Chained to the office for this episode of Artist of the Week, we headed into the recording studio where we conducted phone interviews with two Bay Area art professionals. The subject of the interviews was Benicia based artist Manuel Neri, whose sculpture Untitled (Kneeling Figure)recently came into the SJMA collection. First up, we interviewed art critic and San Francisco Institute of Art professor Mark Van Proyen, who has written a catalog essay for Neri’s upcoming show at Hackett-Freedman Gallery in San Francisco. Then we turned to the co-owner of the Hackett-Freedman Gallery, Tracy Freedman, to shed some personal insight on the artist who the gallery has represented for 7 years now. During the 8 week run of the exhibition New Year, New Gifts, the San Jose Museum of Art will offer each week a podcast highlighting one of the artists in the show. The artist in the series are: Hung Liu, Jack Zajac, Rick Arnitz, Ruth Asawa, Richard Misrach, Amy Kaufman, Helen Lundberg and Manuel Neri. We hope that visitors will download these podcasts and bring their iPods into the museum to experience the works first hand with the audio. However, these are enhanced podcasts and if you own an iPod that displays pictures or if you view the podcast in iTunes, you will be able to view images from the collection and images from the interviews. But you can also just listen to the audio and enjoy the insight that each podcast will provide. If you have any comments or questions please email: podcast@sjmusart.org The music from this podcast, “When the Telegram Arrived That She Was Dying”, is by the band Madagascar and is from their album Forced March. Check them out at www.westernvinyl.com Please star our podcast below and help put us on the Odeo homepage! Less