The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 321 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend re-air of host Tyler Green's March conversation with National Gallery of Art curator Diane Waggoner.  

Waggoner is the curator of “East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography.” For several decades, the story of America’s nineteenth-century photographic history has mostly run through the West. Waggoner’s exhibition instead looks at how photographers looked at the region between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. The exhibition features 175 nineteenth-century photographs, including daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, albumen prints, stereographic prints and even paintings. It debuted at the National Gallery of Art this past spring, and it's now at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where it will be on view through January 7. The exhibition catalogue was published by the NGA and Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $41.

Images of art discussed on the program are available here.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentyOne.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 11:32am EDT

Episode No. 320 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend re-air of host Tyler Green's June, 2017 conversation with Leah Dickerman.

Along with the Tate Modern's Achim Borchardt-Hume, Dickerman is the co-curator of "Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends," a retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through March 25. The exhibition features Rauschenberg's early photography, body prints, combines, performances, prints and more. The exhibition catalogue was published by MoMA.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwenty.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:29pm EDT

Episode No. 319 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast spotlights three exhibitions from the Getty-funded Pacific Standard Time series of exhibitions.

Julieta González discusses "Memories of Underdevelopment: Art and the Decolonial Turn in Latin America, 1960-85," which is at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through February 4, 2018.

Adela Goldbard talks about her work, especially her interest in fire. Her work is included in "Prometheus 2017: Four Artists from Mexico Revisit Orozco" at the Pomona College Art Museum.

Finally,  Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Wendy Kaplan discusses "Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985."

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredNineteen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:41pm EDT

Episode No. 318 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features author and critic Jed Perl and author Jo Steffens.

Perl is the author of "Calder: The Conquest of Time, The Early Years, 1898-1940," the first in a planned two-volume biography of American sculptor Alexander Calder. The book was recently published by Knopf.

Jo Steffens discusses "Unpacking My Library: Artists and Their Books," which was recently published by Yale University Press. Steffens edited the book with Matthias Neumann. It is the third in a series that has also spotlighted the libraries of architects and writers.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredEighteen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:50pm EDT

Episode No. 317 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Carmen Bambach and Alexandra Munroe.

Bambach is the curator of "Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition, which features 133 drawings, three sculptures, a painting and a wood architectural model, all by Michelangelo, and contextualizing contemporary works by his teachers, peers and pupils, is on view through February 12, 2018. The lavish, extensive exhibition catalogue was published by the Met and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $58.

Bambach is a curator at the Met. Her previous exhibitions include a 2010 survey of Bronzino's drawings, a 2003 exhibition of Leondardo da Vinci's drawings, and a 2001 show spotlighting the draftsmanship of Correggio and Parmigianino.

On the second segment, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum curator Alexandra Munroe discusses "Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World." The exhibition, which presents work made in or about China by 71 artists and groups between 1989 and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is at the Guggenheim through January 7, 2018. Munroe co-curated the exhibition with Philip Tinari and Hon Hanru.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSeventeen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 3:14pm EDT

Episode No. 316 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features Raw Material hosts Jessica Placzek and Maddie Gobbo and artist Andrea Chung.

This week the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Raw Material podcast began its third season. This season's hosts are Jessica Placzek, a reporter for San Francisco National Public Radio affiliate KQED, and Madeline Gobbo, an illustrator and graduate fiction candidate at the University of California, Davis. Season Three of Raw Material looks at California's land and landscapes and how artists and other creatives have made work there.

On the second segment, we'll hear a conversation between host Tyler Green and artist Andrea Chung from July. At the time the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego was presenting an exhibition of Chung's work. Now she's in a two-artist installation at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, as well as the Prospect 4 triennial in New Orleans.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixteen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:38pm EDT

Episode No. 315 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features photographer Beuford Smith and audio from "Teenie Harris Photographs: In Their Own Voice" at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.

With American art institutions increasingly looking at the long-neglected field of photography by African-Americans, this week's program looks at the work of two museums trying to tell a more complete story of America's history and art history.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond is now showing "Like a Study in Black History: P.H. Polk, Chester Higgins and The Black Photographers Annual, Volume 2." The Black Photographers Annuals were books that were created, published and edited by black artists and that featured the work of black photographers. The Annual was co-founded by Joe Crawford and photographer and editor Beuford Smith, who is the guest on the first segment of this week's MAN Podcast.

Curated by Sarah Eckhardt, "Like a Study in Black History" is on view through April 15, 2018. It is the second in a series of VMFA collection rotations exploring the four volumes of The Black Photographers Annual (1973-80). (The first exhibition may be accessed here.) In conjunction with the exhibitions, Smith granted the VMFA a license to present the four volumes of The Black Photographers Annual online for two years. Each volume may be accessed here:

Smith is social documentarian who was a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop (which he later led), a black photography collective. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the New York Public Library and the VMFA; the Studio Museum in Harlem and the International Center for Photography in New York have held exhibitions of his work.

The second segment looks at "Teenie Harris Photographs: In Their Own Voice," an exhibition at the CMOA through January 28, 2018. The show, the CMOA's latest in a series of examinations of its Teenie Harris Archive, pairs oral histories with Harris's pictures. This week's program features six audio clips from those oral histories; the related photographs are below.

The oral histories were collected by Ben Houston for the Remembering African American Pittsburgh project at Carnegie Mellon University (which Houston leads). The project was developed by CMU's Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies & the Economy.

The exhibition and the related audio may be more fully accessed via its app, which is available for both Apple and Android devices.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFifteen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 2:22pm EDT

Episode No. 314 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists An-My Lê and Katherine Bradford.

An-My Lê is in two exhibitions at the Yale University Art Gallery: "Artists in Exile: Expressions of Loss and Hope," which considers the work of artists who have left the countries of their birth, and "Before the Event/After the Fact: Contemporary Perspectives of War," which examines how photographers have portrayed war. "Artists in Exile" was curated by Frauke V. Josenhans; "Before the Event/After the Fact" was organized by Judy Ditner. Both exhibitions are on view through Dec. 31. The catalogue for "Artists in Exile" was published by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $45.

Lê is a Vietnamese-American photographer whose work considers the confluence of war, landscape and memory. Her series include:

  • "Viêt Nam," in which Lê's memories of a war-plagued country inform pictures of the contemporary Vietnamese landscape;
  • "Small Wars," an investigation of Vietnam War re-enactments in Virginia and North Carolina;
  • "29 Palms," a look at Marine training exercises in the California desert; and
  • "The Silent General," a look at the post-Civil War American South.

Lê has had solo exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Dia Beacon and MoMA PS1. In 2012 she won a MacArthur 'genius' grant.

On the second segment, Katherine Bradford discusses recent work on the occasion of "FOCUS: Katherine Bradford" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The exhibition, curated by Alison Hearst, is on view through January 14, 2018. This fall she'll be exhibiting in Prospect 4, the New Orleans biennial that is curated by Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University curator Trevor Schoonmaker.

Bradford's paintings often address traditional painting standards, such as bathers or swimmers, with verve and freshness. Bradford has been included in group exhibitions at museums such as MoMA PS1 and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Her paintings are in the collections of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smith College Museum of Art.

 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFourteen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:29pm EDT

Episode No. 313 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Thomas Struth.

The Saint Louis Art Museum is set to open "Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics," a survey of 35 works Struth has made over the last decade. It opens to members tomorrow, Friday, November 3, and to the general public on November 5. It will remain on view through January 21. The exhibition was co-organized by the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta  in collaboration with SLAM, whose installation was organized by Eric Lutz. The exhibition's catlaogue was published by Mack. Amazon offers it for $41.

Thomas Struth is one of the world's most prominent photographers. His work often looks at the construction of places, including most recently places that he describes as being weirdly invisible. His most recent retrospective, "Thomas Struth, Photographs 1978-2010," was organized by the Kustsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, in his hometown of Dusseldorf, the Whitechapel in London and the Museu Serralves in Porto, Portugal. His last American retrospective was in 2002-03, at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the MCA Chicago.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirteen.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 3:30pm EDT

Episode No. 312 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Martine Syms and art historian Petra Giloy-Hirtz.

Martine Syms is included in "Speech/Acts," a six-artist exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia that examines experimental black poetry and how language has shaped black American experiences. (Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Steffani Jemison, Tony Lewis, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed are the other artists.) The exhibition, which was curated by Meg Onli, will be on view through December 23. The museum's website includes a reading group syllabus, gallery guide, exhibition poster, installation views and more.

Syms is an artist and the founder of Dominica Publishing, a press dedicated to exploring blackness in contemporary art and culture. Her work most often uses video, installation and performance to investigate representations of blackness, especially in popular culture. She's been the subject of solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, White Flag Projects in St. Louis, the Camden Arts Centre and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, Locust Projects in Miami and more.

On the second segment, Petra Giloy-Hirtz discusses her recent monograph of Hassel Smith, a major figure in the development of post-war painting in San Francisco. (Amazon offers it for just $20!) As Crocker Art Museum curator discussed with host Tyler Green last week, Smith was a major influence on Richard Diebenkorn. This segment originally aired in 2013. For Smith images, see Episode No. 65, and the Hassel Smith Estate's website. New York's Washburn Gallery will open an exhibition of Smith's work from 1959-62 on November 2.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwelve.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 11:00am EDT