The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 373 is a holiday clips episode that features a previously aired conversation with artist Ursula von Rydingsvard.

The program was taped on the occasion of The Fabric Workshop and Museum's presentation of "Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling," an exhibition of roughly 20 von Rydingsvards mostly made since 2000. The exhibition was curated by Mark Rosenthal.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSeventyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 6:05pm EDT

Episode No. 372 is a holiday clips episode featuring a previously aired conversation with artist Deborah Roberts.

Roberts recently won a 2018 Anonymous Was a Woman grant. The program provides an unrestricted grant that "enables women artists, over 40 years of age and at a significant juncture in their lives or careers, to continue to grow and pursue their work."

Roberts came onto the program in February, 2018 on the occasion of the Spelman College Museum of Art exhibition "Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi."

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSeventyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:28pm EDT

Episode No. 371 features artist Kehinde Wiley and curator Alison de Lima Greene.

The Saint Louis Art Museum is presenting "Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis," an exhibition of 11 paintings for which Wiley chose his models from northern Saint Louis City and from Ferguson, in Saint Louis County, and posed them in ways informed by paintings in SLAM's collections. The exhibition was curated by Simon Kelley and Hannah Klemm, with assistance from Molly Moog. It's on view through February 10, 2019. An exhibition catalogue is forthcoming.

Wiley's work is also included in "People Get Ready: Building a Contemporary Collection" at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. (Curators Trevor Schoonmaker installed Wiley in the museum's European galleries.) "People Get Ready"  is on view through January 6, 2019.

Kehinde Wiley is the first African-American artist to paint an official U.S. Presidential portrait (Barack Obama) for the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. Wiley has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum in New York City, the Columbus Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

On the second segment, Museum of Fine Arts Houston curator Alison de Lima Greene discusses "Kindred Spirits: Louise Nevelson & Dorothy Hood." The exhibition presents the work of two mid-century artists who synthesized elements such as cubism and surrealism into American abstraction. The show is on view through February 3, 2010.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSeventyOne.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:19pm EDT

Episode No. 370 features artist Laura Owens and author Mark Lamster.

"Laura Owens," a survey of Owens's work since the mid-1990s, is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Contemporary location through March 25, 2019. The exhibition, which was curated by Scott Rothkopf and originated at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, features about 60 paintings. The exhibition is accompanied by a book published by the Whitney. Amazon offers it for $30.

Throughout her career, Laura Owens has made paintings that address art history, how paintings are made, how images are produced and how painters have left marks on canvas, often within single artworks. Her previous museum exhibitions have come at MOCA (in 2003), the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Bonnefanten Museum Maastricht, Kunsthalle Zurich, the Secession in Vienna and at The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College for the Arts in San Francisco.

On the second segment, Mark Lamster discusses his new biography "The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century." The book, which was published by Little, Brown and Co., reveals how important the New York art world was to Johnson's professional rise, and how Johnson's affiliation with Nazis almost ended his architecture career before it began. Lamster is the architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News and he teaches at the University of Texas at Arlington. His previous books include "Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Career of Peter Paul Rubens," and "Spalding's World Tour: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe - And Made It America's Game." Amazon offers "The Man in the Glass House" for $21.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSeventy.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:03pm EDT

Episode No. 369 features curators Thomas Kren and Karl Kusserow.

Kren is the lead curator of "The Renaissance Nude" at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Over the course of more than 100 paintings, prints and sculpture, the exhibition examines how artists represented the human figure between the early fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries. The show was co-curated by Jill Burke, Stephen J. Campbell with assistance from Andrea Herrera and Thomas de Pasquale. "The Renaissance Nude" is on view through January 27, 2019. It is accompanied by a fantastic catalogue published by the Getty. Amazon offers it for $61.

On the second segment, Princeton University Art Museum curator Karl Kusserow discusses "Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment," an exhibition he co-curated with Alan C. Braddock. The exhibition offers an ecocritical take on the American landscape tradition through works by nineteenth-century painters, Native American basket-makers, photographers and more. It is on view at Princeton through January 6, 2019 before traveling to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Princeton University Art Museum and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon lists it at $50.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:26pm EDT

Episode No. 368 is a Thanksgiving weekend clips episode featuring artist Gary Simmons.

Gary Simmons's newest installation is on view at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles. Titled "Gary Simmons: Fade to Black," the work is a multi-wall installation in the museum's atrium. The presentation was curated by Naima J. Keith and will remain on view through December 31, 2019. Simmons is also included in a collection installation titled "I am you, you are too" at the Walker Art Center.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:52am EDT

Episode No. 367 features artist Charline von Heyl and art historian Rebecca Bedell.

Washington's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is showing "Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes," a survey of paintings von Heyl has made since 2005.  The exhibition, which is on view through January 27, 2019, was curated by the Hirshhorn's Evelyn C. Hankins and Dirk Luckow of Hamburg's Deichtorhallen (with assistance from Sandy Guttman), which originated the exhibition. The exhibition catalogue was published by Delmonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $95.

von Heyl is a New York and Marfa-based abstract painter whose work engages art history and the way images are built and constructed. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums such as the Tate Liverpool, the Kunsthalle Nurnberg, the ICA Boston, the ICA Philadelphia, the Vienna Secession and more. She was previously a guest on Episode No. 2 (!) of The MAN Podcast.

On the second segment, Rebecca Bedell discusses her new book Moved to Tears: Rethinking the Art of the Sentimental in the United States, a fresh assessment of art that was intended to prompt empathy, nostalgia and patriotism in the context of its time, but that has often been read as saccharine when considered through the standards of the present. Bedell teaches at Wellesley College. She is the author of The Anatomy of Nature: Geology and American Landscape Painting, 1825-1875 and the curator of the 2009 Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition "Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts." Moved to Tears was published by Princeton University Press. It is available from Amazon for $45.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:43pm EDT

Episode No. 366 features art historian John Klein and curator George Shackelford.

Klein is the author of "Matisse and Decoration," a new look at how Matisse's interest in the French decorative tradition informed and motivated his work throughout his career, but especially between 1935 and his death in 1954. The book details how Matisse translated decoration into easel painting, as well as into significant commissions for private individuals in the United States and Europe. The book also reveals how Matisse responded to the crisis of World War II and helped participate in France's post-war revival through decorative projects. The book was published by Yale University Press. It is available from Amazon for $39.

On the second segment, Kimbell Art Museum curator and senior deputy director George Shackelford discusses his museum's recent acquisition of a major Pierre Bonnard, Landscape at Le Cannet (1928). The painting, a four-foot-by-nine-foot Bonnardian address of the French decorative tradition, is now on view at the Kimbell.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtySix.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 8:26am EDT

Episode No. 365 features curator Esther Adler and artist Alida Cervantes.

With Sarah Kelly Oehler, Adler is the co-curator of "Charles White: A Retrospective" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition is the first major museum full-career survey of White's work in over three decades. It spotlights White's painting, drawing and photographs, and includes archival material especially related to his mural practice. "Charles White" is on view at MoMA through January 13, 2019, when it will travel to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Art Institute of Chicago, which originated the show, and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $34.

On the second segment, artist Alida Cervantes discusses her work on the occasion of "Being Here with You/ Estando aquí contigo" at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The exhibition presents the work of 42 artists and collectives living and working in the San Diego and Tijuana region. The exhibition, which is at MCASD's downtown Jacobs Building, is on view through February 3, 2019. The exhibition catalogue is available at the museum. Concurrently, Cervantes's work is on view in in "Hello hero, hero hello. Hello Hero, Hello hello" at Efrain Lopez Projects in Chicago. It's up through November 10.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyFive.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:50am EDT

Episode No. 364 features historian and curator Eleanor Harvey and historian Tyler Green.

Tyler Green is the author of "Carleton Watkins: Making the West American," a new biography-ish of the most influential American artist of the 19th century, and that century’s greatest photographer too. He his best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias made at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Watkins’s pictures helped shape America’s (and the world’s) idea of the West, and helped make the West a full participant in the Union and then the nation. His pictures of California, Oregon, and Nevada, as well as modern-day Washington, Utah, and Arizona, not only introduced entire landscapes to America but were important to the development of American business, finance, agriculture, government policy, painting and science.

Green is (usually) the producer/host of The Modern Art Notes Podcast.

Green is interviewed by Eleanor Harvey, the senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her most recent major exhibition was "The Civil War and American Art" (2012). She's presently working on an exhibition about Alexander von Humboldt's influence on American art and culture.

Watkins is available at bookstores and from Amazon (for just $23!), UC Press, Bookfinder and your local independent bookstore (via IndieBound).

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyFour.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:50am EDT

Episode No. 363 features curators Tracey Bashkoff and Lawrence W. Nichols.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is showing "Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future," a survey of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). The exhibition features more than 170 of af Klint’s artworks with a focus on the artist’s most significant period, from 1906–20, when her interest in spirtualism helped push her toward non-objective imagery.  It is the first major solo exhibition of af Klint's work in the United States. Tracey Bashkoff curated the exhibition with assistance from David Horowitz. It will be on view through April 23, 2019. The exhibition's excellent catalogue was published by the Guggenheim. Amazon offers it for $40.

On the second segment, Lawrence W. Nichols discusses "Frans Hals Family Portraits: A Reunion," at the Toledo Museum of Art. It is the first exhibition devoted to Hals's family portraiture. The show was motivated  by Toledo's 2011 acquisition of Hals's Van Campen Family Portrait in a Landscape and the recent conservation of Hals's Three Children of the Van Campen Family at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. The Toledo and Brussels canvases were originally a single painting, separated for unknown reasons in either the late 18th or early 19th century. Toledo has reunited the two paintings for this show, along with a third, a fragment of a painting presently in a private collection. The exhibition is in Toledo through Jan. 6, 2019. The exhibition catalogue was published by Hirmer. Amazon offers it for $33.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 11:56am EDT

Episode No. 362 features artist Laurie Simmons and curator Allegra Pesenti.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth opens "Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera," a retrospective of Simmons's career, on October 14. The exhibition spotlights Simmons's long-standing interest in gender roles, most famously in series of pictures that have used dolls and props. It will be on view through January 27, 2019.

On the second segment, Hammer Museum curator Allegra Pesenti discusses "Stones to Stains: The Drawings of Victor Hugo," a survey of Hugo's drawing practice. Hugo was a poet, novelist, playwright and critic best known for novels such as Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was a prolific draftsman -- he made at  least 3,000 drawings -- but did not much exhibit during his own lifetime. "Stones to Stains" features 75 drawings mostly made on the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey betwene 1852 and 1870. Pesenti co-curated the show with Cynthia Burlingham in association with Florian Rodari. The beautiful catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $31.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:18pm EDT

Episode No. 361 features curator Catherine Craft and historian Jessie Sentivan.

Craft is the curator of "The Nature of Arp," which is at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas through January 6, 2019. The exhibition is a retrospective of Jean Arp (or in German, Hans Arp), one of the most important artists of both the Dada and surrealist movements. Arp investigated chance and spontaneity in his collage-based work and the human form, abstraction and the processes of nature in his sculpture. The exhibition at the Nasher features over 80 works from throughout his career. The exhibition is accompanied by an excellent catalogue published by the Nasher.

On the second segment, curator and historian Jessie Sentivan discusses two Kay Sage-related projects. Sentivan is the editor of the Kay Sage catalogue raisonne, newly out from Delmonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $100. Sentivan has also curated "Kay Sage: Serene Surrealist," an exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art that recreates Sage's inaugural 1950 exhibition with the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York. It's on view through January 13, 2019.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixtyOne.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:09pm EDT

Episode No. 360 features curator Tamara Schenkenberg and artist Angela Fraleigh.

Schenkenberg is the curator of "Ruth Asawa: Life's Work" at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) was a San Francisco-based artist who melded traditional craft practices with industrial materials to make some of the most distinctive sculpture of the twentieth century. The exhibition includes 80 works including sculpture, works on paper and collages spanning the start of Asawa's career at Black Mountain College in western North Carolina to the intricate and complicated ceiling-hanging works of her later years. It is the first museum exhibition of Asawa's work in 12 years and the first away from the West Coast. The exhibition is on view until February 16, 2019. A catalogue is forthcoming from Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for pre-order for $40.

Angela Fraleigh is included in "The Un-Heroic Act: Representations of  Rape in Contemporary Women's Art in the U.S." at the Shiva Gallery at John Jay College. The exhibition includes artists such as Kara Walker, Yoko Ono, Senga Nengudi and Suzanne Lacy and was curated by Monica Fabijanska. It is on view through November 2. On Wednesday, October 3, the Shiva will host an evening symposium related to the exhibition.

Fraleigh is a painter and sculptor whose work engages issues of desire and power. Her work is in the collections of the Kemper Art Museum in Kansas City and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredSixty.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 11:59am EDT

Episode No. 359 features artists lauren woods and Eva Struble.

Artist lauren woods was scheduled to open American MONUMENT this week at the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach. woods "paused" American MONUMENT after CSULB fired UAM director and American MONUMENT curator Kimberli Meyer on September 11, just days before the project was set to open. American MONUMENT is an interactive sound installation that utilizes open records-sourced materials such as police reports.

On the second segment, artist Eva Struble discusses her work and her interest in California's migrant agricultural labor sector. Struble is one of 42 artists included in "Being Here with You/ Estando aquí contigo," which opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego this weekend.

 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 9:36pm EDT

Episode No. 358 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Mickalene Thomas.

"Mickalene Thomas: I Can't See You Without Me" opens at The Wexner Center for the Arts on Friday, September 14. The exhibition features fifty artworks, including paintings, sculptures and installations, around the theme of four of Thomas's most significant muses: her late mother Sandra; her former girlfriend, Maya; her current partner, Racquel; and Thomas herself. The show was curated by Michael Goodson and will be on view through December 30. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Wexner. Amazon offers it for $40.

The exhibition will premiere Thomas's Je t'aime trois, a multichannel video set to music by Terri Lyne Carrington. It was enabled by a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award. On October 4, Thomas will perform entrepe, a live, improvised DJ set as a response to Carrington's work.

Thomas's work is also featured in "People Get Ready: Building a Contemporary Collection," at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The show presents work that addresses issues ranging from identity to social justice and environmentalism. It was curated by Trevor Schoonmaker and will be on view through January 6, 2019.

Thomas's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions all over the world, including at the Brooklyn Museum, the ICA Boston, the former Santa Monica Museum of Art, New York's Aperture Foundation, the Aspen Art Museum, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and more.

Thomas was previously a guest on Episode No. 30 in 2012.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 8:09pm EDT

Episode No. 357 features artist Rachel Whiteread.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington opens a retrospective of Whiteread's thirty-year career on September 16. The exhibition will feature more than 100 objects, from her earliest casts of domestic objects such as a swimming cap, to her most important sculptures, such as Ghost (1990) from the NGA's own collection. The show will extend into the atrium of the NGA's East Building, where the museum will install Whiteread's Untitled (Domestic) (2002), a 22-foot-tall plaster cast of the negative space of a fire escape staircase loaned by the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. "Rachel Whiteread" is on view in Washington through January 13, 2019. It was curated by Molly Donovan and Ann Gallagher. From Washington it will travel to the Saint Louis Art Museum. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by the Tate, which originated the exhibition. Amazon offers it starting at $31.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:32pm EDT

Episode No. 356 features artist Wayne Thiebaud.

Next month, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will offer two Thiebaud exhibitions: “Paintings and Drawings,” a presentation of Thiebauds in SFMOMA’s collection, and “Artist’s Choice,” a Thiebaud-selected installation of artworks from the museum’s collection. Both shows open on Sept. 29.

This conversation is part two of a program that host Tyler Green recorded with Thiebaud in December, 2017. It first aired in January, 2018. For images, see Episode No. 324.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftySix.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 6:13pm EDT

Episode No. 355 features artist Wayne Thiebaud.

Next month, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will offer two Thiebaud exhibitions: "Paintings and Drawings," a presentation of Thiebauds in SFMOMA's collection, and "Artist's Choice," a Thiebaud-selected installation of artworks from the museum's collection. Both shows open on Sept. 29.

This conversation is part one of a program that host Tyler Green recorded with Thiebaud in December, 2017. It first aired in January, 2018. For images, see Episode No. 324.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyFive.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:25pm EDT

Episode No. 354 features curator Laurence Kanter and art historian John Klein.

Kanter is the curator of "Leonardo: Discoveries from Verocchio's Studio" at the Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibition examines a little-studied period early in Leonardo da Vinci's career: his time as an apprentice in the studio of sculptor, painter and goldsmith Andrea del Verrocchio. In the exhibition, Kanter argues that a pair of predella panels that were made for a large altarpiece in Pistoia, Italy, The Annunciation at the Louvre and A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo from the Worcester Art Museum were executed by a young Leonardo. The exhibition, which is on view through October 7, is accompanied by a terrific catalogue published by the Yale University Art Gallery and distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $35.

On the second segment, host Tyler Green's 2014 conversation with Washington University-based art historian John Klein about how Henri Matisse migrated projects from cut-outs to decorative art installations. The interview was taped on the occasion of "Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs" which was then on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Klein's new book, "Matisse and Decoration" which this interview effectively previews, will be out from Yale University Press in October.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyFour.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 8:59am EDT

Episode No. 353 features curators Megan Fontanella and Paulina Pobocha.

Fontanella is the co-curator of "Giacometti" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. It includes nearly 200 Alberto Giacometti sculptures, paintings and drawings. Catherine Grenier co-curated the exhibition with Fontanella; they were assisted by Mathilde Lecuyer-Maille and Samantha Small. The exhibition is on view through September 8.

On the second segment, Pobocha discusses her Museum of Modern Art, New York, exhibition "Constantin Brancusi Sculpture." The exhibition looks back at the introduction of Brancusi's work to the United States at New York's 1913 Armory Show. "Brancusi" includes 11 sculptures as well as drawings, photographs, films and archival material. It is on view through February 18, 2019.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:40pm EDT

Episode No. 352 features artist Christina Quarles and curator Joel Smith.

Christina Quarles is included in the Hammer Museum's "Made in LA 2018" biennial. "Made in LA" was curated by Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale and is on view through September 2.

Quarles's work typically includes recognizable elements such as flowers or tables and figures that then dissolve into each other in ways that confuse our ideas of gender, race and space. On her website, Quarles describes this blending of elements as rooted to her own personal history: "The contradiction of my Black ancestry coupled with my fair skin, results in my place always being my displace."

Next month Quarles will be the subject of a "MATRIX" exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum. She's been included in group shows at the New Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, LAXART and at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

On the second segment, Morgan Library curator Joel Smith discusses his “Peter Hujar: Speed of Life.” The exhibition, which is at the Berkeley Art Museum through November 18, includes 140 photographs and surveys Hujar’s entire career. The exhibition catalogue, published by Aperture, is easily the most important publication about Hujar. Amazon sells it for $34. This segment first aired in February when the exhibition debuted at the Morgan. For images, see Episode No. 326.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:01pm EDT

Episode No. 351 features curator Britt Salvesen and art historian Bridget Alsdorf.

Salvesen is the curator of "3D: Double Vision" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition features objects from mass culture, photography and fine art in which makers exploit the nature of perception, and binocular vision, the way our brains turn what our two eyes see into a single image. It is on view through March 31, 2019. (Yes, really.) The outstanding exhibition catalogue is both a good read and a fascinating object in its own right. It was copublished by LACMA and DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $38.

On the second segment, art historian Bridget Alsdorf discusses her contribution to "Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900," which is now at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. Alsdorf, who teaches at Princeton University, wrote an essay titled "Painting the Femme Peintre" for the exhibition catalogue. It was published by Yale University Press and American Federation of Arts. Amazon offers it for $43.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFiftyOne.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 7:43pm EDT

Episode No. 350 features artists Lauren Halsey and Sadie Barnette.

Two Los Angeles museums are showing ambitious Halseys. The Hammer Museum has included Halsey's The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project (Prototype Architecture) (2018) in its "Made in LA 2018" biennial, and MOCA, is exhibiting Halsey's we still here, there. "Made in LA" was curated by Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale and is on view through September 2. The Halsey installation at MOCA was curated by Lanka Tattersall with assistance from Karlyn Olvido; it's up through September 3.

Lauren Halsey is a Los Angeles and Atlanta-based artist whose work engages specific communities with architecture and sculpture that mines recent American history, Afrofuturism, the history of black representation and plenty more. She's been in group exhibitions at galleries in California, New York and Europe, and has had residencies at LA's Main Museum, at New York's Recess Art and Studio Museum.

On the second segment, Sadie Barnette discusses her Dear 1968... which is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through September 3. The installation is the result of Barnette's research into her family history, specifically her father's participation in the Black Panther Party and the FBI's surveillance of him. Barnette is an Oakland-based artist whose work often explores urbanity, architecture, resistance and survival. Dear 1968... was previously exhibited at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and at the Manetti Shrem at the University of California, Davis. She's been included in group exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Pitzer College Art Galleries, MOCAD in Detroit, and more.

 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFifty.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:26pm EDT

Episode No. 349 features artist Sylvia Plimack Mangold and curator Naoko Takahatake.

Mangold is included in "Studio Visit: Selected Gifts from Agnes Gund," which was organized by MoMA's Ann Temkin and Cara Manes and is on view through July 22.

Mangold is among the most prominent painters to respond to emerge in the late 1960s in response to a decade dominated by minimalism and pop art. Her paintings, seemingly rooted in realism but often undermining it, played with perspective, flatness, and often engaged the centuries-long tradition of painters making paintings about painting. In 1994 the Albright-Knox Art Gallery organized a major retrospoective of her paintings; two years earlier the University of Michigan Museum of Art organized a works on paper survey. Her work has long been collected by major museums such as the Kunstmuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins, the Metropolitan, Brooklyn, the Whitney and more.

On the second segment, Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Naoko Takahatake discusses "The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy," which is on view at LACMA through September 16. The exhibition charts the rapid and rich development of the chairoscuro woodcut from its introduction to Italy in 1516 until the end of the sixteenth century. The exhibition is the first major presentation on the subject in the United States. The fantastic exhibition catalogue was published by LACMA and DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $59.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:42am EDT

Episode No. 348 is a holiday weekend clips episode with curator Betsy Kornhauser.

Along with Tim Barringer, Kornhauser  is the co-curator of "Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire," which is at the National Gallery in London through October 7. (The re-titled exhibition debuted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in January as "Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings.") Barringer and Kornhauser's show examines Cole's origins in the north of England during the Industrial Revolution and the impact Britain and Cole's travels through England and Italy had on his American career. It is the first time Cole's work has been examined in the context of his European experiences, and aims to present Cole as not just an American figure, but as a trans-Atlantic figure. The outstanding exhibition catalogue, one of the best of 2018, was published by the Met and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $65.

For images of art discussed on this week's program, see Episode No. 326.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

Episode No. 347 features artists Thomas Scheibitz and B. Ingrid Olson.

Thomas Scheibitz is included in "Inherent Structures" at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The exhibition features 16 artists who complicate abstract painting's traditional association with chance and aesthetic purity with work that addresses concerns that range from an exploration of materials and paints to the artists' sociopolitical interests. The exhibition was curated by Michael Goodson and is on view through August 12.

Scheibitz is a Berlin-based painter and sculptor known for developing a distinct abstract language compiles references to objects and forms into colorful wholes. In 2005 Scheibitz represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in a two-person presentation with Tino Sehgal. The Museum for Modern Art in Frankfurt presented his first retrospective in 2012. Other major solo exhibitions have been at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and the Camden Arts Centre in London.

B. Ingrid Olson is included in "Being: New Photography 2018," which is on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York through August 19. The exhibition was curated by Lucy Gallun. Concurrently, Olson is in "Picture Fiction: Kenneth Josephson and Contemporary Photography," which was curated by Michael Darling and Lauren Fulton. It's at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago through December 30. She's also in a two-person show at San Francisco's Jessica Silverman Gallery through July 14. Olson's work, which includes both photography and sculptural elements uses the body, her body, to explore gender, architecture, space, and form. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery just concluded Olson's first museum show, "B. Ingrid Olson: Forehead and Brain," which was curated by Holly E. Hughes.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:00am EDT

Episode No. 346 features historian and artist Nell Painter and artist Mark Ruwedel.

Painter is the author of Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over, which is out this week from Counterpoint Press. The "starting over" of the title refers to Painter's retirement after a elite career as an Ivy League historian to return to college as a sixty-something student -- first to take undergraduate studio art courses at Rutgers, then to pursue an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. Painter's memoir details her interactions with students and faculty, and how she tried to think through how to make art after having spent decades teaching and writing history. 

Before going to art school, Painter was one of America's most distinguished historians. She is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University. Her books include Standing at Armageddon, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol, and the New York Times bestseller The History of White People. She is a past president of both the Organization of American Historians and the Southern Historical Association.

Amazon is offering Old in Art School for about $15 in both Kindle and hardcover.

On the second segment, an excerpt from host Tyler Green's 2017 conversation with Mark Ruwedel. The Tate Modern is showing an extensive selection of Ruwedel's through December 3, an installation that was curated by Sarah Allen and Simon Baker. The Ruwedels in London include work from most parts of his career, including his famed railway cuts and his so-called pictures from hell, photographs of Western landscape features named for the devil or his (his?) underworld home. Ruwedel is also included in an exhibition the Denver Art Museum opens this weekend: "New Territory: Landscape Photography Today," a survey of global landscape photography. Curated by Eric Paddock, it's on view through September 16.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortySix.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 11:26am EDT

Episode No. 345 features artist Ursula von Rydingsvard.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia is presenting "Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling," an exhibition of roughly 20 von Rydingsvards mostly made since 2000. Curated by Mark Rosenthal, the show is on view through August 26. The exhibition catalogue, which is not yet available, will be published by FWM and Hirmer. In addition, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is showing two von Rydingsvards through April 28, 2019, New York's Galerie Lelong is showing an exhibition of von Rydingsvard's work through June 23, and von Rydingsvard is included in "Studio Visit: Selected Gifts from Agnes Gund" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York through July 22.

Ursula von Rydingsvard is one of America's leading sculptors. Since her first solo exhibition 43 years ago, she has had solo exhibitions at or fulfilled commissions for museums such as the Storm King Art Center, the Art Institute of Chicago, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center and many more.

See images discussed on this week's program. 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortyFive.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 9:17am EDT

Episode No. 344 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator Luke Syson and artist Anne Appleby.

Along with Sheena Wagstaff, Brinda Kumar, Emerson Bowyer and Elyse Nelson, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Luke Syson is a co-curator of "Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300-now)" at the Met's Breuer building through July 22. The exhibition features 120 sculptures from the first or second century to the present and considers how artists have presented the human body, especially with color. The outstanding exhibition catalogue was published by the Met and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $43.

On the second segment, artist Anne Appleby discusses new work she's showing in "We Sit Together the Mountain and Me" at the Tacoma Art Museum. The exhibition, which is on view through July 8, was curated by Rock Hushka. Appleby's work is held by the Portland Art Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, SFMOMA, and more. This interview was recorded in April.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortyFour.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 2:07pm EDT

Episode No. 343 features artists Carrie Moyer and Aram Han Sifuentes.

Moyer is included in "Inherent Structures" at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The exhibition features 16 artists who complicate abstract painting's traditional association with chance and aesthetic purity with work that addresses concerns that range from an exploration of materials and paints to the artists' sociopolitical interests. The exhibition was curated by Michael Goodson and is on view through August 12.

Carrie Moyer is a New York-based painter whose work has mined the history of abstract painting, particularly composition and the way artists have used different materials and techniques. Moyer's work -- and titles -- often point to contemporary life and politics. Moyer frequently writes criticism for outlets such as Art in America. In 1991 she co-founded the lesbian public art project Dyke Action Machine! The Tang Museum organized a survey of Moyer's work in 2013; she's also had solo shows at the Worcester Art Museum, and at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington, DC.

On the second segment, Aram Han Sifuentes discusses her Protest Banner Lending Library, which she's organizing during a summer-long residency at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. Protest Banner Lending Library is an ongoing, multi-city project in which Sifuentes works with a community to create banners and to borrown from her ever-growing library of handmade banners. The banners typically address contemporary sociopolitical issues. Her work has been exhibited at numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the MCA Chicago.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 6:32pm EDT

Episode No. 342 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend presentation of previously recorded interview with curator and historian Ilona Katzew.

Along with Jaime Cuadriello, Paula Mues Orts, and previous MAN Podcast guest Luis Elena Alcala, Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Ilona Katzew is a co-curator of "Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici." The exhibition is a broad survey of many kinds of 18th-century Mexican painting, including religious narratives, altarpieces, portraits, casta painting and more. It is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through July 22. The remarkable exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $60.

Katzew is one of the world's foremost experts on New Spanish painting. She was previously on the program to discuss LACMA's acquisition of a significant Miguel Cabrera casta painting.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredFortyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:22pm EDT

Episode No. 341 features artist Inka Essenhigh and curator Kenneth Myers.

The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach is showing "Inka Essenhigh: A Fine Line," a mid-career survey of the New York-based Essenhigh's work. The exhibition was curated by Heather Hakimzadeh and remains on view through August 19. The exhibition's catalogue, an impressive 216-page monograph that also features work not in the show, was published by the museum. It's available from Virginia MOCA for $45.

Concurrently, The Drawing Center in New York is showing Essenhigh's Manhattanhenge, a site-specific commission for the museum's stairwell. It's on view through August 4, 2019.

On the second segment, Detroit Institute of Arts curator Kenneth Myers discusses his exhibition "Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage." The exhibition considers the paintings Frederic Edwin Church made in the late 1860s and 1870s of his trip to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. It opens at the Wadsworth Atheneum on June 2; the conversation on this week's program was recorded in December, 2017. The exhibition's excellent catalogue was published by the DIA. Amazon offers it for $41.

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

Episode No. 340 features author and historian Daniel E. Sutherland and artist Otobong Nkanga.

With Georgia Toutziari, Daniel Sutherland is the co-author of "Whistler's Mother: Portrait of an Extraordinary Life." The book, a biography of Anna Whistler, explains both the austere woman represented in James Abbott McNeill Whistler's famed 1871 painting Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1, better known as Whistler's Mother, and Anna Whistler's involvement in her son's career. Anna Whistler lived a remarkable life that started in the slaveholding South, continued in the rapidly industrializing northeast via her marriage to one of the most prominent railroad engineers of the time, and which took her and her family to St. Petersburg, Russia, Europe and London, where she became her son's unofficial art-world manager and agent. "Whistler's Mother" was published by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $13. (!)

Sutherland was previously a guest on The MAN Podcast in 2014 to discuss "Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake," his terrific biography of the artist. Yale University Press has just released it in paperback. Amazon sells it for $15.

On the second segment, Otobong Nkanga discusses her work on the occasion of "Otobong Nkanga: To Dig a Hole That Collapses Again" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition, a survey of her work which continues through September 2, was curated by Omar Kholeif. Nkanga, who was born in Nigeria and who lives and works in Antwerp, makes paintings, drawings, tapestry, installation and gives performances that explore the history and impact of colonialism, especially in Africa. Much of her work addresses the way such histories have impacted the land, and the viewer's likely connections with that past. She has performed at or her work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern, the Stedelijk Museum Arnhem, the Moderna Museet and the Centre Pompidou, and Documenta 14. The exhibition catalogue was published by Delmonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $25.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredForty.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:52pm EDT

Episode No. 339 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist John Akomfrah.

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is presenting John Akomfrah's three-channel video installation Precarity (2017-18), a work that it commissioned for its collection and that debuted at the Ogden Museum as part of the recent Prospect 4 triennial in New Orleans. (Nasher chief curator Trevor Schoonmaker was the curator of Prospect 4.)

Precarity loosely tells the story of coronet player Buddy "King" Bolden, the most popular musician in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans and a man known for improvisation and volume. In 1907, under circumstances that remain unclear, he was permanently committed to the State Insane Asylum in Jackson with schizophrenia. There are no known surviving recordings of Bolden's work, but historian Ted Gioia credits Bolden and his band with being the originator of what we now call jazz. The film is as much an exploration of New Orleans and southern Louisiana, its history and how its history impacts the present as it is a consideration of Bolden. Precarity is on view at the Nasher through September 2.

Akomfrah, a British artist of Ghanaian descent, is one of the founders of the Black Audio Film Collective, which was active between 1982 and 1998. The collective used film and media to examine issues of Black British identity through film and media. Since then Akomfrah and his producing partners Lina Gopaul and David Lawson co-founded Smoking Dogs Films. Akomfrah's work has been shown at the Tate Britain, the ICA London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

On the second segment, we'll hear host Tyler Green's March conversation with Akomfrah, taped when the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presented the U.S. debut of John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea in “Sublime Seas: John Akomfrah and J.M.W. Turner.” The exhibition, which pairs a film installation Akomfrah made for the Venice Biennale in 2015 with Turner’s The Deluge, is at SFMOMA through September 16. It was curated by Rudolf Frieling.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:17pm EDT

Episode No. 338 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Terry Winters and art historian Stefanie Heckmann.

The Drawing Center in New York is showing "Terry Winters: Facts and Fictions," a nearly four-decade survey of Winters's drawing practice. The exhibition includes both wall-hung large-scale drawings and smaller works presented in vitrines. It was curated by Claire Gilman. The Drawing Center sells the catalogue for $20. It may be read online for free. Next month, New York's Matthew Marks Gallery will present an exhibition of Winters's recent paintings.

Terry Winters's work has been the subject of many major exhibitions, including most recently a 2016-17 prints survey at the MFA Boston, a 2015 prints survey at the Louisiana in Denmark. Winters has also been the subject of exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York, the Whitechapel in London and the Kunsthalle Basel.

Winters was previously a guest on the program in 2012.

On the second segment, Stefanie Heckmann discusses "Before the Fall: German and Austrian Art of the 1930s" at New York's Neue Galerie. The exhibition was curated by Olaf Peters; Heckmann wrote for the catalogue and is the head of the fine arts collection at the Berlinische Galerie Museum fur Moderne Kunst. The exhibition, which includes around 150 paintings and works on paper, looks at how artists in Germany and Austria responded to a decade marked by social disintegration, political chaos, and that effectively ended with the beginning of World War II. The exhibition's excellent catalogue is available from Amazon for $37. The show is on view through May 28.

A Harvard Art Museums exhibition on the succeeding decade was featured on the program in February.

See MANPodcast.com for images of art discussed on the program. 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:58pm EDT

Episode No. 337 features artists Kamrooz Aram and Matthew Angelo Harrison.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is showing "FOCUS: Kamrooz Aram," an installation of Aram's recent sculpture, collage and painting. The exhibition continues Aram's investigation into the complex and non-linear relationship between non-Western art and (Western) modernism, particularly as various artistic traditions push toward abstraction. Curated by Andrea Karnes, the exhibition is on view through June 17.

Kamrooz Aram has had solo exhibitions at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium, at LA><ART in Los Angeles and at MASS MoCA. He's been included in group shows such as MoMA PS1's "Greater New York," and at Busan and Prague biennials.

On the second segment, Matthew Angelo Harrison discusses his recent work. It's included in "Songs for Sabotage," the New Museum triennial, and in a solo exhibition at Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco. The NuMu triennial was curated by and is on view through May 27. The Silverman Gallery show is up through April 21. He'll also be included in the forthcoming "I Was Raised on the Internet," a group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

See images of art discussed on the program. 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:16pm EDT

Episode No. 336 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator and author Colta Ives and artist Anne Appleby.

Ives, a curator emerita at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the author of "Public Parks, Private Gardens: From Paris to Provence," and the co-curator (with Susan Alyson Stein) of the Met's exhibition of the same title. The show looks at how developments in landscape design, horticulture and the opening up of royal property combined to focus (mostly) 19thC French artists on parks and gardens. It's on view through July 29. Amazon offers the exhibition's excellent catalogue for $38.

On the second segment, artist Anne Appleby discusses new work she's showing in "We Sit Together the Mountain and Me" at the Tacoma Art Museum. The exhibition, which is on view through June 3, was curated by Rock Hushka. Appleby's work is held by the Portland Art Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, SFMOMA, and more.

See images of art discussed on the program.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtySix.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:01pm EDT

Episode No. 335 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Mary Reid Kelley & Patrick Kelley, and Aïda Muluneh.

The Baltimore Museum of Art is exhibiting "Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley: We Are Ghosts" through August 19. The exhibition features two new works by Mary Reid Kelley and her collaborator Patrick Kelley: This is Offal (2016) and In the Body of the Sturgeon (2017), as well as sets and costumes from the films and related lightboxes. The exhibition debuted at the Tate Liverpool before arriving in Baltimore, where it was curated by Kristen Hileman. Baltimore and the Tate produced a small catalogue for the show. As of posting time it's not available from the BMA's store. 

This is Offal debuted as a live performance at the Tate Modern on November 19, 2015. (The video from that performance is available below.) It was inspired by Thomas Hood’s 1844 poem "The Bridge of Sighs," in which a forensic pathologist (Patrick Kelley), is frustrated by the suicide of a young woman (Mary Reid Kelley) whose body is pulled from the Thames River.

In the Body of the Sturgeon tells the story of a fictional American submarine near the end of World War II and its learning of the American dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima via a broadcast from President Harry S Truman.

On the second segment Aïda Muluneh discusses her work, which is included in "Being: New Photography 2018" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition, which was curated by Lucy Gallun, is on view through August 19. Muluneh is an Ethiopian photographer whose work is in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art and the Hood Museum at Dartmouth.

See images of art discussed on this week's show. 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyFive.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:11pm EDT

Episode No. 334 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend presentation of previously recorded interviews with curators Frederick Ilchman and Scott Shields.

Ilchman, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is the co-curator of “Casanova: The Seduction of Europe,” a broad look at the over-the-top luxury of European art and decorative arts in the pre-French Revolution decades. It debuted at the Kimbell Art Museum last year, and is on view at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco through May 28. The show is built around the famed Giacomo Casanova, a courtier, lothario and schemester whose memoir provides one of the best insights to an era in which those at the top of society milked their countries for wealth and prestige, leaving little for others. The exhibition was co-curated by Ilchman, the National Gallery of Art’s C.D. Dickerson (who started work on the show while he was at the Kimbell), and the Clark Art Institute's Esther Bell (who worked on the show while she was at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco). The catalogue is absolutely terrific, a great read, a decadent look, and Amazon will sell it to you for $34.

Next, Crocker Art Museum curator Scott A. Shields discusses “Richard Diebenkorn: Beginnings, 1942-1955,” which the Crocker co-organized with the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation. The exhibition looks at work, especially work on paper, that Diebenkorn made before turning to figuration while living and working in Berkeley, Calif. It reveals Diebenkorn working through artists with whom his work is not typically associated, such as John Marin and Arshile Gorky. The exhibition is accompanied by an excellent, well-illustrated catalogue that mines Diebenkorn’s archive to find a surprising range of influences. Amazon sells it for $44. From Sacramento, the show will trael to the Owsley Museum at Ball State University, the Portland (Ore.) Art Museum, the Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., and to the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Md. Images of art discussed on the program are here.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyFour.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:54pm EDT

Episode No. 333 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Emma Acker and Nathaniel Silver.

Acker is the curator of "Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art," the first broad survey of precisionism in nearly 20 years. The exhibition opens at the de Young Museum in San Francisco this weekend, and remains on view through August 12. "Cult of the Machine" includes over 100 works, including paintings, photographs, works on paper and sculpture, and charts the emergence of the style and its roughly three-decade-long history. The exhibition's terrific catalogue, which features scores of illustrations of supplemental artworks, was published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in association with Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $52. The exhibition will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art in September.

On the second segment, Nathaniel Silver returns to the program to discuss his new exhibition "Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth,"  which is at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston through May 20. The exhibition joins Angelico's Assumption and Dormition of the Virgin, acquired by Gardner in 1899 and the first Angelico acquired by an American, with its three companions from the Museo di San Marco in Florence. Conceived by Angelico (and his funder) as a set of reliquaries for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, they tell the story of the Virgin Mary's life. The outstanding catalogue, complete with one of the most beautiful book covers you'll ever see, was published by the ISGM and Paul Holberton Publishing and is available from Amazon for $41.

For images of art discussed on the program, see MANPodcast.com. 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 3:19pm EDT

Episode No. 332 features artists Fazal Sheikh and John Akomfrah.

The Portland (Ore.) Art Museum is exhibiting "Common Ground: Photographs by Fazal Sheikh, 1989-2013," a 25-year survey of Fazal Sheikh's work. The exhibition focuses on Sheikh's portraiture, work that spotlights the individual humanity often forgotten or obscured by war and other ethnic, religious or misogynistic violence. It also includes Sheikh's landscapes, which often suggest the violence or migration that the land in his pictures sustained. The exhibition, which is on view through May 20, was organized by Eric Paddock and the Denver Art Museum. Julia Dolan oversaw the Portland installation.

Sheikh, who was born in New York to an American mother and Kenyan father, spent many childhood summers there. Upon earning a Fulbright scholarship after studying under Emmet Gowin at Princeton, Sheikh returned to Africa and found himself photographing people displaced from Somalia, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Rwanada who were living in refugee camps. Over the ensuing decades he continued to look at places where massive waves of migration, often caused by violence, impacted people and places. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation 'genius' award. Museums such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art have presented solo exhibitions of his work.

Sheikh's website includes a broad presentation of his work and free digital versions of all of his books. Among the series or projects he and host Tyler Green discuss on this week's program are:

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting the U.S. debut of John Akomfrah's Vertigo Sea in "Sublime Seas: John Akomfrah and J.M.W. Turner." The exhibition, which pairs a film installation Akomfrah made for the Venice Biennale in 2015 with Turner's The Deluge, will be on view at SFMOMA through September 16. It was curated by Rudolf Frieling.

In two weeks the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University will exhibit Akomfrah's Precarity, which debuted at Prospect.4. (The version of Precarity at the Nasher will differ slightly from the version shown in New Orleans.) The exhibition will remain on view through August 26. Later this spring, Akomfrah will return to The MAN Podcast to discuss Precarity.

Akomfrah has had many solo exhibitions and dedicated screenings around the world, including at the Tate Britain and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:45pm EDT

Episode No. 331 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Senga Nengudi.

Senga Nengudi came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s with abstract sculpture made from common materials, work that was often fused with a performative element. Her work is the subject of two ongoing solo exhibitions and her work is included in one ongoing group exhibition:

Listeners may wish to see more about Nengudi in the Hammer Museum's digital archive for the 2012 exhibition "Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-80."

See images of work discussed on the program at manpodcast.com

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirtyOne.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 10:51am EDT

Episode No. 330 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Jill Magid and archaeologist Thomas Wynn.

Jill Magid is included in the season's two most prominent group shows: "Stories of Almost Everyone," which is at the Hammer Museum through May 6, and "Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today," at the ICA Boston through May 20. "Stories," curated by Aram Moshayedi, is about our willingness (or not?) to believe the stories offered by works of contemporary art. Its catalogue was published by the Hammer and Delmonico Prestel.

The ICA Boston's show is the first major American examination of how the internet has influenced and impacted art-making. It was curated by Eva Respini with Jeffrey De Blois. Its catalogue was published by Yale University Press. (The ICA Boston is one of 14 area institutions to be examining the intersection of art and technology this season.)

Magid's work, presented as installation, sculpture, video installation or via the internet, often examines questions around surveillance, permission and consent. She's had solo shows at or has fulfilled commissions for the University Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City, the Berkeley Art Museum, The Intelligence Agency of the Netherlands, the Stedelijk, the Liverpool Biennial and plenty more.

Many of the works Magid and host Tyler Green discuss are presented on her website, including:

On the second segment, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs archaeologist Thomas Wynn discusses "First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone," at the Nasher Sculpture Center. The exhibition presents ancient handaxes and figure stones as many as two million years old, and posits that their making was motivated by aesthetic decisions, which suggests that they may be considered works of art. Wynn co-curated the exhibition with artist and collector Tony Berlant. It's at the Nasher through April 28. The thought-provoking and beautiful catalogue was published by the Nasher, which offers it for $70.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredThirty.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:48pm EDT

Episode No. 329 features curators Lynette Roth and Mazie Harris.

Roth is the curator of "Inventur -- Art in Germany, 1943-55," which is at the Harvard Art Museums through June 3. It is the first exhibition to examine art made in Germany by artists who stayed in Germany throughout World War II. "Inventur" presents more than 160 works made by 50 artists, art made when Germans were forced to acknowledge and address the war, the Holocaust, their defeat and occupation by the Allies, and the beginning of the Cold War. The fascinating exhibition catalogue, which is full of new discoveries and analysis, was published by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $55.

Roth, the curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the head of modern and contemporary art at HAM, was previously a guest on Episode No. 192, when she discussed her catalogue of the Saint Louis Art Museum's Max Beckmann collection.

On the second segment, J. Paul Getty Museum curator Mazie Harris discusses "Paper Promises: Early American Photography," which is at the Getty from Tuesday, February 27 through May 27. The exhibition examines why daguerreotypes-loving Americans were so much slower to embrace paper photography than other nations, and what prompted the belated switch. The terrific catalogue for the exhibition is full of surprising history and is published by the Getty. Amazon lists it at $50.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentyNine.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:15pm EDT

Episode No. 328 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Deborah Luster and curator Béatrice Gross.

Deborah Luster is featured in Aperture magazine's spring issue, titled "Prison Nation". It spotlights how artists have responded to America's astronomical incarceration rate. The magazine will feature a suite of pictures Luster made in 2013 at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a maximum-security prison. They show actors in The Life of Jesus Christ, a passion play staged by prisoners for the general public. Luster's photographs are also on view in Aperture's New York gallery, which is showing pictures from the issue through March 7.

Concurrently, Luster's work with poet C. D. Wright is on view in "The Art of Collaboration," an exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The exhibition examines how separate elements may come together to make projects deeper and more meaningful. Curated by Melissa Barton, Elizabeth Frengel and Nancy Kuhl, it will be on view through April 15.

Luster's work has most often looked at circles of violence and how they perpetuate themselves. Her work, including portraits of Louisiana prisoners and of places in New Orleans where homicides were committed, is in the collections of dozens of museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

On the second segment, curator Béatrice Gross discusses her exhibition "François Morellet," which is at Dia's Beacon and Chelsea locations through June 2. Morellet was a pioneering conceptualist whose abstract work was often built around systems and, later, randomness. This is the first in-depth examination of Morellet's work in the United States in over three decades. Gross's exhibition brochure is available for free download.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentyEight.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:25pm EDT

Episode No. 327 of The Modern Art Notes Podcasts features artists Deborah Roberts and Anita Witek.

The Spelman College Museum of Art is showing "Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi" through May 19. The exhibition features work Roberts has made in the last half-decade, work that uses collage and girlhood to examine issues of race, gender, and America's present condition. It was curated by Andrea Barnwell. San Francisco's Jenkins Johnson Gallery just opened an exhibition of Roberts's work called "Uninterrupted." It's on view through March 17.

Deborah Roberts was recently included in the group exhibition "Fictions" at the The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her work is in the collections of the Studio Museum, the Blanton at the University of T exas, and the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University.

The Spelman College Museum has uploaded a conversation between Barnwell and Roberts. Part one is here.

On the second segment, Anita Witek discusses her new installation at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The work, titled Clip, is Witek's first site-specific photomontage to be shown in the United States. It's on view at the Wexner through April 15. Witek has previously shown at the Kunsthaus Wien, the Kunsthalle Graz, at the Leopold Museum and at many other European venues.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentySeven.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:56pm EDT

Episode No. 326 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Betsy Kornhauser and Joel Smith.

Along with Tim Barringer, Kornhauser  is the co-curator of "Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings," which is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 13. The exhibition examines Cole's origins in the north of England during the Industrial Revolution and the impact Britain and travels through England and Italy had on Cole's career. The exhibition is the first time Cole's work has been examined in the context of Cole's European experiences and aims to present Cole as not just an American figure, but as a trans-Atlantic figure. The outstanding exhibition catalogue was published by the Met and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $65.

On the second segment, Smith discusses "Peter Hujar: Speed of Life." The exhibition, on view at The Morgan Library through May 20, includes 140 photographs and surveys Hujar's entire career. The exhibition catalogue, published by Aperture, is easily the most important publication about Hujar. Amazon sells it for $34.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentySix.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 1:41pm EDT

Episode No. 325 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features part two of host Tyler Green's conversation with artist Wayne Thiebaud. On the second segment, Green and curator and museum director Kathryn Kanjo remember Jack Whitten.

Thiebaud is one of the world's greatest living painters. The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis has just opened "Wayne Thiebaud, 1958-1968," an examination of Thiebaud's early work and a look at how he developed his signature style and subjects.

 

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentyFive.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:50pm EDT

Episode No. 324 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Wayne Thiebaud and curator Julia Dolan.

Thiebaud is one of the world's greatest living painters. The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis has just opened "Wayne Thiebaud, 1958-1968," an examination of Thiebaud's early work and a look at how he developed his signature style and subjects. The exhibition was curated by Rachel Teagle and is on view through May 13. The exhibition's strong catalogue was published by the museum in association with University of California Press. Amazon offers it for $43.

This is part one of host Tyler Green's conversation with Thiebaud. Part two will air next week.

On the second segment, Portland Art Museum curator Julia Dolan discusses her exhibition "In the Beginning: Minor White's Oregon Photographs," which is on view through October 21. White is best known for co-founding Aperture magazine, establishing the photography program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and work he made in the mid-20th century (which curator Paul Martineau discussed on The MAN Podcast on the occasion of a 2014 exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum). Dolan's exhibition features the work with which White effectively began his career in the late 1930s, work White made for the Oregon Art Project, a division of the federal Works Project Administration. The exhibition is split into two phases; the first, featuring works of Portland's industrial infrastructure and more, is up through May 6.

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Category:visual art -- posted at: 5:39pm EDT

Episode No. 323 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator Deborah Wye and artist Livia Corona Benjamin.

Wye curated "Louise Bourgeois An Unfolding Portrait," which is on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York through January 28. She is the world's foremost expert on Bourgeois's work. The exhibition, mostly taken from MoMA's collection, features 300 works, mostly prints and works on paper, but also works on cloth, sculptures and more. In association with the exhibition and its long-term commitment to Bourgeois's (and Wye's) work, MoMA has published an online catalogue raisonne of Bourgeois's prints and books. It features over 4,300 works. The exhibition is also accompanied by an excellent MoMA-published catalogue. Amazon offers it for $34.

Several of the artist's books that host Tyler Green and Wye discussed can be 'paged' through in their entirety on MoMA's Bourgeois website, including:

On the second segment, artist and photographer Livia Corona Benjamin discusses her work. She's included in "Home -- So Different, So Appealing," which is at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through January 21. The exhibition, a Pacific Standard Time-series exhibition that debuted at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and which was co-curated by MFAH's Mari Carmen Ramírez, Chon Noriega and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, looks at how artists have used the concept of 'home' to examine socioeconomic and political changes in the Americas.

To see more from the two Corona Benjamin series discussed on the program, visit her website:

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentyThree.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 12:55pm EDT

Episode No. 322 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Ilona Katzew and Kenneth Myers.

Along with Jaime Cuadriello, Paula Mues Orts, and previous MAN Podcast guest Luis Elena Alcala, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Ilona Katzew is a co-curator of "Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici." The exhibition is a broad survey of a many kinds of 18th-century Mexican painting, including religious narratives, altarpieces, portraits, casta painting and more. It is on view at LACMA through March 18. The remarkable exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $60.

Katzew is one of the world's foremost experts on New Spanish painting. She was previously on the program to discuss LACMA's acquisition of a significant Miguel Cabrera casta painting.

On the second segment, Detroit Institute of Arts curator Kenneth Myers discusses "Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage." The exhibition considers the paintings Frederic Edwin Church made in the late 1860s and 1870s of his trip to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. It's on view in Detroit until January 15. The exhibition's strong catalogue was published by the DIA. Amazon offers it for $41.

Direct download: MANPodcastEpisodeThreeHundredTwentyTwo.mp3
Category:visual art -- posted at: 4:12pm EDT

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