Episode No. 491 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Torkwase Dyson.

Dyson is included in “Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment” at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio through May 9. The exhibition looks at how artists engage with social issues and how they may shape institutions at a time when both racism and a global pandemic have caused many institutions to re-consider their construction and practices. The exhibition was curated by Lucy I. Zimmerman. “Climate Changing” features nine artworks commissioned by the Wexner, including work Torkwase Dyson discussed on the program last September, when this conversation first aired.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is exhibiting paintings from Dyson's "Bird and Lava" series, an exploration of spaces of geographic, architectural, and infrastructural liberation, in "Stories of Resistance." Dyson developed "Bird and Lava" during a residency at the Wexner. Curated by Wassan Al-Khudhairi with Misa Jeffereis, "Stories" looks at artistic forms of resistance in the U.S. and abroad. It's on view through August 15.

Episode No. 490 features curators Nicole R. Myers and Julie McGee.

With Katherine Rothkopf, Nicole R. Myers is the co-curator of "Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris" at the Dallas Museum of Art. Across more than 40 paintings, the exhibition explores how Gris brought color to cubism in still-life painting of striking vivacity. It is on view in Dallas through July 25 before traveling to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The outstanding exhibition catalogue was published by the two museums and distributed by Yale University Press. It's available for about $45 from Indiebound and Amazon.

On the second segment, Julie McGee discusses "David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History" at the High Museum of Art. The exhibition is on view through May 9. From Atlanta the exhibition will travel to the Portland (Me.) Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection in Washington, and to the Cincinnati Art Museum. The exhibition catalogue was edited by Jessica May and published by Rizzoli Electa. It's available for $40-50 from Indiebound and Amazon.

Episode No. 489 features art historians Debra Bricker Balken and Celeste Brusati. 

Balken is the author of "Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings and Things," a thorough presentation that includes Dove's assemblages. Jessie Sentivan contributed to the book. It contains 537 illustrations, almost all of them in color, of each work Balken was able to identify, find, photograph and document. "Dove" includes a an essay on Dove's work and its criticial reception, as well as mini-essays on major works. Many of the materials and images in the book are published for the first time here. It lists for $125 via Indiebound or Amazon.

Dove is among the most prominent American modernists of the early twentieth century, a key link between the American nature tradition and abstraction.

On the second segment, Celeste Brusati discusses "Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Introduction to the Academy of Painting; or, The Visible World," a new edited volume on Hoogstraten's landmark discourse on painting, his experience in Rembrandt's studio, and engagements with optics, perspective, and philosophy. Brusati edited the volume; Jaap Jacobs translated Hoogstarten's text. Brusati is a professor emerita of art and art history at the University of Michigan. The book was published by Getty Publications. It lists for about $75 via Indiebound or Amazon.

Episode No. 488 features artist Alex Bradley Cohen and curator Ann Dumas.

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University has recently acquired Alex Bradley Cohen's 2015 For a More Just Future.

Cohen's paintings of people and places are often blendings of his personal relationships with art history. His work has been exhibited in "State of the Art 2020" at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and The Momentary and at group shows at the University Art Museum at the University of Albany, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

On the second segment, curator Ann Dumas discusses "Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature,"  which is at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston through June 20. The exhibition reveals how David Hockney has mined Vincent Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in ways that have informed his mark-making, compositions and more.

BONUS: Hear an excerpt from recent Bemis Center resident Lea Bertucci's forthcoming album "A Visible Length of Light!"

Episode No. 487 features curators Marshall N. Price and Elizabeth Finch, and artist Candice Lin.

Price and Finch are the co-curators of "Roy Lichtenstein:  History in the Making, 1948-60." The exhibition examines Lichtenstein's early work, with particular attention to Lichtenstein's synthesis of European modernism, American painting and contemporary vernacular sources. The exhibition is at the Colby College Museum of Art through June 6. For now, the museum is open only to current Colby students, faculty and staff. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by Rizzoli Electa. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for about $33. From Maine, the exhibition will travel to the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Finch and Price are curators at Colby and at the Nasher, respectively.

On the second segment, Candice Lin discusses her work on the occasion of "Visionary New England" at the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Mass. The exhibition, which was curated by Sarah Montross, jumps off from New England's embrace of visionary and utopian cultures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- think Brook Farm, Fruitlands and experimental psychology -- to look at how artists address some of the same ideas. It is on view through March 14.

Lin's work examines trade routes and material histories as part of her investigation of colonialism, racism and sexism. Her first solo museum show will open at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in August before traveling to Harvard's Carpenter Center in 2022.

Episode No. 486 features artists Baseera Khan and Amy Franceschini of Futurefarmers.

Kahn and Futurefarmers are among the artists included in "Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment" at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio through May 9. The exhibition looks at how artists engage with social issues and how they may shape institutions at a time when both racism and a global pandemic have caused many institutions to re-consider their construction and practices. The exhibition was curated by Lucy I. Zimmerman. "Climate Changing" features nine artworks commissioned by the Wexner, including work Torkwase Dyson discussed on the program last September.

Baseera Khan addresses colonial histories, exile, place and displacement, and belonging within the context of capitalism and its impacts. Their work takes many forms, including performance, sculpture and, soon, a TV pilot produced during a recent residency at The Kitchen in New York City. Later this year they will have their first museum solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.

Futurefarmers is an ever-changing design studio and collective that supports art projects and research interests. Founded in 1995 by Amy Franceschini, the group has focused on using projects to propose alternatives to present social, political and environmental constructs. Futurefarmers' project "Seed Journey" is included in "Climate Changing." Initiated in 2016, "Seed Journey" is a collaboration between Futurefarmers and local farmers and scholars to return heirloom grain seeds to their native lands. It began with a voyage from Oslo, Norway to Belgium, and expanded in subsequent years to include other seeds, nations and continents. 

Episode No. 485 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday week clips episode featuring former curator and historian Kelli Morgan.

Earlier this week, Charles Venable, the director of Newfields, the institution formerly and best known as the Indianapolis Museum of Art, resigned in the wake of the museum's publishing a series of racist job postings via the executive search firm m/Oppenheim. Once its racism became a national news story and after Venable resigned, Newfields released an institutional apology that said, "We are sorry. We have made mistakes. We have let you down. We are ashamed of Newfields' leadership and of ourselves. We have ignored, excluded, and disappointed members of our community and staff."

The final event that instigated change in Indianapolis was a letter that called for Venable's resignation and major board reforms that was signed by 85 Newfields staffers. The instigating event of the public crisis at Newfields was the resignation of curator Kelli Morgan last summer. Morgan departed the museum via a much-circulated letter that specifically addressed the museum's racism and dedication to whiteness. Just before resigning, Moran she published an assessment of the art museum field titled "To Bear Witness: Real Talk about White Supremacy in Art Museums Today" in multiple venues, including in Burnaway and the Indianapolis Recorder. 

Just before Morgan left Indianapolis, she joined host Tyler Green to discuss the challenges and opportunities within presenting permanent collection galleries of nineteenth-century American art when most American art museums’ collections of the period consist of primarily white artists. This week's episode is a re-airing of that conversation.

Episode No. 484 features historian Deborah Willis and artist Leidy Churchman.

Willis is the author of "The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship," which was just published by New York University Press. The book joins 99 photographs of Black Civil War soldiers and Black men and women who served within military regiments with primary source materials such as letters in an effort to provide a fuller picture of how Black men and women fought the war. Indiebound and Amazon offer the book for about $35.

Willis is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts and Department of Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University. She has written or contributed to at least 28 books, has won two NAACP Image Awards and a MacArthur 'genius' fellowship. Just this week the College Art Association awarded her its 2021 Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art. 

On the second segment, Leidy Churchman discusses their work on the occasion of "FOCUS: Leidy Churchman" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The show was curated by Alison Hearst and will be on view through March 21.

Churchman's paintings address a seemingly endless array of subjects, and in so doing take on the infinite abundance of images in modern society. The Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College has hosted a survey of Churchman's work; they have been included in group shows at museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the New Museum and MoMA PS1 in New York.

Episode No. 483 features artists Alison Saar and Maria Antelman.

The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. and the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Calif. are presenting "Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe" through May 16. The exhibition, which was curated by Rebecca McGrew and Irene Tsatsos, surveys Saar's work related to myths and hidden histories and archetypes. Neither institution is presently open due to the pandemic; the shows are currently scheduled to remain installed through May 16. The catalogue for the exhibition was published by the Benton. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for about $45.

The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento is also presenting Saar's work in "Legends from Los Angeles." The exhibition spotlights the work of Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar. The Crocker is presently closed due to the pandemic; "Legends" is scheduled to be on view through August 15.

On the second segment, Maria Antelman discusses her work on the occasion of "Soft Interface" at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha. The exhibition was curated by Rachel Adams and will remain on view through April 24. Antelman was also selected for the Museum of Modern Art's New Photography 2020, which was (and is) presented digitally due to the pandemic. Antelman's pictures, sculptures and video installations explore the relationship between the body and stone, flesh and mineral, past and present and geologic time and human temporality. Antelman has been the subject of a solo exhibition at the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas, Austin, and she's been in many group shows in Greece, Chile, the United States, and in Germany.

Episode No. 482 features curator Shawnya L. Harris and artist Marie Watt.

Harris is the curator of "Emma Amos: Color Odyssey," a retrospective of Amos's career that opens Saturday, Jan. 30 at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia. Amos was important in bringing second-wave feminism into American art, in addressing many American and art histories within her work, and in making work that synthesized her interest in printmaking, weaving and painting. "Emma Amos" will remain on view in Athens through April 25, when it will travel to the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show features about 60 paintings, prints and woven works.

The show's outstanding catalogue, which features essays by Lisa Farrington, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Laurel Garber, Kay Walkingstick, and Phoebe Wolfskill, was published by the Georgia Museum of Art. It's available from GMOA for $40, and should be on Indiebound and Amazon soon.

On the second segment, Marie Watt discusses her work on the occasion of  "Companion Species" at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Museum of Native American History, both in Bentonville, Ark. (As of show-posting, Crystal Bridges is open; "Companion Species" will be on view there through May 24. MONAH has yet to announce its re-opening plans.) The exhibition spotlights and builds upon Watt's Companion Species (Speech Bubble), which Crystal Bridges recently acquired.

Watt is a citizen of the Seneca Nation whose work often explores ideas related to community, history, storytelling. She often works in textile, including in works that are partially sewed by community-embracing sewing circles. She has had solo exhibitions at the National Museum of the American Indian, the Boise Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Missoula Art Museum, and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University. She sits on the board of the Portland (Ore.) Art Museum.