The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 589 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Rose B. Simpson.

Rose B. Simpson is included in two ongoing presentations in New England: her Counterculture is installed at Field Farm, a Trustees property in Williamstown, Mass.; and in "Ceramics in the Expanded Field," at MASS MoCA through April 10. Counterculture was organized by Jamilee Lacy and will be on view through April 30, 2023. "Ceramics," which is up until April 10, was curated by Susan Cross.

Elsewhere, the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia is featuring "Rose B. Simpson: Dream House" through May 7, and Simpson is included with in "Thick as Mud" at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. The exhibition examines how eight artists use mud as material or subject. Curated by Nina Bozicnik, it's on view through May 7.

Across ceramic sculpture, performance, installation, and more, Simpson's work addresses ideas as far ranging as resistance, apocalypse, spirituality, and automobile design. Museums such as the University of New Mexico Art Museum (Simpson lives in Santa Clara Pueblo), Nevada Museum of Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design's SCAD Museum of Art, and the Pomona College Museum of Art have all presented solo exhibitions of her work, and Simpson has been in group shows at the Henry Art Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Denver Museum of Art, and plenty more.

The program was taped on the occasion of these shows and the ICA Boston exhibition "Rose B. Simpson: Legacies." 

From the program:

For images, see Episode No. 567.

Air date: February 16, 2023.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:17am EDT

Episode No. 588 features author Jennifer Van Horn and curator Elizabeth Kornhauser.

Van Horn is the author of "Portraits of Resistance: Activating Art During Slavery," which was recently published by Yale University Press. The book investigates American portraiture, a discipline which until recently was dominated by European-American artists and their wealthy, self-image-creating clients. The book discovers within some of these portraits and the artists who made them histories of Black resistance, agency, viewership, and even iconoclasm. While the book primarily focuses on the era before the Civil War, it also reaches well into the twentieth century. Amazon and Indiebound offer "Portraits of Resistance" for about $60.

Kornhauser discusses a new installation of portraiture miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American galleries. Portrait miniatures -- often tiny watercolor pictures on ivory -- were popular in the US in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The production of portrait miniatures was one form of production particularly open to women artists.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:19pm EDT

Episode No. 587 features curators Jed Morse and Perrin Lathrop.

Morse is the curator of "Mark di Suvero: Steel Like Paper" at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The exhibition surveys di Suvero's career with a special focus on di Suvero's in-studio practice, such as his drawings and his little-considered modestly scaled sculptures (which make up the vast majority of his oeuvre). It is the most extensive survey of di Suvero's work in over 30 years, and the largest museum exhibition of such since 1975. "di Suvero" is on view through August 27. The excellent catalogue was published by the museum.

Along with Nikoo Paydar and Jamaal Sheats, Lathrop is a co-curator of "African Modernism in America, 1947-67" at the Fisk University Galleries in Nashville. The exhibition investigates the connections between African artists and American patrons, artists, and cultural organizations such as the Harmon Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, and HBCUs during the early Cold War. It also features The Politics of Selection, a commission from Lagos-based sculptor Ndidi Dike that interrogates the collecting histories presented in the exhibition. "African Modernism" is on view through February 12, after which it will travel to the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University, Saint Louis; the Phillips Collection in Washington; and the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati. The outstanding catalogue was published by the American Federation of Arts. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for about $45.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:58pm EDT

Episode No. 586 features artist Justine Kurland.

The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford recently acquired a complete vintage set of Kurland's 69-picture "Girl Pictures" suite (1997-2002) and has installed it in the museum's 1934 Avery Court. (The building is known for having the first international style spaces of any American art museum.) The exhibition is on view through August.

Kurland's series presents a fictional semi-narrative of an empowered, self-sufficient, ever-traveling community of young women. It is a feminist recasting of the long tradition of adolescent and vagabond narratives that foreground boys and young men. Aperture published the entire series in a book that includes a story by Rebecca Bengal. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for about $47.

Instagram: Justine Kurland, Tyler Green.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightySixb.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:35pm EDT

Episode No. 585 features artist Matthew Ritchie.

The Frist Art Museum in Nashville is presenting "Matthew Ritchie: A Garden in the Flood," a survey of the last 20 years of Matthew Ritchie's career. The exhibition shows how Ritchie has brought together biology, physics, creation stories, epic poetry and history across painting, sculpture, video and installation. At the core of the exhibition is a new Ritchie video work featuring composer Hanna Benn in collaboration with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and their late music director Dr. Paul T. Kwami. The exhibition was curated by Mark Scala and is on view through March 5. An exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Books in association with the Frist. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for about $50.

Ritchie's most recent institutional solo exhibitions have been at the CVAD Galleries at the University of North Texas, the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, and the ICA Boston.

Instagram: Matthew Ritchie, Tyler Green.

Air date: January 19, 2023.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightyFive.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:14pm EDT

Episode No. 584 features curators Gretchen Hirschauer and Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington is presenting "Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice," through February 12. The exhibition was curated by Peter Humfrey in collaboration with Andrea Bellieni and Hirschauer. It presents Carpaccio, a Venetian master who worked in the period between Bellini and the rise of Tintoretto, as the producer of spectacular narrative pictures that brought storytelling more fully into the practice of Venetian painters. The exhibition includes 45 paintings and 30 drawings. The NGA and Yale University Press copublished an excellent catalogue. It is available from Indiebound and Amazon for $51-65.

  • For Carpaccio's Scuola degli Albanesi 'Life of the Virgin' cycle, see here.

Alexander discusses "East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art" at Stanford University's Cantor Arts Center. The exhibition engages an American art history centered on transpacific migration and discourse rather than the traditional transatlantic address. It features roughly chronological sections that highlight key narratives in Asian American art between the late nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. "East of the Pacific" is one of the three inaugural Asian American Art Initiative exhibitions at the Cantor. It is on view through February 12.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightyFour.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:00pm EDT

After a brief introduction, this episode is a re-air of host Tyler Green's 2014 conversation with artist Michael Snow.

Snow died on January 5. He was 94.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeMichaelSnowRIP.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:40pm EDT

Episode No. 583 features artist William Cordova and curator Michelle White.

Cordova is featured in "Beyond the Surface: Collage, Mixed Media and Textile Works from the Collection" at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The exhibition is on view through May 14.

Cordova's work uses a range of media to address and re-make historical narratives. His practice understands that present knowledge of history is always changing, and that artists are part of the process of revising our understandings of the past. Cordova has had solo shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and at LAXART in Los Angeles. In 2019 he was included in the Havana Biennial, previously he was included in -ennials at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and in Prague, Venice, and New Orleans (Prospect).

On the second segment, White discusses "Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work," a survey of De Maria's career drawn mostly from the Menil Collection's outstanding de Maria collection. The exhibition is on view in Houston through April 23.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 3:51pm EDT

Episode No. 582 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday clips episode with artist Lari Pittman.

Museo Jumex in Mexico City is presenting "Lo que se ve, se pregunta," a retrospective of Pittman's work that descends from a 2019 version of the exhibition that originated at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibition was curated by Connie Butler; the Mexico City presentation was coordinated with Adriana Kuri Alamillo. It is on view through February 26, 2023.

This program, the second of two, was taped in 2019 on the occasion of the debut iteration of this project, “Lari Pittman: Declaration of Independence,” at the Hammer. The exhibition revealed 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 excellent exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for $50-65.

Pittman is one of America’s most-honored artists. His work is in the collection of virtually every important American art museum. Pittman has received awards from the International Association of Art Critics, the Skowhegan Medal, and he has been granted three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. His work has been featured in many important international exhibitions, including Documenta and the Venice Biennale.

For images, see Episode No. 415.

Direct download: MANEpisodeFiveHundredEightyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:32pm EDT

Episode No. 581 is a holiday clips episode with artist Lari Pittman.

Museo Jumex in Mexico City is presenting "Lo que se ve, se pregunta," a retrospective of Pittman's work that descends from a 2019 version of the exhibition that originated at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2019. The exhibition was curated by Connie Butler; the Mexico CIty presentation was coordinated with Adriana Kuri Alamillo. It is on view through February 26, 2023.

This program, the first of two, was taped in 2019 on the occasion of the debut iteration of this project, “Lari Pittman: Declaration of Independence,” at the Hammer. The exhibition revealed 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 excellent exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for $50-65.

Pittman is one of America’s most-honored artists. His work is in the collection of virtually every important American art museum. Pittman has received awards from the International Association of Art Critics, the Skowhegan Medal, and he has been granted three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. His work has been featured in many important international exhibitions, including Documenta and the Venice Biennale.

For images, see Episode No. 415.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeFiveHundredEightyOne.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:50pm EDT