Today, we share with you the finale of the Fresh Art International podcast, ending more than a decade of storytelling from art scenes around the world. Coming full circle, we’ve returned to Baltimore, Maryland. The Magic City is where we released our very first episode in October 2011. Our guest was MacArthur Genius, artist Joyce J. Scott.

In October 2025, we sit down with another long time friend of Fresh Art International: artist Amy Sherald. Inside the Baltimore Museum of Art, she takes us on a tour of American Sublime, her traveling mid-career retrospective exhibition.

This isn’t our first story with Amy. Nine years ago, in July 2016, we recorded an episode live with an audience, in a Chicago, Illinois, gallery. Surrounded by Amy Sherald’s paintings, we acknowledged acute racial tensions in the United States at that moment. Incidents of police violence against black citizens were sparking countrywide public protests. A hopeful counterpoint, Amy’s exhibition A Wonderful Dream met viewers with luminous positive depictions of Black life in America. A year and a half later, in December 2017, Amy joined us on our Fresh Art International radio show during Miami Art Week, in Florida. Again, she voiced her commitment to the work. Recording conversations with this artist along her path to greatness has been a privilege and an honor.

Fresh Art International holds an archive of many such stories—all with enduring value. Over time, we have documented critically important voices from the evolving world of contemporary art. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Locust Projects and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and most important, Listeners Like You, have made Fresh Art International possible. Thank You, for Listening!

Production: Cathy Byrd | Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio | Featured: Amy Sherald

*Amy Sherald: American Sublime is touring these venues in the United States: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/San Francisco, Whitney Museum of American Art/New York, Baltimore Museum of Art/Baltimore, High Museum of Art/Atlanta