Adele Bertei was part of the late-1970s downtown New York no wave scene, playing with The Contortions and later fronting the Bloods. In her new memoir, No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene, Bertei writes from inside that abrasive, cross-disciplinary movement — and restores the women artists, musicians, and filmmakers who helped define it.

At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Picturing Isabella traces how Isabella Stewart Gardner shaped her public image through photography, while Persona: Photography and the Re-Imagined Self looks at artists who use the camera to construct alter egos and challenge fixed ideas of identity. Joining us are Pieranna Cavalchini, the Gardner’s Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art and co-curator of Persona, and Sylvia Hickman, Curatorial Associate at the Gardner and curator of Picturing Isabella.

We close out National Poetry Month with Evan Wang, the National Youth Poet Laureate and author of the new chapbook Slow Burn: Poems. Wang will appear at Harvard Book Store on Wednesday, April 29 at 7 p.m., in conversation with Cindion Huang.

April 27, 2026 - Adele Bertei on "No New York," Persona + Picturing Isabella at the ISGM, and Evan Wang

The Culture Show Podcast