The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 685 features artist Vincent Valdez and curators Theresa Harlan and Drew Johnson. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is presenting "Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream..." the first major survey of Valdez's career. The exhibition, which features Valdez's work across media, reveals Valdez's construction of US national memory. It was co-curated by Patricia Restrepo and Denise Markonish. It's on view at CAMH through March 23, 2025, when it will travel to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. A catalogue is forthcoming. Also, Valdez is included in "Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition surveys post-war photorealism up to the present. It was curated by Anna Katz with Paula Kroll and is on view through May 4, 2025. MOCA and DelMonico Books published an excellent catalogue. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $65. Harlan and Johnson are the curators of "Born of the Bear Dance: Dugan Aguilar's Photographs of Native California" at the Oakland Museum of California. It's on view through June 22, 2025. The exhibition surveys Aguilar's presentation of Native life and land, mostly between 1982 and 2018. The exhibition is OMCA's first presentation of Aguilar's work after the Aguilar's family gift of his archive to the museum in 2022. The show does not have a catalogue, but many of the works in the show are featured within Harlan's 2015 Aguilar monograph for Heyday Books, "She Sang Me a Good Luck Song."

Episode No. 684 features curators Akili Tommasino and Mark Mitchell. Tommasino is the curator of "Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876-now" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition examines how Black artists and other cultural figures have engaged with ancient Egypt from the American centennial, through the Harlem Renaissance, to the present. "Flight into Egypt" is on view through February 17, 2025. The fascinating catalogue was published by the Met. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $45-50. Artists in the exhibition who are previous MAN Podcast guests include: Lauren HalseyNo. 82No. 255 No. 417 Robert PruittBetye SaarLorna SimpsonFred Wilson. Mitchell curated "The Dance of Life: Figure and Imagination in American Art, 1876-1917," which is at the Yale University Art Gallery through January 5, 2025. The exhibition looks at how two generations of post-Civil War artists adopted the human figure as their focus (partly in response to the mass death of the Civil War era). "The Dance of Life" particularly focuses on studies related to artistic commissions for major US public sites such as the Boston Public Library, the Library of Congress, Washington, and the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg. YUAG published a valuable catalogue It's available from Amazon and Bookshop for $50-60. Instagram: Akili Tommasino, Tyler Green. Air date: December 12, 2024.

Episode No. 683 features artist Tala Madani and curator Jamillah James. James is the curator of "The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970-2020" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Madani is among the 60-plus artists included in the exhibition. "The Living End" surveys the arc of painting over the last half-century with a particular focus on artists who have redefined painting by using new technologies, imaging techniques, and their own bodies. The exhibition will be on view through March 16, 2025. Jack Schneider assisted James with the show. The exhibition catalogue is available from the MCA for under $20. The Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington is presenting "Tala Madani: Be flat," a solo exhibition featuring recent and newly commissioned work that explores the influence of symbols, language, and mark-making on power dynamics and individual agency. It was curated by Shamim M. Momin and is on view through August 17, 2025. Madani makes paintings and painting-informed animations that consider gender, political authority, and representation. Her work typically includes bald, middle-aged men in bizarre, often hilarious circumstances. She has had solo shows at museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Secession, Vienna; the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.

Episode No. 682 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Leslie Martinez. Martinez is included within "Shifting Landscapes," which is at the the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York until January 2026. The exhibition considers how evolving political, ecological, and social issues motivate artists as they address the world around them (which is to say US artists are addressing land and landscape as they have since the days of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Cole.) The show was curated by Jennie Goldstein, Marcela Guerrero, and Roxanne Smith, with Angelica Arbelaez. Seven previous MAN Podcast guests are in the exhibition, including Robert Adams (Episode No. 41, 227, 555), Teresita Fernández, LaToya Ruby Frazier, An-My Lê, Patrick Martinez, Amalia Mesa-Bains, and Alison Saar. Martinez was previously featured in solo shows at MoMA PS1 in Queens, and the Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston. Their work is in the collection of museums such as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. For images, see Episode No. 635. Instagram: Leslie Martinez, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 681 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Tidawhitney Lek. Lek is featured in "Spirit House" at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. The exhibition considers how 33 contemporary artists of Asian descent challenge the boundary between life and death through art, including how the spiritual relates to diaspora, connections to ancestral homelands, and the experience of feeling present within multiple cultures and multiple geographies. The show's curatorial framework was inspired by spirit houses, small devotional structures found throughout Thailand that provide shelter for the supernatural. The exhibition was curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander with Kathryn Cua. It is on view through January 26, 2025. An excellent exhibition catalogue, titled "Spirit House: Hauntings in Contemporary Art of the Asian Diaspora," was published by the Cantor and Gregory R. Miller & Co. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $45-50. Discussed on the program: "House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home"Amir FallahAnnie Lapin.Lek's website. Lek is a southern California-based, Cambodian-American artist whose work examines narratives surrounding and the daily experiences of a first-generation American born to immigrant parents. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Made in LA biennial at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami. Her first museum solo show was at the Long Beach Museum of Art last year. Instagram: Tidawhitney Lek, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 680 features artist Ronny Quevedo and curator Jillian Kruse. The Menil Drawing Institute is presenting "Wall Drawing Series: Ronny Quevedo" through August 2025. The work on view, titled C A R A A C A R A, is a site-specific drawing that explores the relationship between origin, transfer, and translation. Each of the drawing's three panels reveals a different step in Quevedo's process. The presentation was curated by Kelly Montana. Quevedo has had a solo show at the Queens Museum, New York. He's been included in group shows at the Buffalo AKG Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and more. Kruse is the curator of "Imagination in the Age of Reason" at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The exhibition examines how Enlightenment artists presented fantasy and folly in works on paper during an era obsessed with truth and knowledge. It is on view through March 2, 2025. Instagram: Ronny Quevedo, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 679 features artist Hugh Hayden. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas is presenting "Hugh Hayden: Homecoming," an exhibition of new works informed by Hayden's upbringing in Dallas. The show includes sculptures that explore themes such as nostalgia, childhood, education, and religion. The exhibition was curated by Leigh Arnold and will be on view through January 5, 2025. The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is presenting "Hugh Hayden: Home Work," a survey of the last decade of Hayden's work. The show includes a site-responsive installation conceived for the Rose. "Home Work" was curated by Gannit Ankori and Sarah Montross, and will be on view through June 1, 2025. Among the museums that have presented solo shows of Hayden's work are the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Mass.; the Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston; the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and White Columns, New York. His work is in the collection of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Instagram: Hugh Hayden, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 678 features curator Stephan Wolohojian. Along with Laura Llewellyn, Caroline Campbell and Joanna Cannon, Wolohojian is the curator of "Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition examines the role of Sienese artists such as Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini in the dawn of the Italian Renaissance and before the onset of the plague in around 1350. While Florence is typically considered the most important city of the Italian Renaissance, "Siena" argues for a broadening of our understanding of the dawn of a new era. "Siena" is on view through January 26, 2025. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by the National Gallery, London. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $45. Some of the works referenced on the program are most easily seen via websites that aggregate multiple paintings into single pages, including: The Allegory of Good and Bad GovernmentMaestàSanta Croce altarpiece

Episode No. 677 features artist Andrea Carlson. As mentioned at the beginning of this week's program: Help Asheville and my friends and neighbors across the southern Appalachians! These are all local organizations helping people in western North Carolina: Southern Smoke FoundationAsheville Food & Beverage Unitedalso hereBeloved Asheville. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is presenting "Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons," the latest exhibition in its "Chicago Works" series. Across painting, video, sculpture, and two billboards (along Interstate 94 between Illinois and Wisconsin), "Shimmer on Horizons" presents Carlson's investigation of how landscapes are constructed both politically and culturally. The exhibition was curated by Iris Colburn and is on view through February 2, 2025. Carlson's work may also be seen in "Andrea Carlson: Future Cache" at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, which features a 40-foot-tall memorial wall that towers over visitors, commemorating the Cheboiganing (Burt Lake) Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians who were violently burned from their land in Northern Michigan on October 15, 1900. Curated by Jennifer Friess, the presentation is on view through June 2025. Carlson is also included within "Scientia Sexualis" at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles through March 2, 2025. The exhibition, realized as part of the Getty's "PST ART: Art & Science Collide" program, centers research-driven interventions into raced and gendered assumptions that structure scientific disciplines governing our sense of the sexual body. It was curated by Jennifer Doyle and Jeanne Vaccaro. Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe/European descent) typically addresses land and its history by foregrounding decolonization narratives. Museums that have featured solo exhibitions of her work include the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, New York, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Denver Art Museum. She is also the co-founder of the Center for Native Futures in Chicago. Chicagoans: on Saturday Carlson and poet Heid E. Erdrich will be in conversation at the MCA at 2:30 pm. A program at the Center for Native Futures precedes the event. Instagram: Andrea Carlson, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 676 features curator Jay A. Clarke. With Jill Lloyd, Clarke is the co-curator of "Paula Modersohn-Becker: I Am Me," which is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through January 12, 2025. The career-surveying exhibition features Modersohn-Becker's proto-expressionist works that address subjects and themes such as childhood, the bodily experience of motherhood, pregnancy, and old age. "Modersohn-Becker" also features many of the artist's self-portraits, including the first nude self-portraits known to have been made by a woman. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by Prestel Verlag. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $40-47.

Episode No. 675 is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Ken Gonzales-Day. The Yale Center for British Art is presenting "Ken Gonzales-Day: Composition in Black and Brown" a two-part public art project informed by Gonzales-Day's investigation of YCBA's collections. Both works, a billboard along Interstate 95 in West Haven, Conn., and a site-specific vinyl work on the museum, feature Gonzales-Day's interrogations of historical constructions of race and the limits of representation. The billboard is on view into October 2024; the work at YCBA is on view until December 2024. Gonzales-Day’s work considers the historical construction of race and the limits of representational systems, such as photographs of lynchings and museum displays. His book “Lynching in the West: 1850-1935” expanded our understanding of racialized violence in the United States through the discovery of photographs of lynchings of Latinos, Native Americans, Asians and African-Americans in California. His work has been the subject of solo or two-person exhibitions at museums such as the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. This episode was taped in 2021 on the occasion of Gonzales-Day's inclusion in at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. For images, see Episode No. 498.

Episode No. 674 features curators Kristen Collins and Nancy K. Turner, and curator Thea Liberty Nichols. Collins and Turner are the curators of "Lumen: The Art and Science of Light" at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. "Lumen" explores how scientific understandings of light shaped the visual culture of the Middle Ages. It includes over 100 works, including celestial globes, golden altars, and illuminated manuscripts from the Christian and Islamic worlds. It's on view through December 8, 2024. "Lumen" is part of PST ART : Art & Science Collide, a regional cultural celebration taking place across over 70 Southland exhibition and performance spaces. It is accompanied by an excellent catalogue published by the Getty. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $60-70. With Mark Pascale, Thea Liberty Nichols is the co-curator of "Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective," which opens at the Hammer Museum on October 12 and which runs through January 5, 2025. Ramberg was a painter who developed an intense visual vocabulary derived from often fetishized objects such as corsets, hands, high-heeled shoes and hair, building from them into arresting compositions. Late in her life -- Ramberg died in 1995 at the age of 49 -- she also made an extraordinary series of quilts. The exhibition was a significant critical hit at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it was on view over the summer. The wonderful catalogue was published by the Art Institute of Chicago, which originated the show. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $45.

Episode No. 673 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Matthew Brandt. Brandt is included in "Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene" at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The exhibition shows how 45 photo-based artists from around the world have examined the Anthropocene. "Second Nature" was curated by Jessica May and Marshall N. Price and is on view through January 5, 2025. An excellent catalogue was published by Rizzoli Electa. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $49-60. Brandt's works often join physical elements from the subjects he photographs to investigations of the land and our impacts on it. He's received solo shows at museums such as the Newark Museum, and he's been included in major group shows at museums such as the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and more. His work is in nearly all major institutional US photography collections. Brandt's website includes extensive galleries of the series of work discussed on the program, including: Lakes and ReservoirsCarbonTreesGeorge Bush Park 1Taste TestsEaglesWoodblocksWaterfalls1864. Instagram: Matthew Brandt, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 672 features curators Kimberly A. Jones and Mary Morton; and curators Sant Khalsa and Juniper Harrower. Along with Sylvie Patry and Anne Robbins, Jones and Morton are the curators of "1874: The Impressionist Moment" at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition examines the condition of Parisian art in 1874, both official standards exhibited at and effectively promoted via the official salon, and the renegade works exhibited at the first impressionist exhibition. Included are impressionist stalwarts such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, and also salon lions such as William Bouguereau and Jean-Léon Gérôme. The smart, delightful catalogue was published by the Musee d'Orsay and the NGA. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $46-60. "1874" is on view through January 19, 2025. Khalsa and Harrower are the curators of "Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees" at the Lancaster (Calif.) Museum of Art and History. Part of this year's sprawling Getty PST ART initiative, it's on view through December 29. "Desert Forest" examines how artists from Carleton Watkins to Cara Romero to Nancy Baker Cahill have presented Joshua trees and the fragile Mojave Desert ecosystem in their work. A fine catalogue was published by Inlandia Institute. It's available from MOAH. Instagram: Mary Morton, Kimberly Jones, Sant Khalsa, Juniper Harrower, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 671 features curator, professor, and former museum director Dean Sobel, and artist Jackie Winsor. Winsor, a leading Canadian-American post-minimalist and feminist sculptor, died last week at 82. She was the first female sculptor to receive a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1979), which holds five of her works in its collection. The most recent institutional survey of Winsor's work was at MAMCO Geneva in 2022. This week's program opens with Sobel, who organized the 1991 Winsor retrospective at the Milwaukee Art Museum. (The show traveled to the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, Calif., the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Akron Art Museum in Ohio. Sobel was later the director of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, and is a professor at the University of Denver. Next will be host Tyler Green's 2014 conversation with Winsor, apparently the next-to-last interview for which she sat. (See her 2019 program with MoMA curator Christophe Cherix.) The program was recorded on the occasion of "Jackie Winsor: With and Within" at The Aldrich, Ridgefield, Conn. For images, see Episode No. 154.

Episode No. 670 features artist Arlene Shechet. Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY is showing "Arlene Shechet: Girl Group" through November 10. The exhibition joins Shechet's recent work exhibited in a typical gallery setting to six new monumental sculptures Shechet created for installation at Storm King. The exhibition was co-curated by Nora Lawrence and Eric Booker, with Adela Goldsmith. On September 27 and 28, a group of six women will gather to dance at dusk in the midst of Shechet's outdoor sculptures. The performances are choreographed by Annie-B Parson in collaboration with the dancers: Cecily Campbell, Elizabeth DeMent, Natalie Green, Kashia Kancey, Brooke Ashley Rucker, and Jin Ju Song-Begin. Costumes for the performances were designed by Shechet. Tickets are available through Storm King's events page. Shechet's work is also on view at many art museums around the United States, including at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Mass., in "Disrupt the View: Arlene Shechet at the Harvard Art Museums," and more. Shechet is one of the nation's greatest living sculptors. Among the institutions that have presented solo exhibitions of her work are The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; The Frick Collection, New York; and the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha. In 2015 the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston presented a mid-career survey. (On the occasion of that exhibition, Shechet was a guest on Episode No. 194 of The MAN Podcast.) Instagram: Arlene Shechet, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 669 is a summer clips episode featuring artist Tammy Nguyen. This late summer and fall Nguyen will be featured in two institutional exhibitions, one a solo show and the other a group show. On October 4, the Sarasota (Fla.) Art Museum will present "Tammy Nguyen: Timaeus and the Nations." The show was curated by Rangsook Yoon. On September 4 the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University will present "Spirit House." It's an examination of how contemporary artists of Asian descent challenge the boundary between life and death through art. It was curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander with Kathryn Cua. Nguyen was a recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim fellowship, and has exhibited at museums such as MoMA PS1, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Factory Contemporary Arts Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and more. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and the Dallas Museum of Art. This program was taped in 2023 on the occasion of her first museum solo exhibition, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. She is also the founder of Passenger Pigeon Press, an artists’ book publisher. For images, see Episode No. 625B.

Episode No. 668 is a summer clips episode featuring historian and author David Bindman. Bindman’s most recent book is ‘Race Is Everything’: Art and Human Difference. It examines nineteenth and early twentieth-century racializing science (sometimes referred to as pseudoscience) and how European art both influenced it, and was itself influenced by it. The book pays special attention to the racialization of people of African and Jewish descent. It considers the skull as a racializing marker, Darwin and Darwinism, the construction of the Mediterranean ‘race,’ Anglo-Saxonism, the racializing debate over Egyptians, and plenty more. ‘Race is Everything’ was published by Reaktion Books. Bookshop and Amazon offer it for about $30-37.

Episode No. 667 is a summer clips episode featuring artist Melissa Cody. MoMA PS1 is presenting "Melissa Cody: Webbed Skies," through September 9. The exhibition features over 30 weavings and a new work. It was curated by Isabella Rjeille and Ruba Katrib. Cody, a fourth-generation Navajo weaver, creates tapestries from traditional techniques that engage both ancestral and contemporary ideas and forms. Her work is partly informed by the Germantown style, developed in the nineteenth century by weavers who used industrially dyed yarns produced in Germantown, Pennsylvania and shipped west to be used by Diné weavers. Cody’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark., the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, SITE Santa Fe, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and more. This program was taped on the occasion of Cody's inclusion in the 2023 Hammer Museum "Made in LA" biennial. For images, see Episode No. 623. Instagram: Melissa Cody, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 666 features author and art historian Michael Lobel. Lobel is the author of "Van Gogh and the End of Nature," which was just published by Yale University Press. The book interrogates Van Gogh's presentation of nature, and finds that Van Gogh was looking more intently at industry, pollution, and environmental degradation than is typically recognized. Bookshop and Amazon offer the book for about $42. Lobel is a professor of art history at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His previous books include Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art (Yale University Press, 2002), James Rosenquist: Pop Art, Politics and History in the 1960s (University of California Press, 2009) and John Sloan: Drawing on Illustration (Yale University Press, 2014). Instagram: Michael Lobel, Tyler Green.