Julie Mehretu, Gold Rush Daguerreotypes

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.