Julie Ault on Nancy Spero, American Pre-Raphaelites

Episode No. 392 features artist and curator Julie Ault and curator Linda S. Ferber.

Ault is the curator of "Nancy Spero: Paper Mirror" at MoMA PS1 through June 23. Spero was a pioneering feminist artist whose work often addressed contemporary events and archetypal representations of women across cultures, all in an attempt to present histories in which women were protagonists. "Paper Mirror" includes over 100 works Spero made over six decades. It is the first major exhibition of her work in the U.S. since her death in 2009.

Julie Ault is an artist whose work frequently consists of curatorial activity as artistic practice. She was a co-founder of the art collective Group Material (1979-1996), and her work has been exhibited in the Sao Paulo and Whitney Biennials. In 2018 she was awarded a MacArthur 'genius' fellowship.

On the second segment, historian and curator Linda S. Ferber discusses "The American Pre-Raphaelites: Radical Realists" at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition examines a group of artists who Ferber and artist Nancy K. Anderson argue coalesced around the ideas of John Ruskin around and after the American Civil War. Their work frequently used nature and landscape to address contemporary politics via metaphor. The exhibition is on view in Washington through July 21.