Arts Alive! podcast: Klaudio Rodriguez, Museum of Fine Arts

Joining us today on the Arts Alive! podcast is Klaudio Rodriguez, the executive director and CEO of the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, the oldest gallery of art in the city.

Nicaragua-born and Miami-raised, Rodriguez arrived at the MFA in October, after seven years at the Bronx Museum of Art in New York. He’d been executive director there since 2022.

He explains that he began the St. Pete job in the two-week upset period between Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Combined with the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays, he says, he feels like he’s just settling into work now, in the new year.

Rodriguez discusses the MFA’s place among the other art museums in St. Petersburg, and outlines his vision for the MFA’s future.

“I’m proposing that we need to be able to tell stories in new ways,” he says. “In more engaging ways. And that includes bringing in technology, that includes bringing in different voices and a variety of different expertise that are not necessarily traditionally employed in that way. We’re going to use all the tools in our arsenal to move it forward.”

Click on the arrow to listen to the conversation.