Shows
The Museumgoer podcast“Pioneers of Women’s Carnival” at the PresbytereOpen 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, including a visit with one very special shoe. Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-12-3149 min
The Museumgoer podcast“New Orleans Musicians in Art" at the Historic New Orleans CollectionOn 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 and curated the exhibit, which features a soundtrack of selections created by people depicted on the walls. Images accompanying the conversation can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-12-1730 min
The Museumgoer podcast“Michalopoulos: Mystical Expressionism” at the CabildoA 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 is part of the huge National WWII Museum complex in New Orleans. A full report can be found on the history hotels section of themuseumgoer.com. Images to accompany the "Mystical Expressionism" conversation are on the blog there, too.
2025-12-0432 min
The Museumgoer podcast“Sunday Best: Faith, Family, and Fashion” at the Old Ursuline Convent MuseumConceived 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 Christopher Wiseman, executive director of the Catholic Cultural Center of New Orleans, which oversees both the cathedral and convent museum. Images accompanying the interview are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com,The episode starts with a recap of a recent stay at the Pontchartrain Hotel on St. Charles Avenue in...
2025-11-1534 min
The Museumgoer podcast“Indigeaux: Yes, Spirit. I’ll go …” at the Whitney PlantationThe 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 offering to the enslaved women whose hands were stained blue with indigo,” she says. In this episode, the guests are Lewis and Dr. IbrahimaSeck, director of research at the plantation.Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com. Photo by Amy Marquis, courtesy of Whitney Plantation.
2025-10-2947 min
The Museumgoer podcast"Dawoud Bey: Elegy" at NOMABrian 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 the podcast are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-10-1522 min
The Museumgoer podcastCulture Pass and Check Out Louisiana programsSeptember 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 the state’s best museums. In addition to all the learning that those programs unlock, the opportunity represents a potential savings ranging into thehundreds of dollars. In this episode, the Museumgoer Podcast visits with HeatherRiley, the New Orleans library’s director of public services,and Billy Nun...
2025-09-1713 min
The Museumgoer podcast“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 Ursuline Convent Museum. The exhibit explores the Creole 7th Ward roots of Robert Francis Prevost, Pope Leo XIV as of May 8, 2025. A photo of the exhibit is on the blog at themuseumgoer.com. Digital versions of the family tree and the documents Waits discovered...
2025-09-0334 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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 Jackson Square, it’s been anengaging learning machine for visitors who only know the storm and its failed-levee aftermath through fading memories of live TV coverage of the catastrophe that came in the wake of Aug. 29, 2005. To mark Katrina’s 20th anniversary, the exhibit isundergoing renovation...
2025-08-1344 min
The Museumgoer podcastNew Orleans Museum Month 2025New 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 membership beyond Museum Month. Links to other Museum Month coverage can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-07-2941 min
The Museumgoer podcast“Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans” at MSJENew 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 New Orleans” travels through a near-century of history. Our guest this time is Michael Jacobs, MSJE’s collections and exhibits curator. Michael and I are joined in the gallery about halfway through by Marlene Trestman, author of “Most Fortunate Unfortunates,” a 2023 book the exhibit is based on. Trestman was orphaned at age 11 and grew up as a fost...
2025-07-1535 min
The Museumgoer podcast“Nicolas Floc’h: Fleuves-Océan, Mississippi Watershed” at NOMAAn 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 accompany the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-07-0344 min
The Museumgoer podcast"The Trail They Blazed" at the Historic New Orleans CollectionA 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 accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-06-1139 min
The Museumgoer podcast"Preserving the Legacy: Creating the National WWII Museum," with author Gordon H. “Nick” MuellerIn 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 decade-plus quest by Ambrose and Mueller to navigate the National D-Day Museum, an inaugural incarnation, toward its opening 25 years ago was a story of tireless networking, courting of political support both locally and nationally, and fundraising, the retelling of which “getsboring to people,” Mueller said, but “it’s part of the story o...
2025-05-2734 min
The Museumgoer podcast“On American Shores: The Aleutian Islands Campaign” at the National WWII MuseumA 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.
2025-05-1540 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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.
2025-05-0127 min
The Museumgoer podcast“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 once its NOMA run concludes, is a model of cross-continental collaboration. Organized by NOMA and the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar, Senegal, its planning team was led by Maples with co-curators Jordan A. Fenton (Miami University, Ohio), Lisa Homann (UNC Charlotte), artist Hervé Youmbi and core collaborator Aimé Kantoussan (Musée...
2025-04-1727 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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 the exhibit's curator, and Candy Ellison, who designed the exhibit's interactive elements. Images to accompany the conversation can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-04-0540 min
The Museumgoer podcast“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 found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-03-1352 min
The Museumgoer podcastKeith Duncan: "Battle of the Bands" at the Ogden Museum of Southern ArtAn 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 and University marching bands. Images accompanying the podcast are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-02-2539 min
The Museumgoer podcast“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 themuseumgoer.com
2025-02-1333 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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.
2025-01-3033 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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.
2025-01-1519 min
The Museumgoer podcastRodrigue: Before the Blue DogOn 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 historian Joyce Miller is accompanied by photos on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2025-01-0234 min
The Museumgoer podcastMSJE's Southern Jewish Family Research CenterA 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 Postcards from Our Collection.”
Photos accompanying the interviews are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2024-12-1249 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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 themuseumgoer.com to see images that accompany the talk.
2024-11-2746 min
The Museumgoer podcastMuseum Store SundayDecember 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 Podcast, four New Orleans museum-store managers talk about their work.
Visit the blog at themuseumgoer.com to see images of some of the items discussed in the podcast.
2024-11-141h 06
The Museumgoer podcastThe New Orleans Storyville MuseumThe 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 historical footprint, for a walk-and-talk with Sadlier.
For images that accompany the talk, visit the blog at themuseumgoer.com.
2024-10-311h 04
The Museumgoer podcastAudubon's "The Birds of America" at the Historic New Orleans CollectionA 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 and its accompanying interactive display. "A Vanishing Bounty" is one of the museum exhibits recommended to Taylor Swift and her fans, who will be coming to New Orleans in the coming days for a series of concerts at Caesars Superdome. Links to other recommendations are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com...
2024-10-1632 min
The Museumgoer podcastPT-305 returns to the National WWII MuseumThe 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 led to its decommissioning. Sold as surplus for $10 in 1948, the boat entered
postwar service as a New York tour boat, a fishing charter and an oyster boat, undergoing heavy modifications.
It was acquired by the National WWII Museum and returned to New Orleans for restoration to fi...
2024-10-0433 min
The Museumgoer podcast"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.
2024-09-2654 min
The Museumgoer podcast"Spirited Salon" tour at the New Orleans Pharmacy MuseumPart 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 newsletter at themuseumgoer.com.
2024-09-1423 min
The Museumgoer podcast"Creole Death and Mourning" tour at Gallier HousePart one of a two-part podcast exploring how a couple of French Quarter Museum Association institutions are addressing the city's creep toward peak bleak, Halloween season. This is a conversation with Peter Dandridge of Gallier House, who discusses a special tour running through November 11.
Learn more and subscribe to a free newsletter at themuseumgoer.com.
2024-09-1432 min
The Museumgoer podcast"Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration"A Museumgoer Podcast interview with Eric Seiferth, co-curator of an exhibition at the Historic New Orleans Collection on view through January 19, 2025.
2024-08-3159 min
The Museumgoer podcast“The Natural Port: A Look at New Orleans Coffee Culture”A podcast interview with Liz Williams and Isabella Bentz of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB) about the exhibit “The Natural Port: A Look at New Orleans Coffee Culture,” on view through October 28, 2024. The conversation includes the history of the coffee trade in New Orleans, a major coffee port since the 18th century.
The exhibition, as well as its great digital offshoot on the Bloomberg Connects platform, intends to recapture some of the attention another American port city has won for its bean scene.
“It kind of rubs you the wrong way that everyone thinks of Seattle as the co...
2024-08-1730 min
Valuable Antique Detector - Find Values for Your CollectiblesAntique Navigational Tools: What It Is & Used ForAre you a museumgoer, and are antiques your favorite things to collect? Have you visited a nautical museum and enjoyed the thrills of it? Do you yearn to own any favorite navigational art pieces?
If you’ve answered yes to the above questions, we’ve got great news for you. You can build a personal museum with antique navigational tools without hassles.
Apart from the thrill of it, antique navigational tools are valuable for the nostalgic feelings they evoke. Tales of ancient seafarers and their adventure in water are typi...
2023-06-1210 min