's not confining that while I may have this very specific world in which I live, it actually provides me a lens for understanding all of the worlds. Because if you live in the art world as I do, and you move through the art world, you need to understand everything about the whole world really, because artists are talking about everything.

Rebecca Taylor: (20:56)
So racism, gender studies, all aspects of identity are explored through art in today. Politics, genocides, I mean the history of the world, literature, mythology, name a topic and I could probably find an artist who's explored it or is exploring it. So for me, it really is not limiting even though it's so limited. In some ways, it's actually this lens through which I can explore any part of the world I want.

Rebecca Taylor: (21:35)
Do I want to travel to the Middle East? Amazing. I'll look and explore and learn about Islamic culture and their tradition of art. Am I going to China? Incredible. Okay, I will go to the Museum of Fine Arts in there. I will learn about the tradition of the ink paintings. Am I going to go to Japan? Fantastic. Hokusai, I will find a way to enter and learn about the society I'm traveling to and visiting, through their history, through their traditions, through their culture, through their art, and it's intoxicating. I mean, it's completely addicting if you're curious, because you can never learn enough. There's always more to learn, there's always more to experience. So that for me was an addiction that just started at age 15 in high school and has only grown as I move through the world.

Emily Kwok: (22:36)
Wow. In hearing you speak about your experiences, not only as you were growing up and getting into art, but also professionally in the way that you engage with people and art now, I also think about this... How shall I say... It's because art can be... It's funny. I feel like in some ways, those of us on the outside, and when I say the outside, those of us that are not deeply immersed within the world of art, we can sometimes look at it as a very, I'm going to use the word, elitist or tight space, as we were discussing before, because so many people will find that they feel that they don't know enough, or that they're not in the right place to speak about it, or that they might be judged for what they think. When really what I'm hearing in how you speak is that it's just such a rich world and a rich place to not have any boundaries around what is wrong and what is right.

Emily Kwok: (23:41)
And I would say in our modern world, when we think about an education, there's the right classes to take. And even as you suggested, you entered into art through AP classes and being a complete nerd and wanting to be on a track to do something. I'm wondering if you could touch a little bit on what makes an artist, and what makes an artist good. And I know that this might not necessarily be the type of language that you would use, but when you're in the position where you're curating experiences or presenting things in a particular way so that it can be better received, what is it that you're looking for in a particular artist or in their work? And do you find that there are any commonalities in terms of the types of people that you are presenting to the world and how they got there?

Emily Kwok: (24:42)
Because I think if we look historically through time, there are many artists who studied under a master and did many under paintings and trained their way up to earn their right to share themselves. And then there's also others who I'm sure were also painting like Basquiat. Maybe you're expressing yourself in your own way and you didn't necessarily have anyone guiding your process. So how do we end up in a place where we have, quote unquote, masters or artists that are largely celebrated by the world? How do you see them arriving in that place? Because as we've discussed already, it can be so broad and it can be so different. Is there anything that you've learned or any insight that you've gained through all of your studies?

Rebecca Taylor: (25:38)
Oh, wow. I mean, the thing is art has changed. The world around art has changed and evolved so much through the ages. So the master apprentice concept that was very much in place during the Dutch Golden Age, during the Renaissance, where you have infamously so many incredible talented students drawing and working in Rembrandt studio, that if they're unsigned, we have an entire project today of scholars trying to identify who actually made these drawings because there are thousands of them, and they're all incredible, and we don't know which were by Rembrandt versus one of its pupils. But that model has shifted. Today, you might have an incredible artist. If we think of, say, Lawrence Weiner studying with the late John Baldessari, other young students might have studied with the incredible Chris Burden when he was teaching.

Rebecca Taylor: (26:48)
So many students come up through CalArts and have learned through those professors there. So while that model of the master apprentice might have shifted, in MFA program, we still greatly see this influence of those who came before. And I think the reconciling of the master, or the father, the person who came before you, is something we've seen throughout art history. But particularly in contemporary art, this need to respond to what came before you and almost destroy it in order to move forward. I think you know we've talked separately from this about my love of Bob Rauschenberg. And one of Rauschenberg's most iconic works was called Erased de Kooning. And Erased de Kooning is a work where he walked into Bill de Kooning studio and he said to him... This is in 1953, just to give you some timing context.

Rebecca Taylor: (27:55)
So it's a moment where [AbEx 00:27:58] is king, abstract expressionism, right? And Bill de Kooning is one of the most preeminent artist. And Bob walks into his studio and he says to him, "Bill, I need you to give me a drawing." And he says, "Okay, Bob, what are you going to do with it?" And he said, "I'm going to erase it." And Bob laughs at him and he is like, "Okay, I'll give you a bad drawing," right? I know. Hysterical. He's like, "All right, I'll give you a bad one." And Bob's like, "No. I need you to give me a great drawing. One you actually really like," because that's so essential to this piece. So Bill ultimately acquiesces. I don't know how long it takes Bob to convince him, but having met Bob, I can tell you he was pretty charming and pretty convincing.

Rebecca Taylor: (28:46)
So I'm not too surprised that that Bill acquiesces and he gives him a drawing. And Bob goes home and he methodically erases it, ink mark by ink mark, erase, erase, erase. But what happens? We ultimately end up with this very strange, almost dirty work of art that shows you cannot ever permanently erase mark making, that the imprint of Bill de Kooning is still there even as erased by Bob Rauschenberg. So the traces of this drawing remain and now both of their marks are on this. And to me, this work is so conceptually brilliant. It's actually so ugly, I mean, to look at in person. But it's conceptually brilliant. This idea of we have to contend with our forefather, if we're the apprentice, we have to contend with the master, but they will never be lost on us. Even if we completely rebel, even if we go the other direct, even though Bob will push things so forward in the next year, in '54 as he moves into the combine, we still see that abstract expression is part and parcel of his work.

Rebecca Taylor: (30:17)
Even when he will make Rebus Minutiae, so many of these other work, Factum I and Factum II, abstract expressionism, even in rebellion against it, is the foundation of those works. And this is a very literal example that I'm giving you and we can't necessarily trace every artist in this way to their father that are rebelling against. But I think this concept of understanding that an artist has digested everything that's come before them, at least that they've experienced, that they've seen it, and that then they try to do their own thing, they try to leave their own mark, they try to find their own creative voice, if you will. And that is the history of art in many ways, is artists contending with that which came before, but then reconciling it to their present, and then adding their own lens, their own mark to it. And sometimes it's quite obvious in this particular case and sometimes it's less so.

Rebecca Taylor: (31:30)
But you see it a lot with... People talk a lot about copying in art and appropriation. And did they know about this Picasso's famous quotes about stealing. I don't actually think Picasso stole despite his quotes. Yes, of course. He was influenced by African mass. Yes, we see this. Yes, he was hugely influenced by Brock, his roommate, and his development of analytic cubism, and all of those things come into play. But it's Picasso's own language that he's putting on it, visual language, and he's reconciling the past, and yes, he's bringing in all of these sources, but then it's ultimately his.

Rebecca Taylor: (32:15)
And we see this thing happening a lot with artists responding to each other. I mean, Guernica in many ways... I mean, not Guernica, Dimwit El Dizel avenue in 1907 was in many ways a response to Matisse's Joy Vivre, the Joy of Life, and how he then takes that further and makes his own scene and puts it into the contemporary. We see it a lot in art history where you are either contending with the master who came before you, the generation before, or even responding in real time to someone you know, a colleague, a friend.

Emily Kwok: (32:56)
Rebecca, that was an incredible story that you shared. I was smiling the entire time that you were saying it because it was just such a beautiful lesson. And though very literal, I think it's something that we can all understand. And I know that initially, when I approached you about having a discussion with me on this podcast, it was a curious approach in terms of thinking how an athlete and an art strategist could have something in common to speak about. But in that story, I just heard thematically... For me, how I related to it was in my discipline where I've chosen to now practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is a fighting... it's a martial art that a very similar process occurs when a student begins to take the art on. In the beginning, they are imitating at best, trying to copy the movements of their instructors or other athletes that they admire, and it takes years for people to internalize those movements so that something that is seen as a generic technique can then become somewhat their own, right?

Emily Kwok: (34:10)
So they put their own flare or their own style into it because of how their bodies are uniquely made. And sometimes this process can take a year or two, but in many cases it can take a decade or more to reach a level where you are competently executing all the things that you have tried to imitate in your own way and also evolving those things to a place where they are uniquely your own. And at the highest level, I think as competitors match up on a world class level, you are really looking at movement artistry, right? You're looking at athletes who have developed their own approach to combat. And although they are taking techniques that have been taught many years before them, decades before them, they have now taken it to a new place. And the beauty in the combat is seeing how those styles match up.

Emily Kwok: (35:07)
And so whether or not people recognize it, I think at the highest levels, those of us who may relate to others who are being called masters or champions, or artists of whatever it is that they do, they're all contending with the same thing, which is their deepest, most natural expression, maybe combating isn't the right word, but engaging with others who have also invested deeply in that creative expression. And it's so interesting to me how much some of us may try to seek that out or fight to seek that out, and how difficult it can be to really get to that level. I'm wondering what you think about that in terms of the path one chooses. Even in your own case, you chose a path to...

Emily Kwok: (36:06)
You could have applied your brain in so many different ways, and the path that you chose was through the lens of art. It's not always easy to choose your way, at least in my experience, that's been the case. And I think that probably for many creators, it's difficult because your vision or your way might be not the same, or against, or abrasive compared to how everyone else is doing it. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that, and what you might see in that, or what you've experienced in some of the artists that you've studied in some of the careers that you've taken note of, how difficult is it for us as students to find our voice and explore something deeply enough and find our own way?

Rebecca Taylor: (36:53)
Such a great question. And I think, oh gosh, being an artist has to be one of the most difficult, quote unquote, jobs there is, because first of all, I think it's a calling, not even a job. It might be how you make your money, but it's someone who is just compelled to create. And this can manifest in writing, in painting, in so many different ways, but someone who just has to reconcile with the world and in a creative way and through a creative lens. And so, for an artist to find their own voice, to study, to know what came before it, to work from that, maybe to move from copying to infusing the style, to finding one that's completely their own, that's a journey in and of itself. And then there's reconciling with public opinion, which I think is a really challenging thing for artists to deal with, how and why do you become successful?

Rebecca Taylor: (38:02)
And we see things happen in fashions, right? That certain styles become very fashionable and that's what becomes collected and that's what becomes canonized. And there's a lot of conversation in the art world about, what about people who are doing something counter to that? Sometimes they don't get recognized until later in life. I mean, Picasso became famous at a very young age, but then we have someone like Alice Neel at the Met whose work... I mean, if we think about how long it took her to have that retrospective, sometimes it takes longer, sometimes that's because of our identity, sometimes that's because of our financial situation and our access, sometimes that's because the work we're making doesn't correspond to fashion at the time. I mean, I've heard a lot of young Black abstract artists be concerned about how they get their voice out, because right now Black figuration is so prevalent and so important that people are really interested in the work of someone like Mickalene Thomas, Kerry James Marshall that really explore the Black body in these beautiful and profound ways.

Rebecca Taylor: (39:28)
So what does that mean if you are a young Black artist who paints abstractly, or who works in a different medium? So I think, for an artist, there's so much to contend with, and for me, the best artists mute all of that and just focus on their own practice, and what they have to say, and how they want to say it. And I deeply hope that ultimately they will find recognition in due time because they have made a unique and profound statement. But unfortunately, I don't know that that's always true. The world is not completely fair and some artists are probably working remotely in incredible ways and may never be recognized. But hopefully you have the case of someone like van Gogh who wasn't recognized properly in their life but then we discover the work later through advocates, champions of their work, his Theo, other people in van Gogh's life who made sure that the work was seen, and remembered, and ultimately written into the canon of art history.

Rebecca Taylor: (40:46)
But that unfortunately, probably doesn't always happen. But I think for most artists, authenticity is the most important thing, staying true to who they are, conceptually stylistically, and that may evolve. As you were describing the moves of a jiu-jitsu fighter, I was thinking about how an artist style evolves, how they might paint like another artist initially but then ultimately find their own way forward. They might even abandon painting all together and become a conceptual artist. We have someone like John Baldessari who actually literally burned all the work he had made in art school and prior to a certain date, because he found his new non-style of style, which was completely conceptual in nature and moved beyond what he had made before, and thus burned it all.

Rebecca Taylor: (41:41)
We have an artist like Chris Burden, who was a performance artist for many years and then ultimately, in theory, abandoned performance art and moved to sculpture, but he actually always saw himself as a sculptor. His early work that was in performance was just around sculpting related to his body. So it's all so individual and so subjective that it becomes really difficult to place any ironclad assertions around anything. But I don't think there's a specific way that you make it as an artist necessarily. There are certain formulas that are more helpful than others. Go to a proper art school that's really recognized, form a network, meet the right people, both in terms of an artist cohort, but also of critics, and writers, and scholars, and hopefully you make it that way.

Rebecca Taylor: (42:38)
But I think there are... especially in this world of new media, we might see a disruption in that framework for how an artist becomes known. But I would hope that for an artist, the most important thing is to be true to themselves, stylistically, conceptually, whoever they are, and whatever they have to say to the world, because that's what makes you truly unique is your message, your lens, what you see, and how you then interpret that, decipher it, and convey it.

Emily Kwok: (43:16)
I love that. I feel like a lot of times we often think about how we stay ahead of the curve or how in whatever industry we may be in how we are better than our competitors. I know certainly that comes up a lot in my practice relative to how do you have an edge when you go out into combat? But I think it always comes back down to that individual, as you said, staying true to themselves and ultimately embracing all the good and bad parts of what it is that they do, and finding a way to let their authentic behavior, authentic expression emerge. And that imitating or trying to be something else is not necessarily what's true for you.

Emily Kwok: (44:10)
So as an art's culture strategist, and working in all the different ways that you have, and essentially helping... I apologize if I'm putting words in your mouth, but helping organizations, helping museums, helping galleries and individuals get their message across. Or how do you strategize? Because it is such a subjective field. What is it that you look for? How do you know that this particular artist or this work is at a point of maturity where it's ready to be seen by the world or it's ready to make a statement about a particular movement? Because as we've discussed, there doesn't seem to be one right way. So is there something that you sense, is there something that you look for, is there something that you feel that defines someone who is at that stage?

Rebecca Taylor: (45:01)
Oftentimes it's a gallerist who works with an artist in that way that you're describing it, helping them say, "Okay, here's a work of art. Is it ready? Is not?" But I think that that has even changed now. I think artists are making those decisions primarily for themselves, and a curator is then deciding what they want to include based on what's finished into an exhibition of a theory or philosophy they're trying to present. Or if they're curating a single artist exhibition, the works that to them represent the most profound experiences, or the most unique, or the most typical of that artist, or something of that nature, or sometimes just trying to show a stylistic development. I mean, we'll see early works by artists that aren't that great sometimes if it's an entire retrospective of their art, and we see certain periods get valued differently based on how important they were in terms of influencing other artists, in terms of critical reception, et cetera.

Rebecca Taylor: (46:09)
So, yeah, for me, that's not really a part of my job, is defining when a work is done. I think that's up to each artist to make that decision for themselves. And you hear some artists say that they never feel it's finished and that they have to just get it out of the studio at a certain point because they keep reworking it. Other artists will tell you, they know precisely when a work is done. So as with a lot in creative spheres, I think it's very individual in terms of knowing when a work is done and ready, but ultimately it's impact is outside of an artist's control. That's about all of us who see it, all of us who experience it. I mean, you hear the term often an artist's artist. That's an artist who sometimes is like under-recognized by others, but hugely appreciated by other artists. And historically those artists become more important later because people realize how profound their influence was on everyone else.

Rebecca Taylor: (47:19)
I mean, I think if we think about someone like Duchamp, Duchamp was important in and of his own right. Absolutely the works that he made were profound and important. But the fact that you almost can't write the history of art that follows him without mentioning him as being this departure point for artists, entrenches him so much further in the canon. It's not just that he put a year on all upside down and called it a fountain, it's the fact that the invention of the ready made, gave creative license to so many artists who followed to explore the ready made, to redefine what art is. Duchamp famously said, "It's art because I've said it is. So it's art if I say so," is what he ultimately said in 1965. And I think that alone, that creative license that he gave to artists, that it's art if I say so becomes really profound in the history of art that follows there after. So sometimes an artist's influence is broader than any one individual work, and it's about the echo chamber effect or the universe of creativity that it spawns.

Emily Kwok: (48:45)
Fascinating. I know you've recently also been traveling and looking at a lot of art. When you see what's happening today in the art world, is there more art, is there more creation? Particularly with social media and the internet, it seems to have given more people a platform, or more people, a foundation to be able to share what it is that they've created, whereas, in the past, I would think that most of us were experiencing art through particular brick and mortar institutions or places. Do you think that more people are finding their voice in being creative and sharing it? Or what is it that you see that's happening in the world today?

Rebecca Taylor: (49:35)
I'm not sure if more people are expressing themselves creatively, or if it's just, as you said, that more people have a platform to share it. I suspect that there was always a woman in Iowa painting her feelings and what she was experiencing. The difference is now she has a Facebook page. Yeah, I tend to believe artistic expression has always been there and people who were compelled to do it were always doing it. But what has changed is the number of people trying to support themselves financially through artistic expression. And I think part of that also is how fashionable it is now to be an artist, and to work in the art world, and this idea that you can make a lot of money. I mean, because we see these huge figures coming out of the art market. Last week we had several auctions here, the New York Evening Sales, 1.3 billion of art changed hands.

Rebecca Taylor: (50:34)
Obviously that makes the news and people are like, "Oh, being an artist doesn't mean I have to be poor. Great." So I think that's been a shift, is this idea. I mean, similarly I mentor young women sometimes coming out of college. And when I speak with them and they say things like, "I want to be you. It looks so glamorous," I just think back to when I fell in love with art history in a dark classroom with a slide projector, and there was nothing I saw about my life that was going to be glamorous. I did not choose art history for glamor. In fact, the reason I got the business degree to go with my art history degree was because I truly believed, as my father had told me, art history would not pay the bills, art history was a hobby. It was wonderful that I loved art, but I should go make money and then I could be a philanthropist and sit on the board of a museum.

Rebecca Taylor: (51:38)
That was what I was taught from a very practical perspective. I didn't think I could have a successful career in art. Not because I didn't have faith in myself, just because it didn't really seem to exist. There were so few jobs in it, and it was not a glamorous profession. Now, you fast forward and it looks really glamorous, and certainly it does have its moments. As you said, I'm very blessed. I get to travel a ton and look at a ton of art. And so, it looks very glamorous to these young kids coming out of school and they're like, "Oh, I want to work in the art world, and go to these Evening Sales, and travel to Hong Kong, and go to Art Basel.

Rebecca Taylor: (52:21)
And I think there's just a different perspective on it all as the art world, that is just very different than it was 20 years ago when I was studying. And I think that applies to young art historians and people who want to be curators, certainly to artists. There's a lot of pomp and circumstance in it right now. And I don't know what will happen in terms of art history and how it canonizes and remembers. What I do know is art history will be brutal about who was written into the books. All of these artists that we have today, fast forward, a hundred years from now, how many of them will we know? Well, all you have to do is look at a decade of the 19th century to know the answer to that.

Rebecca Taylor: (53:15)
If we think about the 1870s in Paris, we know 10 artist names from that period. That's who we remember, that's who's been written into the canon. So what will be written and what will be remembered, I don't know, but I know that there will be many people who will sustain a great living throughout their life from art who may not necessarily be in museums in 50 to 100 years.

Emily Kwok: (53:45)
I wonder what you think about this, that... I mean, in my experience, it feels like so many people... So when we look at things from the outside and we admire that celebrity that's famous for being a great actor, or the artist that sells a 500,000 or a $5 million per painting, or the athlete that has five gold medals, I think for a lot of people who haven't achieved that level of success, if you want to call it, will, like you say, fantasize or make up in their minds what that experience must be like. And they will often dress it up and glamorize it. But I'm fairly certain, at least in my experience from encountering various individuals who've become very good at what they do that they're so deeply invested in just being able to do more of what they love doing.

Emily Kwok: (54:39)
And that, as you said, the journey itself is... I guess it's hard to recognize the car that you're driving in from the outside when you're inside the car, if you will. You're so subjectively immersed in your own experience and that experience itself and doing the work to be better and to get deeper into it is what brings you the most joy, even though that's not necessarily how other people might experience it or might see it. When you think about the career that you have created for yourself, and the various paths that you've taken to get here, and the amount of work that you've done, it feels like it's unusual, it feels like it's not typical. What have you remembered most, and what do you cherish the most about your journey becoming who you are and being able to essentially continue to do the things that you love to do each day going against the grain, and essentially maybe trailblazing, as well as a woman in the field doing something that might not have a clean template? What are the things that you remember the most about this path?

Rebecca Taylor: (55:52)
An incredible question. I mean, I think it's all about experiences, right? I mean, I think, for me, if I were to look back and write a memoir in 50 years, 30 years, I'm not that young anymore, I think it would be stories of people and places and objects that I saw. I mean, the first time I was in Saudi, there for work I was doing with the Saudi Art Council, and I was walking through a sculpture park along the Corniche there. And this child runs up to me and asked to take a photo with me on Snapchat. And then this next child comes up, and then this next child comes up. And the curator I was with who was giving me a tour, a Saudi gentleman, just starts crying. And he says, "Rebecca, you've just changed children's lives. They will now look at Americans differently because they've experienced one in such a positive way."

Rebecca Taylor: (57:04)
And that profound feeling of being both directly in this moment but also having a broader impact on the world by traveling, by going places, that to me is one of these beautiful side effects that I never imagined of what I do and what I get to do. I also love that I get to be a lens for people outside the art world and who don't necessarily travel like I do into places they wouldn't go. A friend of mine who owns a gallery in Beirut said to me years ago that my Instagram had done more for Lebanese cultural tourism than almost any campaign that the Lebanese government had ever done, because all of these people had reached out to him saying, "Oh my God, I had no idea Beirut was so beautiful. I saw it on Rebecca's Instagram. Now I want to come."

Emily Kwok: (58:05)
Wow.

Rebecca Taylor: (58:05)
Things like that. I mean, you just can't even imagine that's not what you're there to do. I was there for the opening of Tony Salame's private collection, the Aishti Foundation Museum designed by David Adjaye, and then I fell in love with Beirut, and have been a million times since then. And so then when the tragic explosion happens in Beirut, it's not a news item for me, it's the fact that one of my dearest friends has a gallery down in that port, and I was on the phone immediately trying to get through to make sure she was okay, and that the people who work in her gallery were okay, and all the other artists and friends that I have in that city.

Rebecca Taylor: (58:50)
So for me, the most amazing part about this life is the experiences, it's the people, it's the places I get to go. It's the way my world view has just changed so much. I'm a White girl from Orange County, California, which is a bubble if ever there was one. And I was born in a hospital overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Newport Beach and in a very subscribed situation with a very limited group of people. And that's not to say that couldn't have been a beautiful life, but I rebelled against that. For me, art showed me that I wanted to travel, that I wanted to see the world, that I wanted to go literally anywhere and everywhere. And I have friends tell me all the time, I'm one of the most traveled people they know, and yet I think my bucket list is longer than almost anyone else's I know.

Rebecca Taylor: (59:51)
Because the more you go, the more you learn, the more you see, the more you meet people, the more you want to go. So my nice one time was in a geography class and she says to the teacher, "Where's Shasha?" And the teacher says, "I don't know. Why?" And she says, "Well, because my aunt is there right now. So I just want to know where it is." And that idea that I can expose people to this amazing Emirate in the UAE that they might not know about. So I mean, I don't know. My world just feels so expansive and also just on the brink of discovering something new and going somewhere else. And there are so many places I want to go, learn more about, and experience more about. And art has just been this amazing lens vehicle platform excuse to investigate all these other things but I think I'm so interested in people, and culture, and places, and the art is just the perfect way into that.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:01:08)
I mean, if you go to Jeddah for the first time, to go to Ahmed Mater studio and learn about the experience of living in Saudi from a Saudi artist and his wife who is also an amazing artist and who will show you these videos she's taken as part of her work, these photos she's taken from behind her hijab as she goes out into these private spaces. I mean, that's the unforgettable part of it, is these experiences. So now, when I look at Ahmed Mater's work in the Smithsonian, that's my access point, is I think about sitting in his studio and bringing journalists there for the first time, and visiting underground exhibitions in Jeddah, and that's... Yeah, I don't know. It's a really enriching curiosity driven existence that just feels like constant food for the soul.

Emily Kwok: (01:02:12)
It sounds like an incredibly dynamic space and immersive, which as you're describing all these different places and experiences, I'm dying to be there with you. All right. So Rebecca, it sounds when you speak so much about these different stories and experiences that they've been so immersive and you've been so present to everything that you've had the privilege of being able to embark and indulge in. And I just wonder, in terms of your career, if you ever set out to have a particular goal or a destination in terms of what you'd like to accomplish, or what you'd like to try to contribute, or if this has just all been a very emergent experience for you where you are gladly taking it all in as it happens and those experiences that happen to you day by day, are the ways in which you grow and which you guide where your career is going.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:03:16)
Such a great question. And honestly, it's changed. If you'd have asked me that question in my early 20s, I think honestly, I wanted to be a museum director. That was the path I saw myself heading down. And then a few years into working at an agency, an opportunity came up that would've put me right back on that path, if you will, and I turned it down even though it was at a major museum, an opportunity for a really senior leadership role, because it felt too limiting to go work even at one of the world's most prestigious institutions. But when you work at one institution, you see the world through that lens, and your impact is so specific to that lens, and the beautiful part about agency work and now consulting is that I can have such a broader impact and on so many different facets of the art world, not even just museums from China, to Doha, to Saudi, to New York, to Amsterdam, but also beyond museums, young art galleries that I can work with, art fairs, et cetera.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:04:35)
So I feel like I can have more of a role in shaping the world. So now I don't have a destination in mind, certainly not for my own career, but I will say that I have values or larger goals for the art world that ground me, or that focus me, or that are always in the back of my mind with any project I'm working on, how I can privilege those goals and try and make headway on them. And the first of those has already come up. It's arts education. I believe it's fundamental to our society to teach children about art, to empower them with creativity, and put a brush, or a pen, or a pencil in their hands and let them express themselves, not for the sake that they become artists, just so that they learn about the creative art, and that, if it is a place of inspiration for them, they can look to it later.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:05:49)
The second facet of that, of arts education, is art appreciation. And that's bringing them into museums and making them feel as though there are welcome spaces for them. And so to me, those are the two cores of arts education. And the second one leads right into another priority for me, which is accessibility, making museums open, and inclusive, and accessible places where everyone feels welcome, where a young Black man from Los Angeles doesn't walk into a museum and feel immediately profiled and unwelcome because he's wearing a hoodie, that he comes in and has a welcome experience there, that someone who has had no art history education can walk in and still feel as though the museum is a place where they might want to bring their children on a Saturday afternoon. So that's the second larger goal, is accessibility.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:06:49)
And then I think the third major one is around diversity, equity, and inclusion in the art space. That it's a well place for everyone who wants to work there, for everyone who's passionate about arts, and that there's some parody and we've not had that. I mean, you used the word elitist earlier, and in many ways, it is. I am an exception to that rule because I broke in without any connections, without coming from that sort of growing up. A lot of people who work in the arts grow up in art museums and their parents are in the field, et cetera. That wasn't the case for me, but I did have an amazing education that led me to even be in that art history class and other opportunities.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:07:44)
So I think breaking down those boundaries so that it's more open, welcoming, and inclusive for other people who might want to work in the arts as well, that it doesn't feel like, "Oh, well, that's not for me." Yeah, those are the things that are always at the forefront of my mind in thinking about everything that I do, arts education, empowering creative thinking in children and in adults, creating accessible museums so that people don't say, "Oh, art's not for me," and just making the art world more inclusive and more accessible for people who do want to have a field in it. Those are the primary things that I think about on a daily basis and inform all the strategies and everything that I think about.

Emily Kwok: (01:08:43)
So much of what I have gotten out of our discussion today has really been about doing away with maybe their perceived or artificial boundaries that we put up for ourselves in making spaces inaccessible or intimidating. And I should mention that sometimes those boundaries or those walls might be put there. They might not necessarily be figments of our imagination, but that in finding your joy through doing it, whatever it is that you do, through being fully present to it that you can really define and create your own path and your own journey to the highest level of anything that it is that you might be pursuing. And I want to say, Rebecca, from my experience of being able to engage with you, that when we encountered one another in a chat room, in clubhouse, I just really loved how open, and inviting, and curious your presence was relative to educating, and also just being a moderator and an advocate for the arts, because I experienced art in a more intensive fashion for a short period of my life, which was four years.

Emily Kwok: (01:10:13)
I mean, I would say that I'm a creative thinker at large in terms of a formal arts education. And during that time, I often felt like I was supposed to have the right answer or that I should know more, and that I didn't. And so it did make me at times feel like I shouldn't contribute, and I shouldn't speak, and I shouldn't say because I wasn't in the place to do it. And one of the things that really drew me into you was that you just made it okay to have these discussions. And I so appreciate that because I think as someone who has tried to be a creator in my own right and tried to pursue something that I could be very good at, having that open door and creating that space and energy, holding it, maybe, sometimes for people who might need it, I think is so important when we're dealing with the demands of society to conform and to always show up and do the right thing.

Emily Kwok: (01:11:17)
So for you being an ambassador of the arts and just such a wonderful presence for creators, I'd just like to say how much I value and appreciate that. And I'm really grateful that you were able to spend some time talking to me about this today because I found our discussion really just fascinating for me. I come away with even more questions and I really can't wait to learn from you even more. And it's reignited a curiosity for me in the fine arts in a way that I wish I would've had 20 years ago, because I think about what else I could have done or how much more deeply I could have taken that passion. So I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:12:06)
Oh, thank you, Emily. I mean, what a profound compliment. If I can help anyone find their own passion or rediscover their own passion for art and creativity and feel like it's a place for them, then I've had more of an impact on this earth than I could hope to, because for me, there's just no greater source of joy and exploration of everything, one's own identity, the world at large, et cetera. So I want everyone to feel empowered to go on that journey for themselves, to go stand before Autumn Rhythm in New York and not think they have to know what Jackson Pollock meant, why he did what he did, how important it is to art history, but instead find their own inspiration in it, see what they see, and remove those barriers. That's a win if we can accomplish that. First of all, thank you for your interest in art and wanting to talk about it with me today. It's so amazing, and I love the lens you brought to it, and it was just such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Emily Kwok: (01:13:24)
Yeah. And Rebecca, if there are any outlets that you'd like to speak about, if people are interested in looking at art through your eyes, or following your adventures, or getting in touch with you, are there any ways that people can do that?

Rebecca Taylor: (01:13:38)
Absolutely. So my Instagram is probably the best. It's therealrebeccataylor. You can see the visual journey of my life and what I'm seeing. I share almost exclusively art and architecture. There's very few personal images there. It's more of a lens into how I see the world. I'm also pretty active on Twitter, but again, that's more broadly. So it's not so much about art. I speak quite a bit on Clubhouse at the moment. I host a weekly show on Sundays called the Sunday Paper, Arts and Culture Stories from the New York Times. So that's a good place to come find out what's happening in the news with me, but feel free to reach out to me. My DMs are open on Instagram and I'm very happy to speak to anyone.

Emily Kwok: (01:14:33)
Thank you, Rebecca. And what time's your show on Sunday so I can personally make note?

Rebecca Taylor: (01:14:38)
Great question. So the show is on Sundays at 12:00 Eastern Standard Time, and it's me and an amazing co-host, Alex Delotch Davis from the High Museum in Atlanta. And we each choose three or four stories from the paper that week, and we talk about them, and we invite the audience to come up and discuss them as well. So it's a really fun weekly moment to just geek out about the news that's happening. And Alex is great too, because she'll often go beyond just the fine art lens that I have, and she'll pull in stories from dance, or she'll pull in a book review, or something like that. Classical music, a little bit of opera, occasionally. I mean, it's mostly fine art, but we do try and branch out into broader culture occasionally as well. So would love anyone to join us, and come up on stage and share your thoughts.

Emily Kwok: (01:15:32)
I love it. Rebecca, thank you so much for your time. Best of luck on all your new adventures to come as the world opens up again. And thank you again.

Rebecca Taylor: (01:15:42)
Thank you.