The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 529 is a holiday clips episode with art historian Debra Bricker Balken. Balken is the author of "Arthur Dove: A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings and Things," a thorough presentation that includes Dove's assemblages. Jessie Sentivan contributed to the book. It contains 537 illustrations, almost all of them in color, of each work Balken was able to identify, find, photograph and document. "Dove" includes a an essay on Dove's work and its critical reception, as well as mini-essays on major works. Many of the materials and images in the book are published for the first time here. It lists for $125 via Indiebound or Amazon. Dove is among the most prominent American modernists of the early twentieth century, a key link between the American nature tradition and abstraction.

Episode No. 312 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Martine Syms and art historian Petra Giloy-Hirtz. Martine Syms is included in "Speech/Acts," a six-artist exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia that examines experimental black poetry and how language has shaped black American experiences. (Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Steffani Jemison, Tony Lewis, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed are the other artists.) The exhibition, which was curated by Meg Onli, will be on view through December 23. The museum's website includes a reading group syllabus, gallery guide, exhibition poster, installation views and more. Syms is an artist and the founder of Dominica Publishing, a press dedicated to exploring blackness in contemporary art and culture. Her work most often uses video, installation and performance to investigate representations of blackness, especially in popular culture. She's been the subject of solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, White Flag Projects in St. Louis, the Camden Arts Centre and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, Locust Projects in Miami and more. On the second segment, Petra Giloy-Hirtz discusses her recent monograph of Hassel Smith, a major figure in the development of post-war painting in San Francisco. (Amazon offers it for just $20!) As Crocker Art Museum curator discussed with host Tyler Green last week, Smith was a major influence on Richard Diebenkorn. This segment originally aired in 2013. For Smith images, see Episode No. 65, and the Hassel Smith Estate's website. New York's Washburn Gallery will open an exhibition of Smith's work from 1959-62 on November 2.

Episode No. 299 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Glenn Ligon and curator Stephen Brown. Ligon is the curator of "Blue Black" at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. Informed by the Pulitzer's Ellsworth Kelly wall sculpture Blue Black, the exhibition features more than 50 artworks that use color to address questions related to language, identity and more. The exhibition is on view through October 7. The catalogue of the exhibition is complimentary save the cost of shipping ($7 in the US, $14 abroad).  Ligon is an artist whose 2011 mid-career survey was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and traveled to LACMA and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Power Plant in Toronto, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.  On the second segment, curator Stephen Brown discusses his exhibition "Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry," which is at The Jewish Museum in New York through September 24. He co-curated  the show with Georgiana Uhlyarik at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The exhibition's catalogue was published by Yale University Press.  

Episode No. 749 features curator Mari Carmen Ramírez and Isabelle Frances McGuire. Ramírez is the curator of "Frida: The Making of an Icon" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition reveals how Frida Kahlo went from virtually unknown to mainstream audiences at the time of her death in 1954 to becoming famed as both an artist and as a kind of celebrity icon. Among the factors it identifies are North American geopolitics, the role of culture in the promotion of nationhood, tourism, and international trade, and more. "Frida" features more than 30 works by Kahlo and 120 more by five generations of artists she inspired. It is on view at the MFAH through May 17. A fascinating catalogue was published by the MFAH in association with Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $60. McGuire is included in the 2026 biennial exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The show was curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer with Beatriz Cifuentes and Carina Martinez. It's on view through August 23. This segment was taped when McGuire was included in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's "Descending the Staircase" exhibition in 2024. McGuire is a Chicago-based artist whose work considers the body and how our understanding of it can be filtered by video games, film, animatronics, and other technologies. The 2024 MCA Chicago exhibition marked her first inclusion in a museum exhibition; since then McGuire has shown at Artist's Space, New York, and at the Renaissance Society, Chicago. For images see Episode No. 648. Instagram: Isabelle Frances McGuire, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 748 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Shawnya L. Harris and Jeffrey Richmond-Moll. Harris and Richmond-Moll are the curators of "Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone" at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. The exhibition presents the life and work of nineteenth-century Black and Indigenous sculptor Edmonia Lewis in the context of her contemporaries and artists she may have influenced. The exhibition is on view through June 7. A valuable catalogue was published by the Peabody Essex Museum and Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $50-55. Episode No. 748 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Shawnya L. Harris and Jeffrey Richmond-Moll. Harris and Richmond-Moll are the curators of "Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone" at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. The exhibition presents the life and work of nineteenth-century Black and Indigenous sculptor Edmonia Lewis in the context of her contemporaries and artists she may have influenced. The exhibition is on view through June 7. A valuable catalogue was published by the Peabody Essex Museum and Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $50-55. As discussed on the program: Gisela Torres, Reverie and Slumber, 2020. Instagram: Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, Tyler Green. Air date: March 5, 2026.

Episode No. 747 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Bethany Collins and curator Edouard Kopp. Collins is included in "Monuments," at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition juxtaposes decommissioned Lost Cause monuments with commissioned artworks that address the histories the Lost Cause aimed to whitewash. Collins' contribution to the project is Love is dangerous (2024-25), a sculptural installation that remakes the base of the Stonewall Jackson monument that was installed in Charlottesville, Virginia. The exhibition, which is on view through May 3, was curated by Hamza Walker, Kara Walker, and Bennett Simpson with Hannah Burstein and Paula Kroll. The museum says that a catalogue is forthcoming. On March 5 the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver opens "Bethany Collins: The Deluge," a presentation of Collins works that each address -- and navigate -- an existential storm. Across several media, Collins addresses major literary works such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and Sophocles' Antigone -- and the US songbook too. The exhibition was curated by Leilani Lynch and is on view through July 5. Among the many museums presenting solo exhibitions of Collins' work are the Seattle Art Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, the Van Every and Smith Galleries at Davidson College, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University. Edouard Kopp is the curator of "Wall Drawing Series: Gladys Nilsson" at the Menil Drawing Institute, Houston. The site-specific exhibition features an enormous Nilsson drawing that features fantastical, hybrid beings surrounding one monumental figure engaged in the act of drawing. It's on view through August 9. Nilsson's work has been the subject of dozens of exhibitions, including a 1973 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Instagram: Bethany Collins, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 746 features artist Brian Rochefort and curator Catherine Craft. Rochefort is among the artists included in "Made in L.A. 2025," the biennial at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles. The exhibition was curated by Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha with Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow and is on view through March 1. Rochefort's ceramic sculptures are informed by abstract painting, the earth's geology, and more. Over the last decade he has shown at commercial galleries in the US, Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, and more. His work is in the collection of the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Craft is the curator of "Rauschenberg Sculpture" at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The exhibition presents highlights from Rauschenberg's three-dimensional practice and is on view through April 26. Instagram: Brian Rochefort, Catherine Craft, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 745 is a holiday weekend clips show featuring artist Christina Fernandez. Fernandez is included in "Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966-2026" at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside (Calif.) Art Museum. The exhibition explores the evolution of Chicana/o/x lens-based practices through over 150 pictures made across six decades. The exhibition is on view at both RAM locations, and will remain at The Cheech through September 6, and at RAM's Julia Morgan-designed building through July 5. through It was curated by Elizabeth Ferrer. Concurrently, Fernandez's 2002 Lavanderia #2 is on view in the National Gallery of Art's permanent collection galleries. The NGA holds at least six pictures from the series. This episode was taped in 2023 on the occasion of the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles' post-renovation-and-expansion debut exhibition "Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer's Contemporary Collection," and as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth was showing "Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures," a survey of Fernandez's career. For images, see Episode No. 602. Air date: February 12, 2026.

Episode No. 744 features artist Blas Isasi and curators Larissa Grollemond and Elizabeth Morrison, and artist Harmonia Rosales. Tomorrow, February 6, the Saint Louis Art Museum opens "Currents 125: Blas Isasi." The exhibition presents sculptures informed by ancient Andean cosmology and the Peruvian desert landscape, as well as the violent collision between Indigenous Andeans and colonizing Europeans. The exhibition was curated by Simon Kelly, and is on view through August 9. SLAM's exhibition brochure is available here. Isasi is a Peruvian sculptor who lives in the United States. He has previously shown in Prospect 6 in New Orleans (parts of that exhibition traveled to the MCA Denver), at SHED Projects, Cleveland, and at The Front, New Orleans. Grollemond and Morrison are the curators of "Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages" at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition, which is on view through April 19, looks at how creation stories have been advanced in manuscript painting. The exhibition also includes works by Harmonia Rosales, whose work often engages Christian creation stories, how they were presented in the middle ages, and how they might be offered today. Rosales, whose work centers Black women in reconsiderations of Western art, has been included in group shows at Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Art + Practice, Los Angeles, the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, and the Brooklyn Museum. Instagram: Blas Isasi, Larissa Grollemond, Harmonia Rosales, Tyler Green. Air date: February 5, 2026.

Episode No. 743 features author and art historian William E. Wallace. Wallace is the author of Michelangelo & Titian, which will be published by Princeton University Press on February 3. The book examines what Michelangelo and Titian saw in each other's work, how they spoke to each other in paintings and sculptures, and details their two meetings. Wallace's narrative animates the many relationships with church officials, collectors, and intellectuals that the two men had in common, providing insight into their world and the many ways in which the two artists may have addressed each other in their art. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $19-33. Wallace was previously on Episode No. 439 to discuss Michelangelo, God's Architect. Air date: January 29, 2026.

Episode No. 742 features artist Woody De Othello, and artists Jason Garcia, Michael Namingha, and curator Bess Murphy. The Pérez Art Museum Miami is presenting "Woody De Othello: coming forth by day," a presentation of new ceramic and wood sculptures, tiled wall works, and a large-scale bronze, all of which explore the primordial relationship between body, earth, and spirit. The exhibition was organized by Jennifer Inacio with the support of Fabiana A. Sotillo. It is on view in Miami through June 28 after which it will travel to the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis. Othello's sculpture, painting, and drawing often investigate the still life genre. His previous institutional solo exhibition was at The Bowes Museum in the UK. Museums that have featured his work in group shows include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Seattle Art Museum, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Whitney Museum of American Art included him in its 2022 biennial. Later this year, his work will be featured in a Public Art Fund solo presentation in Brooklyn's Brooklyn Bridge Park. He is an artist trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Garcia and Murphy are the co-curators of "Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country" at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. Namingha is among the 13 artists in the exhibition, 12 of whom are from the six Tewa Pueblos of northern New Mexico (Nambé, Ohkay Owingeh, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Tesuque).  "Tewa Nangeh" presents the work of Tewa artists while highlighting O'Keeffe's erasure of Tewa people. It is on view through September 7. Garcia's work is in the collection of museums such as the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Namingha's work is also on view through April 5 at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe in "Essential Elements: Art, Environment, and Indigenous Futures." The El Paso Museum of Art and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe have featured solo exhibitions of his work; he's been in group shows at museums such as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. Instagram: Woody De Othello, Jason Garcia, Michael Namingha, Tyler Green. Air date: January 22, 2026.

Episode No. 741 features curator Ed Schad and critic Gabriella Nugent. Schad is the curator of "Robert Therrien: This is a Story" at The Broad in Los Angeles. The retrospective presents Therrien's meditations on scale and material, while revealing Therrien's repeatedly mined vocabulary of forms and symbols. The exhibition is on view through April 5. The Broad published a fine catalogue to accompany the show. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $50-55. Nugent is a London-based art historian and curator who routinely publishes essays in Burlington Contemporary and Art Monthly. She particularly discusses her recent essay "On the problem of artists' biographies in exhibitions," which was published in Burlington Contemporary in December 2025. Instagram: Ed Schad, Gabriella Nugent, Tyler Green. Air date: January 15, 2026. 

Episode No. 740 features artist Firelei Báez and curators Charlene Foggie-Barnett and Dan Leers. The MCA Chicago is presenting "Firelei Báez," the first North American mid-career survey of the artist's paintings and installations. Báez's work often explores the legacies of colonialism across the American and the African diaspora, in the Caribbean, and beyond. Her works are often explosively colorful and use complex and layered materials, including archival material and paint, to unsettle fixed categories and historical events. The exhibition was curated by Eva Respini with Tessa Bachi Haas; the MCA Chicago presentation was organized by Carla Acevedo-Yates with Cecelia González Godino and Iris Colburn. It is on view through May 31. A catalogue was published by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in association with DelMonico Books. It is available from Amazon and Bookshop for $36-56. Institutions that have previously presented major Báez exhibitions include the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, The Momentary in Bentonville, Ark., the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Foggie-Barnett and Leers are the co-curators of "Black Photojournalism" at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The exhibition presents work by nearly 60 photographers chronicling historic events and daily life in the United States between 1945 and 1984. The exhibition was designed by David Hartt. It is on view through January 19, before traveling to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth. An excellent catalogue was published by the Carnegie. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $60. In addition to the video below, the CMOA has produced an outstanding podcast series to accompany the show. Instagram: Firelei Báez, Charlene Foggie-Barnett, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 739 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Dara Birnbaum. Birnbaum, a pioneering titan of video art, passed away this year at 78. "Her work is now displayed in museum collections around the world as the example of feminist video art," wrote curator and critic Karen Archey in an Artforum obituary. Birnbaum's work often included pointedly feminist critiques of mass media, including of entertainment and journalism. Retrospectives of her work include "The Dark Matter of Media Light" at SMAK, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent, Belgium, and at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, and "Dara Birnbaum Retrospective exhibition" at the Kunsthalle Wien in Austria and at the Norrtalje Konsthall in Sweden. Several of the Birnbaums discussed on this program are available online, including: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79); Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry (1979) (clip); Canon: Taking to the Street (1990) (clip); and Walkthrough of Psalm 29(30) (2016) at Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris. This program was recorded in 2017 when Dara Birnbaum's Local TV News Analysis (1980), which Birnbaum made with Dan Graham, was included in "Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media," at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The exhibition examined how artists have used newspapers, magazines and televised news programs to consider media, news and the messages included therein. The exhibition was curated by Arpad Kovacs. Air date: January 1, 2026.

Episode No. 738 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Wafaa Bilal. Earlier this year the MCA Chicago presented "Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me," the first major survey of Bilal's work. Across his genres-busting career, the Iraqi-American Bilal has made performances, sculptures and related digital presentations that have interrogated the United States' relationship with and conduct within Iraq, the Middle East, and broader geopolitics. Bilal's work also investigates the notion of cultural cannibalism, the ways in which the culture of one people may be used, disassembled, and consumed by another. "Indulge Me" was curated by Bana Kattan. An invaluable catalogue was published by the MCA. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $20-32. Bilal's work is in the collections of museums as unalike as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art Qatar. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah UAE; the Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi; and the 2015 Venice Biennale. For images, please see Episode No. 704. Instagram: Wafaa Bilal, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 737 features curators Beverly Adams and Jamillah James. With Christophe Cherix, Adams is the co-curator of "Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition includes more than 130 works made between the 1920s and 1970s, making it the most extensive Lam retrospective presented in the United States. "When I Don't Sleep, I Dream" argues that Lam, a Cuban-born artist who spent much of his life in Spain, France, and Italy, was a prototypical transnational artist. It is on view in New York through April 11, 2026. The exhibition catalogue was published by MoMA; Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $60-70. Jamillah James has organized the presentation of "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition is one of the most comprehensive presentations to date of the pioneering Fluxus artist, musician, and world peace activist. "Music of the Mind" includes over 200 works across a vast array of media, including performance footage, music and sound recording, film, photography, installation, and more. It is on view at the MCA through February 22, 2026. An exhibition catalogue was published in North America by Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $38-47. Air date: December 18, 2025.

Episode No. 736 features artist Dyani White Hawk. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is presenting "Dyani White Hawk: Love Language," a 15-year survey of White Hawk's career. The exhibition spotlights how White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) has foregrounded Lakota forms and motifs to challenge prevailing histories and practices around abstract art. The exhibition was curated by Siri Engberg and Tarah Hogue with Brandon Eng. The Walker has published an excellent catalogue; Amazon and Bookshop offer it for around $50. After closing at the Walker on February 15, "Love Language" will travel to the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. White Hawk's work is in the collection of institutions such as the Walker, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. White Hawk was previously a guest on Episode No. 610 of The MAN Podcast. Instagram: Dyani White Hawk, Tyler Green. Air date: December 11, 2025.

Episode No. 735 features curators Dan Nadel and Laura Phipps, and curator Alexander J. Noelle. With Elizabeth Sussman and Scott Rothkopf, Nadel and Phipps are the co-curators of "Sixties Surreal" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The exhibition works to complicate the march of -isms which, outside the academy and too few art museums, has too often ossified into the the era's US art history. "Sixties Surreal" offers some of the ways in which artists working around the US (and not only in New York or for its market) mined surrealist thought and theory to help them reckon with the era's sociopolitical extremes. The exhibition is on view through January 19, 2026. The thought-provoking exhibition catalogue was published by the Whitney. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $40-45. Also, Nadel and Phipps have made a 113-song Spotify playlist to accompany the show. The Cleveland Museum of Art's remarkable autumn of major Italian Renaissance presentations continues with Noelle's "Filippino Lippi and Rome," a look at the Florentine's painter's work in and informed by travel to Rome. The impetus for the exhibition was Cleveland's own tondo The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Margaret (ca. 1488-93), a masterpiece and the only known independent work that Filippino produced in Rome. Filippino is the son of the famed Fra Filippo Lippi, and apprenticed and collaborated with Sandro Botticelli before working on his own. "Lippi and Rome" is on view through February 22, 2026. A superb catalogue was published by the museum. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $40. Several months ago the Cleveland Museum of Art debuted Giambologna's Fata Morgana, a high-profile acquisition of a rare Giambologna marble sculpture. Instagram: Dan Nadel, Laura Phipps, Alexander J. Noelle, and Tyler Green.

Episode No. 734 is a Thanksgiving weekend clips program featuring artist Aliza Nisenbaum. The Des Moines Art Center is presenting "Aliza Nisenbaum: Día de los Muertos" through January 11, 2026. For the latest iteration of DMAC's annual Día de los Muertos celebration, and as the museum's Toni and Tim Urban International Artist-in-Residence, Nisenbaum created five paintings. The presentation was curated by Beth Gollnick. Earlier this fall, the Obama Presidential Center announced that it had commissioned a mural from Nisenbaum. Titled Reading Circles/ Weaving Dreams/ Seeding Futures, the mural will depict moments of civic life within a public library, offering a living portrait of community in action. This episode was taped in 2021. For images, please see Episode No. 522. Instagram: Aliza Nisenbaum, Tyler Green. Air date: November 26/27, 2025.

Episode No. 733 features curators Diana Seave Greenwald and Megan Fontanella. With Christina Michelon, Greenwald is the co-curator of "Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory" at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Boston Athenaeum. Both presentations are on view through January 19, 2026. (Theodore Landsmark co-curated the ISGM presentation.) The exhibition surveys the career of Boston-based Crite, whose work spotlighted Boston neighborhoods such as Lower Roxbury and the South End, the challenges they faced from gentrification and so-called urban renewal, and Christianity.  A fine exhibition catalogue was published by the two institutions. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $42. Fontanella is the curator of "Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Across more than 50 paintings and almost 20 photographs, the exhibition survey's Münter's work and finds that it was involved in avant-garde presentations of landscape, still life, and portraiture. Fontanella curated the photography section of the exhibition with Victoria Horrocks. "Contours of a World" is on view through April 26, 2026. A catalogue was published by the Guggenheim. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $55. Instagram: Diana Seave Greenwald, Megan Fontanella, Tyler Green. Air date: November 20, 2025.