Perfect City is a two-part documentary which focuses on the physical spaces in New York that helped fuel the Abstract Expressionist movement — The Cedar Tavern and Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery — in advance of the exhibit "Abstract Expressionist New York" at the Museum of Modern Art. It is narrated by Carolina A. Miranda, who blogs on the arts as Gallerina for WNYC, and produced by Ave Carrillo.

For the Abstract Expressionists – many of whom lived downtown and worked downtown – there was one place (and one place only) to go talk shop and raise hell. That place was the Cedar Tavern, a nondescript bar on University Place and 8th Street that became so legendary, it has since appeared in the obituaries of just about every artist who hung out there. This was where Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and a host of other figures came together over glasses of 15-cent beer. Get this audio download here.

There are galleries – and there are galleries. Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century wasn’t your average display space. It had curving gumwood walls, turquoise floors, amoeboid furniture and bizarre mechanical contraptions. It was the product of one of New York’s more notorious socialites (Peggy was renowned for her free-love ways) and a rotating cast of architects, surrealists, poets, artists, oddball curators and thinkers. Get this audio download here.

A singer, songwriter, bass virtuoso, and bandleader, Meshell NdegeOcello is unique in contemporary pop. She's been called the "queen of neosoul," but she stays mostly in the background on her new album, Dance of the Infidel, which features jazz heavyweights like Don Byron and Cassandra Wilson. ...

Imagine if you could project an image and persona that made you massively influential. A conceptual artist named Jose Alvarez did just that. He created an alter-ego — a spiritual channeler named Carlos who drew followers all over the world, including millions in China. Studio 360's Ave Carrillo ...

For Valentine’s Day, why not team up with a professional writer who can help you write a love letter to whomever you want for free? Artist Jana Leo de Blas thought up The Love Letters project, which pairs everyday people off the street with modern-day Cyranos. Studio 360’s Ave ...

Music historian Stanley Crouch includes Moby-Dick in his lectures about jazz history at Juilliard, even though the novel was written over five decades before jazz developed. According to Crouch, Melville was an expert at improvisation. Produced by Ave Carrillo.

In Philip Roth’s latest novel The Plot Against America, Roth imagines what would have happened if the aviation hero Charles Lindberg had defeated Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 election. In the book, an 8-year old boy named Philip Roth watches as the U.S. sits out of World War II ...

The National Museum of the American Indian opens in just a few days on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The building itself is strikingly different from the marble halls that surround it, and its grounds evoke Native landscapes right in the center of Washington — with 28,000 ...

Thirty years ago in Oakland, California, Mario Carrillo and his wife Dixi bought an abandoned building that had once been a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. Mario worked alone over the years to convert the dilapidated shell into a home, and his most ambitious sculpture. Ave Carrillo tells how her father turned ...

In a show about love, there are millions of love songs to choose from. Studio 360 asked two musicians to give us one more. Guitarist Ben Monder and singer Theo Bleckmann are young jazz masters. They picked an ancient text from Rumi, the 13th century Persian mystic ...

Musicians often describe the sounds their instruments make as colors — a red brassy tone from the trumpet, or a dark, chocolatey tone from the bass. The composer Maria Schneider describes her music this way, only her instrument is an entire jazz big band. She talked to Studio ...

The experience of commercial air travel is not really very different from airline to airline for the most part. So getting people to fly your particular airline is a design challenge. Graphic designer Michael Beirut looks at classic airline logos. Produced by Ave Carrillo and John Stanik.

In a show about love, there are millions of love songs to choose from. Studio 360 asked two musicians to give us one more. Guitarist Ben Monder and singer Theo Bleckmann are young jazz masters. They picked an ancient text from Rumi, the 13th century Persian mystic ...

The artist David Hammons once said, "The less I do the more of an artist I am." His latest exhibition Concerto in Black and Blue lived up to that statement. Hammons filled 10,000 square feet of New York's Ace Gallery with . . . nothing. He simply turned off the ...

Very few people know the name of the artist Jose Alvarez. But many people, including many millions in China, know Carlos. Studio 360's Ave Carrillo thought you should hear about Carlos too.

The artist David Hammons once said, "The less I do the more of an artist I am." His latest exhibition "Concerto in Black and Blue" lives up to that statement. Hammons filled 10,000 square feet of New York's Ace Gallery with . . . nothing. He simply turned off ...