The Museumgoer podcast
by The Museumgoer
A website dedicated to coverage of museums in New Orleans and the Gulf South, themuseumgoer.com features a blog, a podcast, a free newsletter, a YouTube page, and (coming soon) comprehensive, visitor-focused entries for regional museums.
Episodes
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“Second Nature: Japanese Rinpa Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection” at the New Orleans Museum of Art
There are a couple of important things to see in the exhibit “Second Nature: Japanese Rinpa Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection,” on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art through Feb. 14, 2027. See as in observe, understand, imagine, take away. One big thing is the artwork itself, about 60...
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"Black Union Soldiers Tour" at Laura Plantation
This time, we travel upriver from New Orleans to Vacherie, Louisiana, to visit the Laura Plantation and learn about a new tour offered there that tells the stories of the nine enslaved men on the plantation who joined the Union forces during the Civil War. I took the tour, led by guide Mark...
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LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana Queer History Exhibit Space, 311 Burgundy Street
I’ve got a melancholy episode for you this time, a recording of my July 2026 visit to The LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana Queer History Exhibit Space at 311 Burgundy Street. I met there with Frank Perez, executive director of the Archives Project. Perez, who died of cancer a few weeks after…
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Southern University at New Orleans master of arts in museum studies program
“Woke” teachers, librarians, park rangers, and museum curators are under political fire for the histories they teach. Gains made in recent years to expand the stories told in museums to incorporate more diverse communities have been threatened, as have efforts by museums to ensure their staff...
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“Becoming Louisiana: Borders in Motion, 1683-1814” at the Nous Foundation Gallery
Today’s episode is for map people, who should navigate to the Nous Foundation Gallery at 602 Toulouse St. to catch the exhibit “Becoming Louisiana: Borders in Motion, 1683-1814” while you can. The free exhibit, which closes Sept. 30, uses wall-sized line drawings derived from historic maps of the...
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“Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin and the Art of War”
“Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin and the Art of War” is a traveling exhibit on view through April 18, 2027, at the National WWII Museum. A combat cartoonist, Mauldin was Ernie Pyle’s contemporary in covering World War II from the perspective of the soldiers doing the fighting. A quote from Pyle…
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"Influences & Architecture: How to 'read' a New Orleans Building" at the PRC
The lobby of the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans’ headquarters, in the Leeds-Davis Building at 923 Tchoupitoulas St., is devoted to a museum-style exhibit explaining, according to the title wall, “the greatest architecture museum of all – the streets of New Orleans.” From the colonial...
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“Sèvres Magnifique: French Porcelain from the Collection of Thomas B. Lemann”
This episode begins with a few words about my recent sponsored visit to the Hotel Pompadour in New Orleans, a boutique hotel that is the vision of New Orleans artist James Michalopoulos, whose paintings fill the property with quavering, paint-heavy, color-rich, dreamy, dramatic images. Then it's…
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“The First Piano Professors and Lost Music of Early New Orleans”
The exhibit “The First Piano Professors and Lost Music of Early New Orleans” is now on view at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. Co-curated by musician and archivist John Davis and the museum’s music curator David Kunian, the exhibit fills two big rooms with a story driven largely by sheet music. In…
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“Amongst Ourselves: Resisting Slavery at Whitney Plantation”
This new exhibit tracks the many ways the enslalved there navigated the perilous course toward survival. As the exhibit shows, it involved worship, maintaining blood or acquired kinship, education (especially literacy, the teaching of which to the enslaved was a crime in most Southern states),...
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“Holocaust Survivors in a New Land: The New Americans Social Club of New Orleans”
The new changing exhibit “Holocaust Survivors in a New Land: The New Americans Social Club of New Orleans” is on view through the end of the year at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. The exhibit tells the story of the social organization that formed to assist European Holocaust...
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"Come Back Fighting: USS New Orleans at War"
In this episode, we’ll step inside the new changing exhibit at the National WWII Museum, and chat with Cory Graff, Museum Curator and Restoration Manager. The exhibit, “Come Back Fighting: USS New Orleans at War” tells the story of a decorated heavy cruiser that served in almost every major…
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"American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition"
“American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition” has opened at the Historic New Orleans Collection and will remain on view through January 17, 2027. From the French technology company Histovery, the exhibition uses hand-held tablet computers to open up 360-degree views of the sites, events and...
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“Gálvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution”
Our guest is Stephen Kling, guest curator of “Gálvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution,” a new exhibit at the Cabildo that offers a heretofore largely obstructed Gulf Coast view of how bayou-based colonists prosecuted the quest for liberty. Told through text, multimedia screens, re-created...
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“Burke’s Delight" and “Herman Leonard: Images of Jazz” at the Ogden
Two new exhibits at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art spotlight the art-collecting interests – and generosity – of Stacey and Michael Burke. One is a collection of “self taught,” “outsider” or “vernacular” work by Southern artists. “Burke’s Delight: The Stacey and Michael Burke Collection” will...
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“Origins of New Orleans Black Carnival Society: The Story of the Illinois Clubs”
There is subtle history to see in some of the ball photos on view in the new exhibit “Origins of New Orleans Black Carnival Society: The Story of the Illinois Clubs,” now on view at the Presbytere. Basketball court markings are visible in several of them because the clubs – the Original Illinois...
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“Cut from a Different Cloth: Fashion Selections from Tulane Special Collections”
The exhibit “Cut from a Different Cloth: Fashion Selections from Tulane Special Collections” is on view through May 29. Its story is a century-plus of New Orleans apparel, winding through many levels of the community, from Carnival royalty to Black Masking Indians, college students and titans of...
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“The District: Music and Musicians in Storyville”
A conversation with David Kunian, music curator at the New Orleans Jazz Museum about the exhibit “The District: Music and Musicians in Storyville.” The District, as it was known to musicians, was nicknamed Storyville by its patrons for Sidney Story, the New Orleans politician whose 1897 ordinance...
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“Pioneers of Women’s Carnival” at the Presbytere
Open since May, this exhibit tells the more than century-long story of half the local population’s efforts to seize their share of our rites of Carnival. Wayne Phillips, Louisiana State Museum curator of costumes and textiles and Carnival collections, talks us through the exhibit's many stories,...
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“New Orleans Musicians in Art" at the Historic New Orleans Collection
On view through May 16, 2027, the exhibit's 14 pieces, assembled from HNOC’s permanent holdings, focus primarily on traditional New Orleans jazz musicians, captured decades ago. There are outliers in the show, which Jason Wiese and I discuss in the podcast. Jason is the Collection’s chief curator...
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“Michalopoulos: Mystical Expressionism” at the Cabildo
A pre-opening conversation with artist James Michalopoulos, whose new exhibition takes place only a few steps and decades away from the artist’s start in New Orleans, painting on French Quarter streets. For a prelude, a few memories of a recent stay at the Higgins Hotel & Conference Center, which...
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“Sunday Best: Faith, Family, and Fashion” at the Old Ursuline Convent Museum
Conceived as a fundraising event for the St. Louis Cathedral restoration, "Sunday Best" became a more comprehensive look at the churchgoing finery of both parishioners and clergy -- and a showcase for curatorial imagination. Here’s a conversation in the galleries with co-curator Sarah Waits and...
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“Indigeaux: Yes, Spirit. I’ll go …” at the Whitney Plantation
The traveling exhibit “Indigeaux: Yes, Spirit. I’ll go …” recently arrived at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace. Created by Leia Lewis, an educator, artist, and self-described “light-bringer” and “cultural architect,” the exhibit features hand-dyed textiles and original artwork conceived as “an...
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"Dawoud Bey: Elegy" at NOMA
Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at the New Orleans Museum of Art, discusses the photography exhibit on view through January 4, 2026. Note: Piper asked for an addendum to the conversation, which is included at the end of the interview. Images accompanying…
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Culture Pass and Check Out Louisiana programs
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month, a promotion by the American Library Association. In addition to all the free learning and entertainment a library card unlocks, there’s a pathway at your local branch -- almost everywhere you might be in Louisiana -- to free admission at some of…
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“Rooted in Faith: Pope Leo XIV’s Louisiana Lineage"
This time, the Museumgoer Podcast guest is Sarah Waits, research archivist for the Office of Archives and Records at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, who discusses her research into sacramental records to build the family tree and documents that make up "Rooted in Faith" exhibit at the Old…
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"Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond"
Since its opening in 2010, the Presbytere exhibition “Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond” has occupied some of the most valuable real estate in the Louisiana State Museum system and has arguably been the most important permanent museum exhibition in town. Steps from the tourist magnet of...
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New Orleans Museum Month 2025
New Orleans Museum Month is an annual promotion by New Orleans & Co. that runs throughout August, offering members of participating institutions two free admissions at all of the nearly 30 other institutions for the month. In this episode, four local museum leaders discuss the benefits of museum...
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“Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans” at MSJE
New Orleans had the first purpose-built Jewish orphanage inAmerica because New Orleans had Yellow Fever, an indiscriminate orphan-maker. On view at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience through January 25, 2026,the changing exhibit “Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of...
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“Nicolas Floc’h: Fleuves-Océan, Mississippi Watershed” at NOMA
An in-gallery interview with Brian Piper, the New Orleans Museum of Art's Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints and Drawings. We discuss the photography exhibit, on view through February 22, 2026, that explores life on -- and in -- the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Images to...
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"The Trail They Blazed" at the Historic New Orleans Collection
A survey of some of the participants in the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century, "The Trail They Blazed" started its life as a series of oral histories, then became a traveling exhibit. It's on view at 520 Royal Street through early June 2026. Admission is free. Images...
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"Preserving the Legacy: Creating the National WWII Museum," with author Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller
In his new book "Preserving the Legacy: Creating theNational WWII Museum," Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, cofounder of the museum with historian Stephen E. Ambrose and now its president and CEO emeritus, recounts in great detail how the road to today’s massive museum campus waspocked with craters. The...
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“On American Shores: The Aleutian Islands Campaign” at the National WWII Museum
A visit with Ross Patterson, curator of the exhibit "On American Shores," on view at the National WWII Museum through January 11, 2026. Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
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"Hoa Tay (Flower Hands): Southern Artists of the Vietnamese Diaspora"
Staged at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the exhibit is on view through September 21, 2025. Our guides are co-curators Uyen Dinh and Selina McKane. Images that accompany the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
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“New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations”
A conversation with Amanda M. Maples, Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. "New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations" is on view through August 10, 2025. The exhibit, which will tour several American and African locations…
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"Making It Home: From Vietnam to New Orleans "
Marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the new Historic New Orleans Collection exhibit "Making It Home: From Vietnam to New Orleans," on view through October 5, tells the half-century history of the local Vietnamese community. Interview subjects are Mark Cave, senior historian and…
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“If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future: Selections of Contemporary South African Art from the Nando’s Art Collection”
The traveling exhibition is on view at the free Newcomb Art Museum on the Tulane University campus through June 20, 2025. This episode features interviews with curator Laurie Ann Farrell and Maurita Poole, executive director of the Newcomb Art Museum. Images accompanying the conversation can be...
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Keith Duncan: "Battle of the Bands" at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
An in-gallery interview with artist and educator Keith Duncan and Bradley Sumrall, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art's curator of the collection. The topic is the new exhibition "Battle of the Bands," capturing, in paint and fabric, heroically stylized performers from 15 Historically Black College...
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“It All Started in Jane Alley: Louis Armstrong in New Orleans” and “Shake Your Hips: Louisiana Blues”
A visit to the New Orleans Jazz Museum with David Kunian, music curator. The first exhibit covers Louis Armstrong's youth in and later visits to his hometown. The second exhibit offers an overview of Louisiana's blues styles and purveyors. Images to accompany the conversation are on the blog at...
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"Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in World War II"
A podcast visit to the National WWII Museum exhibit "Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in World War II" with Cory Graff, museum curator and restoration manager. Images accompanying the podcast can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
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"Billy Cannon: The Called Him Legend"
A conversation with Joyce A. Miller, Louisiana State Museum historian and the curator of "Billy Cannon: They Called Him Legend," now on view at the Capitol Park Museum in Baton Rouge. Accompanying images on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
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Rodrigue: Before the Blue Dog
On view at the Cabildo in New Orleans through September 28, 2025, this exhibition collects more than 50 paintings, only a few of which feature the bright-blue, yellow-eyed apparition that by popular demand became artist George Rodrigue’s heraldic hound. This podcast interview with curator and...
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MSJE's Southern Jewish Family Research Center
A visit to the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience for interviews with Kenneth Hoffman, executive director, about the new Southern Jewish Family Research Center, and Michael Jacobs, MSJE’s collections & exhibits curator, about the new exhibit “Greetings from Main Street – Southern Jewish...
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"Botanica: Gardens, Landscapes, and Plant Medicines in South Louisiana”
On view at the Cabildo until May 2026, "Botanica" connects the grown world to the communities who sow, reap, etc. -- from indigenous peoples to colonizers and their descendants to the enslaved and theirs. Listen to an in-gallery interview with co-curator Rachel Breunlin, then visit...
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Museum Store Sunday
December 1 is Museum Store Sunday, and more than 2,000 shops around the world participate. Many offer discounts and in-store events while collectively raising the profile of these unique outlets for art, garments, toys, books, and the occasional shot glass. In this episode of the Museumgoer...
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The New Orleans Storyville Museum
The singular vision of its creator, Claus Sadlier, the New Orleans Storyville Museum provides visitors an overview of the city's infamous red-light district at the turn of the 20th century. This episode of the Museumgoer Podcast enters the museum, located just a few steps from the district's...
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Audubon's "The Birds of America" at the Historic New Orleans Collection
A marquee object in the Historic New Orleans Collection exhibit "A Vanishing Bounty: Louisiana’s Coastal Environment and Culture" is a rare second edition of John James Audubon’s double-elephant folio The Birds of America. In this episode of The Museumgoer Podcast, HNOC staffers discuss the folio...
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PT-305 returns to the National WWII Museum
The patrol torpedo boat was built in New Orleans in 1943 at the Higgins Industries City Park plant. Tested on Lake Pontchartrain, it saw combat in the Mediterranean (notching three “kills” on enemy vessels) and was shipped back to the United States to prepare for the invasion of Japan. V-J Day…
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"Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art"
A podcast interview with Mel Buchanan, NOMA’s RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts & Design and co-organizer of the exhibit “Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art,” on view through February 10, 2025. Follow along with some key images on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
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"Spirited Salon" tour at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum
Part two of a two-part podcast exploring a couple of museum offerings as New Orleans creeps toward peak bleak, or Halloween season. Thanks to Owen Ever and Grace Kennedy for this conversation about the Pharmacy Museum's "Spirited Salon" events coming in October. Learn more and subscribe to a free...
About this show
A website dedicated to coverage of museums in New Orleans and the Gulf South, themuseumgoer.com features a blog, a podcast, a free newsletter, a YouTube page, and (coming soon) comprehensive, visitor-focused entries for regional museums.
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