Boston, MA — June 25, 2018 — The Improper Bostonian has unveiled the winners of its "Boston Best 2018" competition. The magazine of the arts, fashion, sports, food, and more named Hub & Spoke's own The Lonely Palette as Boston's Best Podcast.
Hosted and produced by art historian Tamar Avishai, The Lonely Palette is one of Hub & Spoke's founding podcasts. Its mission is to circumvent stuffy museum-style art interpretation and make looking at art fun again.
The Improper Bostonian wrote:
Hit play on this podcast that “returns art history to the masses,” a tagline that host Tamar Avishai lives up to by opening each episode with off-the-cuff commentary from everyday museumgoers. From there, the adjunct lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts does a deep dive into the work in question, be it a Pollock or Picasso painting, a Duchamp readymade or Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece performance. Whatever the subject, her assured yet accessible narration paints a vivid picture with words.
"Honestly, I'm thrilled and a little shocked," Avishai remarked. "This is 'The Golden Age of Podcasting'—we say that all the time. There is such great work being done in the Boston podcasting community, so to be singled out, especially for a show that's still relatively small potatoes, is both so humbling and so validating. I'm grateful to The Improper Bostonian for recognizing the value of a podcast that not only celebrates fine art, but the fine art that largely exists in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's outstanding collection. It really is a show about Boston as much as it is a show about art history."
Wade Roush, host and producer of Soonish from Hub & Spoke, said: "We all know how hard it is to make complex subjects sing in audio form, to say nothing of visual subjects like painting and sculpture. The Lonely Palette does this in every single episode. We're so thrilled to see Tamar being recognized for her amazing and compelling work."
Past winners of the Boston's Best Podcast category have included Aaron Mahnke's Lore (2017), Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley's Gastropod (2016), and WGBH's Innovation Hub (2015).
Founded in 1991, with a print circulation of 70,000, The Improper Bostonian publishes biweekly issues reporting on Boston's arts, culture, and entertainment scene. The magazine announced the winners of the 2018 Boston's Best competition on Saturday by tweet. Other winners included Celeste Ng for Best Novel (for her novel "Little Fires Everywhere"), Ripe's "Joy in the Wild Unknown" for Best Album, and Will Noonan for Best Comedian.