Episode No. 710 features curator Timothy Anglin Burgard and artist Tony Lewis. Burgard is the curator of "Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art" at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The exhibition details how Thiebaud drew ideas from and reimagined European and US artworks both old and new. It is on view through August 17. A superb catalogue was published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in association with University of California Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $54-60. Lewis is featured in "What drawing can be: four responses" at the Menil Collection's Menil Drawing Institute, Houston. The exhibition, which also offers work by Jillian Conrad, Teresita Fernández, and Constantin Luser, presents ways in which the four artists stretch the boundaries of drawing and offer new ideas of what it can be. It's on view through August 10. The gallery guide is available here. Lewis’ work examines the relationship between semiotics and language as a means to confront subjects such as race, power, communication, and labor. His solo exhibition credits include the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University. His work is in the collection of museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Instagram: Tony Lewis, Tyler Green.
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1:23:51
Ornamental Blackness, Monstrous Beauty
Episode No. 709 features author Adrienne L. Childs and curator Iris Moon. Childs is the author of "Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts." The book, which was published by Yale University Press, examines the role decorative arts played in the representation of Black people within European visual and material culture. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $44-78. From the show: The exhibition guide to the 2022-23 Henry Moore Institute exhibition "Race, Sexuality and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture," which Childs co-curated. Moon is the curator of "Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition is a feminist construction of the story of European porcelain. Chinese porcelain arrived in early modern Europe and led to the emergence of chinoiserie, a decorative style that foregrounded European fantasies about the East and the exotic, as well as about women, sexuality, and race. It is on view through August 17. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Met. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $35. Instagram: Adrienne Childs, Tyler Green.
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1:28:01
Paul Pfeiffer
Episode No. 708 features artist Paul Pfeiffer. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is showing the retrospective "Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom." For over 25 years, Pfeiffer has investigated spectacle and mass culture, especially sport, and has found within it the power to create and extend political narratives. Included within the exhibition is only the second US presentation of Pfeiffer's landmark 2007 The Saints, an immersive sound and video installation that considers the 1966 men's World Cup final between England and West Germany that is one of the most significant works of the 21st century. "Pfeiffer" was curated by Clara Kim and Paula Kroll. The MCA presentation, which is on view through August 31, was organized by Bana Kattan with Iris Colburn. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and MACK. Amazon offers it for $65. Instagram: Paul Pfeiffer, Tyler Green.
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58:11
Holiday clips: Lorna Simpson
Episode No. 707 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Lorna Simpson. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is presenting "Lorna Simpson: Source Notes," a survey that focuses on paintings that Simpson has made over the last decade. Across more than 30 works, "Simpson" spotlights the artist's explorations of gender, race, identity, representation, and history. The exhibition, which is on view through November 2, was curated by Lauren Rosati in "close collaboration with the artist." The exhibition catalogue was published by the Met. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $40-45. This conversation was taped in 2017 on the occasion of “FOCUS: Lorna Simpson," at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The exhibition featured new work that juxtaposes beauty and promise with disaster and upheaval, often in the context of the representation of black women in Ebony magazine from the 1950s to the 1970s. It was curated by Alison Hearst. Instagram: Lorna Simpson, Tyler Green.
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51:20
John Wilson, Grace Hartigan
Episode No. 706 features curators Leslie King-Hammond and Edward Saywell, and curator Jared Ledesma. Along with Patrick Murphy and Jennifer Farrell, Hammond and Saywell are the co-curators of "Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition surveys Wilson's 60-year career, spotlighting the ways in which Wilson addressed anti-Black violence, the civil rights movement, labor, family life, and more. "Wilson" is on view in Boston through June 22 before traveling to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in the fall. The richly illustrated exhibition catalogue was published by the MFA. It is available from Amazon and Bookshop for about $50. Ledesma is the curator of "Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention" at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. The exhibition is a focused examination of how Hartigan's relationships with New York poets, including Barbara Guest, James Merrill, and Frank O'Hara, influenced her paintings and works on paper. It is on view through August 10, 2025 before traveling to the Portland (Me.) Museum of Art and the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. An excellent catalogue was published by the museum. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for around $35. Instagram: Jared Ledesma, Tyler Green.
The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a weekly, hour-long interview program featuring artists, historians, authors, curators and conservators. Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee called The MAN Podcast “one of the great archives of the art of our time.” When the US chapter of the International Association of Art Critics gave host Tyler Green one of its inaugural awards for criticism in 2014, it included a special citation for The MAN Podcast.
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