The Modern Art Notes Podcast (visual art)

Episode No. 630 features curators Stephan Wolohojian and Lisa Volpe.

With Ashley Dunn and in collaboration with Laurence des Cars, Isolde Pludermacher, and Stéphane Guégan, Wolohojian is the co-curator of "Manet/Degas" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition explores the artistic dialogue between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas and considers their work in the context of their shared family relationships, friendships, and intellectual circles. It is on view through January 7, 2024. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Met. Bookshop and Amazon offer it for $32-60.

Volpe is the curator of "Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition presents the work the famed Frank and the enormously less-well-known Webb made as they traveled the United States on Guggenheim fellowships in 1955. It is on view through January 7, 2024. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by the MFAH in association with Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $25-47.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredThirty.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Episode No. 629 features artist Alexandro Segade of My Barbarian, and a re-air of a 2013 conversation with artist Eleanor Antin.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is presenting "Eleanor Antin and My Barbarian," a fiftieth anniversary celebration of Antin's landmark 100 Boots (1973). The exhibition also includes work featuring Antin's alter ego, the King of Solana Beach, and My Barbarian's Universal Declaration of Infantile Anxiety Situations Reflected in the Creative Impulse (2013), a feminist performance work that centers matrilineal creative inheritance. The work's title references the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was co-authored by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948, and Melanie Klein's 1929 essay "Infantile Anxiety Situations Reflected in a Work of Art and the Creative Impulse." Performers include Segade and his My Barbarian mates Malik Gaines and Jade Gordon, as well as artists Mary Kelly and Antin. "Eleanor Antin and My Barbarian is on view through February 18, 2024.

My Barbarian's work has been presented at museums such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in a 2021-22 survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

This Bomb magazine interview between My Barbarian and Andrea Fraser was referenced on the program. 

For Antin images, see Episode No. 104.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 3:00pm EDT

Episode No. 628 features artist Lyle Ashton Harris and curator Scott Allan. 

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is presenting "Lyle Ashton Harris: Our first and last love," a survey of Harris' career featuring photographs, collage, archival material, and more. It's on view through January 7. 2024. Harris' work engages transatlantic social and political dialogues even has he foregrounds personal struggles, sorrows, and self-illuminations. The exhibition was co-curated by Caitlin Julia Rubin and Lauren Haynes. A catalogue is forthcoming. 

Harris' work is also included in "Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility," at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition, which was curated by Ashley James with Faith Hunter, presents works of art that feature partially obscured or hidden figures, works that conceal the body to explore a key tension in contemporary society: the desire to be seen, and the desire to be hidden from sight. It's on view through April 7, 2004. A catalogue was published by the museum. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for about $60-65.  

With Nii Obodai, Harris is the co-editor of the latest issue of Aperture magazine, which considers the Ghanaian capital of Accra as a site of dynamic photographic voices and histories that connect visual culture in West Africa to the world. It's available from Aperture for $25.

Allan curated "Reckoning with Millet's Man with a Hoe," at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition is an intensive look at arguably the most historically significant painting in the JPGM's collection of nineteenth-century European art. Man with a Hoe debuted in Paris in 1863, where it was attacked for its depiction and glorification of peasant labor. The exhibition is on view through December 10. The Getty-published catalogue is available from Amazon and Indiebound for about $27-30.

Instagram: Lyle Ashton Harris, Scott Allan, Tyler Green. 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

Episode No. 627 features artists Erica Mahinay and Teresa Baker.

Mahinay and Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa) are both included in "Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living," the sixth iteration of the Hammer Museum's biennial. The exhibition, which is on view through December 31, was curated by Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramírez, with Ashton Cooper. This is the second of two MAN Podcast episodes that will feature artists from the program. The first featured artists Melissa Cody and Roksana Pirouzmand.

Mahinay is a painter and sculptor whose work references and updates modernism in address of the body. She has had solo exhibitions at galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and Rome.

Baker's mixed-media works combine artificial and natural materials to make abstracted landscapes that explore space and movement. She has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, and in group exhibitions at Ballroom Marfa, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kan., and Marin MOCA, Novato, Calif. 

Instagram: Erica Mahinay, Teresa Baker, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 9:15pm EDT

Episode No. 626 features curator Michelle White and artist Kenneth Tam. 

With Megan Holly Witko, White is the co-curator of "Chryssa & New York," a survey of work the Greek-born Chryssa made while living in New York from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. It's at the Menil Collection in Houston through March 10, 2024. During the years featured in the exhibition, Chryssa used neon and elements of commercial signage to bridge ideas rooted in the pop, conceptual, and minimalist movements. It is the first major survey of the artist’s work in the United States in more than fifty years. The excellent exhibition catalogue was co-published by the Menil and the Dia Art Foundation, with which the Menil co-organized the show. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $49.

The Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive is exhibiting "MATRIX 281 / Kenneth Tam: The Founding of the World" through November 26. The exhibition presents The Founding of the World, a video and sculptural installation in which Tam explores the history and practices of fraternities as a way of probing the dynamics of male intimacy and ritualized violence. The presentation was curated by Victoria Sung.

Tam's work is also included in:

  • "Cowboy," at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver through February 18, 2024. "Cowboy" features the work of 27 artists who are shifting cowboy mythology. It was curated by Nora Burnett Abrams and Miranda Lash. 
  • "Kenneth Tam: All of M" at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. All of M is Tam's re-staging of the high school prom as a way of exploring how men perform their identities in spaces of social ritual. It is on view through November 11. 

Instagram: Michelle White, Kenneth Tam, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentySix.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Episode No. 625B features artists Tammy Nguyen and Jammie Holmes.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston is presenting "Tammy Nguyen," an exhibition of Nguyen's new paintings, works on paper, and unique artist books. The interconnected body of work, informed by East Asian landscape painting, addresses the relationship between man and nature and landscape as presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1836 book Nature. The exhibition, which is on view through January 28, 2024, was organized by Jeffrey De Blois.

Nguyen was a recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim fellowship, and has exhibited at museums such as MoMA PS1, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Factory Contemporary Arts Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and more. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and the Dallas Museum of Art. This is her first museum solo exhibition.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is presenting "Jammie Holmes: Make the Revolution Irresistible," a survey of approximately 15 paintings Holmes has made since 2019. The exhibition reveals Holmes' interest in Black domestic spaces, particularly as they relate to his hometown of Thibodaux, Louisiana, and the continuing impacts of the Black Panther Party. The exhibition, which was curated by María Elena Ortiz, is on view through November 26. The MAMFW-published catalogue is available from the museum for $65.

Instagram: Tammy Nguyen, Jammie Holmes, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyFiveB.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Episode No. 625A remembers artist Robert Irwin.

Nota bene: Episode No. 625B, which will post here on the evening of Friday, October 27, will feature artists Tammy Nguyen and Jammie Holmes.

Irwin, a painter and anti-sculptor who substantially invented the Light and Space movement (and responses to it as a teacher), died on October 25, 2023. He was 95. This program remembers Irwin with two curators who worked with him, and by re-playing Irwin's two appearances on The Modern Art Notes Podcast.

Michael Auping retired from the chief curatorship of The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2017 after curatorial stints at the University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Fla., and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. He organized "Robert Irwin / Matrix 15" for what is now the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in 1978.

Evelyn Hankins is head curator at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC. She organized "Robert Irwin: All the Rules Will Change," a survey of Irwin's transition from painting to installation, in 2016.

The two Irwin interview segments on the program are from 2012's Episode No. 26; and 2016's Episode No. 231.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyFiveA.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Episode No. 624 features curator Leigh Arnold and artist Sarah Crowner.

Arnold is the curator of "Groundswell: Women of Land Art," a survey of artists who have worked in the land that revises ossified male-centric histories at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. The exhibition provides a broad overview of themes, interests, and artworks that women created beginning in the 'usual' land art era, the 1960s and 1970s, and updates our understanding of land art to include not only work made in the most rural reaches of North America, but also work made and installed in and around urban and suburban centers. The exhibition is on view through January 7, 2024. An excellent catalogue was published by the Nasher and DelMonico Books. Bookshop and Amazon offer it for about $55.

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation is presenting "Sarah Crowner: Around Orange," a presentation of site-specific artworks that engage with the Pulitzer's Tadao Ando building and Ellsworth Kelly, whose monumental sculpture Blue Black is on permanent view at the Pulitzer. The exhibition, which was curated by Stephanie Weissberg, is on view through February 4, 2024. Concurrently, The Hill Art Foundation, New York, is showing "The Sea, the Sky, a Window," an exhibition of site-specific works Crowner is presenting with sculptures and paintings from several private collections. The exhibition is on view through February 17, 2024.

Instagram: Leigh Arnold, Sarah Crowner, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyFour.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Episode No. 623 features artists Melissa Cody and Roksana Pirouzmand.

Cody and Pirouzmand are both included in "Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living," the sixth iteration of the Hammer Museum's biennial. The exhibition, which is on view through December 31, was curated by Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramírez, with Ashton Cooper. This is the first of two MAN Podcast episodes that will feature artists from the program.

Cody, a fourth-generation Navajo weaver, creates tapestries from traditional techniques that engage both ancestral and contemporary ideas and forms. Her work is partly informed by the Germantown style, developed in the nineteenth century by weavers who used industrially dyed yarns produced in Germantown, Pennsylvania and shipped west to be used by Diné weavers. Cody's work has been included in exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark., the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, SITE Santa Fe, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and more.

Pirouzmand is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist whose work reference and use the human body to address diaspora and memory. She has exhibited across southern California at venues such as the California Institute of the Arts' REDCAT.

Instagram: Melissa Cody, Roksana Pirouzmand, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT

Episode No. 622 is a holiday clips episode that features artists Otobong Nkanga and Griselda Rosas. 

Nkanga was just awarded the 2025 Nasher Prize, for "weaving together powerful works that delve into the complex, often fragile relationships between humans, the land, and its resources, touching on issues of consumption, global circulation, connectivity, and care." 

This segment was taped in 2018 on the occasion of “Otobong Nkanga: To Dig a Hole That Collapses Again” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition, a survey of her work, was curated by Omar Kholeif. For images, see Episode No. 340.

Rosas' work is on view at the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in "Matrix 282/Griselda Rosas: Yo te cuido." The exhibition presents Rosas’ textile drawings and sculptural installations that explore themes of inheritance, colonialism, and intergenerational knowledge. The exhibition, which debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and which is on view in Berkeley through November 19, was curated by Anthony Graham with assistance from Jill Dawsey. This segment was taped in the spring when the MCASD presentation was on view. For images, see Episode No. 607.

Instagram: Otobong Nkanga, Griselda Rosas, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeSixHundredTwentyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:00pm EDT