Episode No. 426 features artist Paul Mpagi Sepuya and art historian/curator ShiPu Wang.

The Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston is presenting the survey exhibition "Paul Mpagi Sepuya." The exhibition originated at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and was curated by Wassan Al-Khudhairi with Misa Jeffereis. The Houston presentation was coordinated by Tyler Blackwell. It's on view at the Blaffer through March 14.

Sepuya's photographs of himself, his friends and his colleagues advance portraiture through layering, fragmentation, confusion and a certain kind of trompe l'oeil. They make us question what we see, how it's constructed, and encourage us to contemplate the relationship between reality and artifice. His work is in the collection of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York (which included his work in "Being: New Photography 2018"), MOCA (where his work may be seen in "The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA's Collection" through January 20), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

On the second segment, art historian and curator ShiPu Wang discusses "Chiura Obata: An American Modern," a retrospective of Obata's career. Obata, who was born in Okayama, Japan, melded modernism and American landscapes with Japanese traditions to make a body of work that both engaged the United States and critiqued its racism. "Obata" debuted at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through May 25. The exhibition catalogue was published by University of California Press.

Episode No. 425 is a holiday clips episode featuring curator H. Daniel Peck.

The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY is presenting "Thomas Cole's Refrain: The Paintings of Catskill Creek." The exhibition considers Cole's paintings of Catskill Creek, a 46-mile long river that drains part of the Catskill Mountains and enters the Hudson just below the town of Catskill, as a series. It includes 12 Coles and paintings of Catskill Creek by artists who followed Cole, including Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin Church. It originated at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York.

"Thomas Cole's Refrain" was curated by H. Daniel Peck, a professor emeritus at Vassar College. It is on view through February 23, 2020. Peck is also the author of an excellent accompanying book also titled "Thomas Cole's Refrain." It was published by Cornell University Press's Three Hills imprint. Amazon offers it for $32.

For images of artwork discussed on the program see Episode No. 402.

Episode No. 424 is a Christmas-week clips show featuring artist Leonardo Drew.

This weekend, the Hammer Museum debuts a Drew installation in its lobby space, the newest exhibition in its Hammer Projects series. The presentation was organized by Connie Butler and will remain on view through May 10, 2020.

Host Tyler Green's conversation with Drew was recorded in July on the occasion of "Leonardo Drew: City in the Grass," the public artwork Drew created for the Madison Park Conservancy. Next year City in the Grass will travel to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh as part of an indoor/outdoor exhibition of Drew's work that opens in March.

Episode No. 423 features curator Anna Katz and artist Robert Zakanitch.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is presenting "With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985." The exhibition is the first broad scholarly survey of one of the most important art movements to emerge out out of American feminism. The exhibition features about fifty artists whose work addressed and embraced material typically coded as feminine and thus inferior, including the decorative, domestic, and ornamental. Katz curated the show, which will remain on view in Los Angeles through May 11 before traveling to the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College. The terrific exhibition catalogue was published by MOCA in association with Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $54.

Robert Zakanitch was one of the founders of P&D art. Starting in the early 1970s, his work turned away from minimalism and color-field painting to embrace motifs most often wielded as decoration. His work is in the collection of museums such as the Tate, MoMA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His most recent museum exhibition was at the Hudson River Museum.

Episode No. 422 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Martine Gutierrez and curator Mari Carmen Ramírez.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is exhibiting Martine Gutierrez's work in a "Focus" show that spotlights Gutierrez's 2018 Indigenous Woman project. Indigenous Woman is a 146-page fashion magazine-style publication for which Gutierrez acted as editor, writer, advertising producer, model, photographer -- and everything else. It sends up the traditional fashion magazine by expanding its brief to address white supremacy, to advance native cultures and to investigate the fashion industry's construction of beauty. The exhibition was curated by Alison Hearst and will be on view through January 12, 2020.

Gutierrez's work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, at the Boston University Art Galleries, the McNay Art Museum, and at the Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh. She has been featured in group exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, the New Museum and the Kunstmuseum Bonn. Much of her video and audio work is available on Martine.tv and on Vimeo.

On the second segment, Mari Carmen Ramírez discusses "Beatriz González: A Retrospective," the first large-scale U.S. exhibition devoted to the Colombian artist's career. Ramírez curated the exhibition with the Perez Art Museum Miami's Tobias Ostrander. González is one of the few living artists remaining from Latin America's 'radical women' generation of artists. Her work often examines class, taste, dictatorship, extra-judicial killings, and more. The exhibition debuted at the Perez Art Museum Miami, and is on view in Houston through January 20, 2020. The fine exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel.

Episode No. 421 is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring a clip from the Getty's "Recording Artists" podcast series, and artist Robert Pruitt.

The program first features a clip from the Betye Saar episode of the six-part "Recording Artists" podcast series recently released by the Getty. The series, which is hosted by art historian Helen Molesworth, builds on collections at the Getty Research Institute.

On the second segment, a re-air of host Tyler Green's January conversation with Robert Pruitt. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is exhibiting three large-scale Pruitt works as the inauguration of its Banner Project. Pruitt's work depicts members of the Boston community wearing and interacting with works from the MFA’s collection, including an ancient Egyptian beadnet dress, 20th-century Yoruba wrappers, and an American pictorial quilt by Harriet Powers. The exhibition will be on view through the end of 2020.

Episode No. 420 features the second part of a two-part conversation with artist Lari Pittman, and curator George Shackelford.

The Hammer Museum recently debuted "Lari Pittman: Declaration of Independence," a retrospective of Pittman's nearly forty-year career. The exhibition reveals Pittman's engagements with America's history and with issues and subjects that have been core to our history and identity, including landscape, violence, citizenship, belonging and more. The exhibition was curated by Hammer chief curator Connie Butler. It is on view through January 5, 2020.

Along with Esther Bell, Shackelford is the curator of "Renoir: The Body, The Senses." The exhibition focuses on Renoir's art about the human form, and features the work of artists at whose art Renoir was looking intently, as well as art by early modern artists who were looking at Renoir. It's at the Kimbell Art Museum through January 26, 2020.

Episode No. 419 features artist Shirin Neshat and curator Melissa E. Buron.

The Broad is exhibiting "Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again," a career-spanning survey that places special emphasis on Neshat's address of her home country of Iran and her 2010s turn toward addressing the United States and the ways in which the United States has come to resemble Neshat's theocratic homeland. The exhibition was curated by Ed Schad and will remain on view through February 16, 2020. The excellent catalogue was published by The Broad and DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $45.

Neshat was previously a guest on The MAN Podcast in 2012 and 2013.

On the second segment, Melissa E. Buron discusses her exhibition "James Tissot: Fashion & Faith," which is on view at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The exhibition examines Tissot's career, his engagement with and distance from impressionism, his multi-national career, and his late-in-life turn toward Biblical subjects (in part to attract American patronage). The exhibition is on view through February 9, 2020. The beautifully designed, smart exhibition catalogue was published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and DelMonico Prestel.

Episode No. 419 features artists Nayland Blake and Ann Hamilton.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is exhibiting "No Wrong Holes: Thirty Years of Nayland Blake." Curated by Jamillah James, the exhibition is the most comprehensive survey of Nayland Blake's art. The exhibition spotlight's Blake's interest on feminism and queer liberation and their investigation of subcultures ranging from punk to the BDSM and leather communities. The exhibition, which is on view through January 26, 2020, will be accompanied by a forthcoming catalogue.

On the second segment, Ann Hamilton talks about her recent work. She's included in "Here: Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin" at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus. The exhibition presents work by three Ohio-born artists whose careers have overlapped with the Wexner's own thirty-year history. Elements of the exhibition extend beyond the Wexner and across The Ohio State University campus and Columbus. It was curaetd by Michael Goodson with Lucy I. Zimmerman and Kristin Helmick-Brunet, and remains on view through December 29.

Hamilton also discusses this recent installation at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

Episode No. 417 features artist Julie Mehretu and curator Jane Aspinwall.

This weekend, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens "Julie Mehretu," a mid-career survey of Mehretu's work. The exhibition will include approximately 40 paintings and 40 works on paper from the first 25 years of Mehretu's career. After closing at LACMA on March 22, 2020, "Mehretu" will travel to the Whitney Museum of American Art, the High Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center. The exhibition was curated by LACMA's Christine Y. Kim and the Whitney's Rujeko Hockley.

On the second segment, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art curator Jane L. Aspinwall discusses her new exhibition "Golden Prospects: California Gold Rush Daguerreotypes." The show argues that the Gold Rush was the first "broadly significant event in American history" to be broadly documented in substantial depth by photography. It includes rich images of San Francisco and of the Sierra foothills transformed by miners in pursuit of gold. It's on view in Kansas City through January 26, 2020, and will travel to the Yale University Art Gallery.