Episode No. 434 features artists Peter Saul and Barry X Ball.

The New Museum in New York City is presenting "Peter Saul: Crime and Punishment," a survey of Saul's career. The exhibition includes 60 paintings Saul has made over the last 60 years, from his investigations of domestic space and consumerism, to his pioneering anti-war paintings of the Vietnam War era, to his arch looks at right-wing politicians (which continue into the present). It is on view through May 31. 

On the second segment, sculptor Barry X Ball discusses his work on the occasion of a career-spanning survey at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. That exhibition, "Barry X Ball: Remaking Sculpture," is on view through April 19. It was curated by Jed Morse.

Ball's sculptures are typically created out of rare stones with the assistance of 3-D scanning and printing technology and CNC milling machines. His work typically addresses and often updates mostly European major work from sculpture's history, such as Michelangelo's Rondanini Pieta or Medardo Rossos. This is Ball's first survey exhibition in the United States; previous exhibitions of his work have been at Ca' Pesaro in Venice, the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, and the Villa Panza in Varese. The fine exhibition catalogue was published by the Nasher.

Episode No. 433 features curator Simon Kelly and author/historian Robin Mitchell.

Along with Maite van Dijk of Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, Kelly is the curator of "Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dali." It's at the Saint Louis Art Museum through May 17. The exhibition examines, for the first time, Jean-François Millet's influence on succeeding generations of painters, from Cezanne and Pissarro to Monet, Gauguin and even Homer, Modersohn-Becker, Munch and Picasso. The smart, richly illustrated exhibition catalogue was published by the museums in association with Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $27.

On the second segment, Robin Mitchell discusses her new book "Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France."  The book examines how images of Black women helped shape France's post-revolutionary identity, particularly in response to the French defeat in the Haitian Revolution. Mitchell particularly focuses on Sarah Baartmann, Ourika, a West African girl effectively kept as a house pet by a French noblewoman, and Jeanne Duval, the partner of Charles Baudelaire who was painted (and un-painted) by Courbet and Manet. Mitchell is an assistant professor at California State University, Channel Islands. "Venus Noire" was published by University of Georgia Press. Amazon offers it for $35.

Episode No. 432 is a President's Day weekend clips show featuring artist LaToya Ruby Frazier.

The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University is showing "LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze." The exhibition features a new body of work that focuses on the United Auto Workers members at General Motors's Lordstown, Ohio plant. The facility, which had produced automobiles for over 50 years, was recently "unallocated" by GM -- a term-of-art that indicates the plant has been shut down. Until recently it produced the Chevrolet Cruze. Frazier's pictures present members of UAW Local 1112, and tell the story of their lives and the community they've built in northeastern Ohio. On September 14, the day the exhibition opened in Chicago, the UAW's current national contract with the Big Three automakers -- GM, Ford and Chrysler -- ended. The UAW instigate a strike at GM plants. It is already the longest strike against GM since 1970. "The Last Cruze" is on view at the Wexner through April 26. It was curated by Karsten Lund and Solveig Øvstebø.

On Tuesday, February 18, Frazier and documentary filmmaker Julia Reichert, whose American Factory just won the Academy Award for best documentary, will be in conversation with Sen. Sherrod Brown at the Wexner.  (Last year the Wexner organized a touring 50-year retrospective of Reichert's work.) The conversation is free, but an RSVP is strongly recommended to ensure entry.

LaToya Ruby Frazier is a Chicago-based artist whose work most often examines the ways in which corporations have impacted the lives of workers, their families and their communities. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at numerous museums in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and across the United States. She was the recipient of a 2015 MacArthur Foundation 'genius' grant, and has also received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and USA Artists.

For images of the work discussed on this week's program, please see Episode No. 412.

Episode No. 431 features artists Mark Dion and Nancy Lupo.

This weekend, the Amon Carter Museum opens "The Perilous Texas Adventures of Mark Dion." For the exhibition, Dion retraced the steps of four nineteenth-century Texas explorers: Sarah Ann Lillie Hardinge, Charles Wright, John James Audubon and Frederick Law Olmsted, accumulating material and experiences all along. The Carter exhibition features both Dion's discoveries and related works from its collection. Curated by Margaret C. Adler, it will remain on view through May 17. The Amon Carter has published an extraordinary book in association with the project, in some ways an adaptation of and Dion & Co. updating of Olmsted's Texas travel diary, that is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $40.

Dion works at the intersection of art, natural history, history and anthropology. His work examines and often critiques humanity’s approach to nature, landscape and science through witty address of scientific methodologies and installations that often have roots in Victorian-era presentation.

Dion has fulfilled commissions and had exhibitions at museums all over the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and the British Museum of Natural History in London. He is also a co-director of Mildred’s Lane, a visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania.

Dion was previously a guest on Episode No. 309. Olmsted's books on his travels through Texas and the South are available for free and in multiple formats from the Internet Archive's Open Library. Installation and related Dion images will be available early on the week of Feb. 10.

On the second segment, Lupo discusses her work on the occasion of "Nancy Lupo: Scripts for the Pageant" at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Curated by Anthony Edwards, the exhibition is on view at MCASD's downtown location through March 15. Lupo's previous exhibition credits include the 2018 version of the Hammer Museum's "Made in LA," and solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute, New York, LAXART, and the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas.