GBH’s Bowen to host ‘The Culture Show’ on radio for ‘everyone who loves the arts’

In GBH’s new radio program, “The Culture Show,” executive arts editor Jared Bowen will “keep the arts front and center and vibrant,” Bowen said. He and his cohosts — Callie Crossley, Edgar B. Herwick III, and James Bennett II — will facilitate discussions with artists and art-world personalities across the region about the latest in arts and culture. The show, launching on Nov. 3, will air on Fridays from 2 to 3 p.m. on GBH 89.7 until it launches as a daily program on Dec. 4.

“[The show is] really us taking in the big highlights of the week. What’s really resonating? What are the major art stories? What are people talking about in pop culture?,” said Bowen. “What are — and this is Callie’s strength — the things that we think that people should know about that people aren’t talking about? In other words, what’s under the radar?”

Crossley, the host of GBH’s “Under the Radar with Callie Crossley,” made her last appearance as host of “Basic Black,” a longtime live television show created during the civil rights movement to center people of color, on Oct. 20.

“We’re the ones introducing people to things that they didn’t know existed, or [things] they didn’t know they wanted to participate in or attend,” said Bowen about himself and his cohosts. He is also excited about the role “The Culture Show” can play in making the arts more accessible, hoping that it will “give access to people who physically can’t go somewhere, or economically or geographically can’t.”

“I am somebody who did not grow up in a very culturally literate family, so I came to [the arts] later,” he said. Bowen, whose first time visiting a museum was as a student at Emerson College, thinks of his own parents when hosting segments on the arts.

“I truly want this show to be for everyone, everyone who loves the arts,” said Bowen. “Everyone who doesn’t think the arts are for them, because they don’t think they know enough or they don’t belong — this show it’s absolutely for them.”

With “The Culture Show,” Bowen is also hoping to reveal that artists are not enigmas.

“Artists are telling their stories, and their stories are our stories,” Bowen said. “When you walk into a museum and you’re seeing pictures on a wall … [the artist] could be the person who’s living next door, or your sister or your brother or your mother or your father. All of our stories are universal.”

“The Culture Show” will air on GBH 89.7 on Nov. 3. Starting Dec. 4, the show will also air on CAI, the Cape, Coast & Islands NPR station.