The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 728 features curators Anna Lovatt and Kelly Montana, and artist/curator Pablo Helguera. Lovatt and Montana are the curators of "Lines of Resolution: Drawing at the Advent of Television and Video" at the Menil Drawing Institute, Houston. The exhibition examines the intersection of drawing, television, and video from the late 1950s into the 1980s. "Lines of Resolution" features the work of 25 artists, including Nam June Paik, Howardena Pindell, Sigmar Polke, and Joan Jonas. It is on view through February 8, 2026. A fascinating catalogue was published by the Menil. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $35-40. In addition to the works shown below, works discussed on the program include: Ulrike Rosenbach, Bonnet Drawing, 1972. Catherine Elwes, Two Drawings on Glass, 1978. Along with representatives from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's curatorial and learning teams, Helguera is the co-curator of "Collection in Conversation with Pablo Helguera," which is at the MCA through July 5, 2026

Episode No. 727 is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Andrea Carlson. The Denver Art Museum just opened "Andrea Carlson: A Constant Sky," a mid-career survey. The exhibition spotlights how Carlson, who is Ojibwe and of European settler descent, creates works that challenge the colonial narratives presented by modern artists, museum collections, and cannibal genre horror films, all in ways that challenge and depart from the US landscape tradition. The exhibition was curated by Dakota Hoska, and will remain on view through February 16, 2026. The exhibition catalogue was published by Scala, Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $30-35. Museums that have featured solo exhibitions of Carlson's 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.

Episode No. 726 features artist Danielle Joy Mckinney. The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is presenting "Danille Mckinney: Tell Me More" through January 4, 2026. The exhibition, Mckinney's first solo presentation in a US museum, spotlights Mckinney's introspective explorations of Black womanhood. It was curated by Gannit Ankori. Concurrently, Galerie Max Hetzler is presenting Mckinney's work in "Second Wind" in London through November 1. Mckinney has been featured in exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and many more. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Instagram: Danielle Joy Mckinney, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 725 features curators Philip Brookman and Deborah Willis (and a cameo, of sorts, from artist Anthony Barboza). Brookman and Willis are the co-curators of "Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-85" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition considers photography's engagement with the post-war cultural and aesthetic movement that celebrated Black history, identity, and beauty, and which often influenced the broader civil rights movement of which it was a part. The exhibition features 150 works from photographers and other artists who used photography in their work, such as in collage or assemblage. It is on view through January 11, 2026. An excellent catalogue was published by the NGA In association with Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $60. Instagram: Philip Brookman, Anthony Barboza, Deborah Willis, Tyler Green. Air date: September 25, 2025.

Episode No. 724 features artist Antony Gormley. It was taped before a live audience at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. The Nasher is showing "SURVEY: Antony Gormley" through January 4, 2026. The exhibition is the first major museum survey of Gormley's work in the United States. Across sculptures, models, and notebooks, "SURVEY" spans Gormley's career from the 1980s to today. The exhibition extends beyond the Nasher's galleries to include sculptures installed on the rooftops of both the Nasher and skyscrapers in and around downtown Dallas. It was curated by Jed Morse. Gormley is the UK's most honored living sculptor. His works often use the body to address fundamental questions of where humans stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Major exhibitions of his work have been held at museums and in biennials all over the world. Air date: September 18, 2025.

Episode No. 723 features curator Michelle White and artist Nanette Carter. White is the curator of "Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s" at The Menil Collection, Houston. The exhibition considers Rauschenberg's conceptual, expressive use of fabric as a medium through a focus on three groups of works from the 1970s: Venetians (1972-73), Jammers (1975-76), and Hoarfrosts (1974-76). It is on view through March 1, 2026. "Fabric" is accompanied by an excellent catalogue published by the Menil. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $60-65. The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University is presenting "Nanette Carter: Afro Sentinels" through January 11, 2026. The exhibition features works Carter has made over the last decade, including work from her Cantilevered, Destabilizing, and Shifting Perspectives series, plus new sculptural works commissioned by the Wexner. It was curated by Rebecca Lowery. Carter's abstract collages, produced in Mylar, often engage with contemporary social issues. The Mon

Episode No. 722 features museum director and human rights activist Ann Burroughs, and curator Cory Korkow. Burroughs is the director of the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, which has led the museum sector in resisting Trumpism and the rise of fascism in the United States. Even as many US institutions capitulated when the Trump administration demanded a return to racist and white supremacist policies and practices, JANM stood by its diversity and equity foci and programs. Over the summer, armed and often masked  Border Patrol agents conducted what appeared to be an operation aimed at intimidating speakers at a program at the museum's Daniel K. Inouye National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, including at a press conference held by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The museum aggressively resisted the federal show of force, drawing lines between illegal federal actions in 1942 and the present. JANM's mission is "to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural dive

Episode No. 721 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Saif Azzuz. The Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, is presenting "Saif Azzuz: Keet Hegehlpa' (the water is rising)," which interrogates the privatization of land, water, and natural resources within settler-colonial systems. Across the exhibition, Azzuz and family members Lulu Thrower, Elizabeth Azzuz, Viola Azzuz, Moya Azzuz, and Colleen Colegrove reference the myths, origin stories, and fabricated tales animating the land now known as Houston. The artists in the exhibition draw upon ecological knowledge to visualize histories of land stewardship and rematriation practices that gesture to Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor’s notion of survivance, the fusion of resistance and survival. The exhibition was curated by Erika Mei Chua Holum and will be on view through December 20. Azzuz is a Libyan-Yurok artist based in suburban San Francisco. His work, which often addresses nature, land, and California Nativ

Episode No. 720 is a summer clips episode featuring artist Tidawhitney Lek. Lek is among the 30+ artists featured in "Spirit House" at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. 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. "Spirit House" originated at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, and was curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander with Kathryn Cua. It is on view in Seattle through January 11, 2026. 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

Episode No. 719 features curator Laura Katzman. Katzman is the curator of "Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity" at the Jewish Museum, New York. Shahn's first US retrospective in nearly 50 years. The exhibition examines Shahn's progressive commitment to the major issues between the Great Depression and the Vietnam War, as well as his exploration of spirituality and Jewish texts. The exhibition features 175 paintings, mural studies, prints, photographs and more, spotlighting Shahn's skill and vision across media. The exhibition debuted at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and was adapted by the Jewish Museum. It's on view through October 26. A catalogue was published by Princeton University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $32-42.

Episode No. 718 features artist Masako Miki and artist/curator Katherine Simóne Reynolds. The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco is presenting "Midnight March," a far-ranging presentation of Miki's two-dimensional and three-dimensional practice. The Japanese-born Miki's paintings, sculptures, and installations live between the sacred and the secular. Her often exuberant sculptures are rooted in the blending of Japanese and US cultures. Her previous solo shows have been at museums such as the de Young Museum, San Francisco, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, and the ICA San José. Her work is in the permanent collections of BAMPFA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and more. Reynolds is the curator of "Held Impermanence (Artists Select: Katherine Simóne Reynolds)" at the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver. The exhibition uses the museum's art collection and archive to consider multiple competing desires, including Still's and the desires of art instit

Episode No. 717 features artist Erin Shirreff, curator Davide Gasparotto, and conservator Ulrich Birkmaier. The Milwaukee Art Museum is presenting "Erin Shirreff: Permanent Drafts" through September 1. Across 40 recent collages, photographs, sculptures, and videos, the exhibition reveals Shirreff's interest in the space between images and the objects they picture. The exhibition was curated by Kristen Gaylord. Among the museums that have presented solo exhibitions of Shirreff's work are SITE Santa Fe, the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., SFMOMA, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. "Artemisia's Strong Women: Rescuing a Masterpiece" is at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles through September 14. The exhibition reveals conservation work done on Gentileschi's ~1635-37 Hercules and Omphale, a significant painting damaged in a massive explosion in Beirut in 2020. Birkmaier led the conservation of the work, which Gasparotto joined to four other Gentileschis in this exhibition, which particularl

Episode No. 716 features curator Eleanor Nairne and artist Francesca Fuchs. With Wells Fray-Smith, Nairne is the co-curator of "Noah Davis," an eponymous retrospective at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles. Davis, who passed away from a rare cancer in 2015 at age 32, was a painter whose work addressed current affairs, every day life, family histories, and architecture. Davis often addressed the subjects that interested him by fusing his interest in art history to his interest in vernacular sources, such as flea market photographs or personal archives. The exhibition is on view through August 31. A catalogue is available from Prestel. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $33-46. The Menil Collection, Houston is presenting "The Space Between Looking and Loving: Francesca Fuchs and the de Menil House" through November 2. The exhibition starts, as it were, in 1970, when John de Menil wrote to German classical archeologist Dr. Werner Fuchs (1927–2016) seeking to identify the subject of a Roman

Episode No. 715 features artist Kandis Williams. The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis is presenting "Kandis Williams: A Surface," the first survey of Williams' career. The exhibition spotlights how Williams has used collage as a tool of Black feminist resistance, to dismantle entrenched histories and power structures, and to rebuild dominant narratives. The exhibition, which was curated by Taylor Jasper with Laurel Rand-Lewis, is on view through August 24. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Walker. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for around $45. Williams is also included in "Performance on Paper" at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles. It features prints and drawings created at the intersection of music and dance by about twenty artists active from the 1960s to the present. It was curated by Naoko Takahatake with Jennie Waldow, and is on view through August 10. Williams' previous museum solo exhibition was at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University. The

Episode No. 714 features curator and art historian Jonathan D. Katz and curators Allison Kemmerer and Gordon Wilkins. With Johnny Willis, Katz is the co-curator of "The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939" at Wrightwood 659, Chicago. The exhibition details the emergence of a significant change in how societies around the world regarded homosexuality in the wake of the coining of the term 'homosexual' in 1869, and the ways in which images have represented a range of identities ever since. It is on view through July 26. The fascinating exhibition catalogue was published by Monacelli. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $70-75. Kemmerer and Wilkins are the curators of "June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart" at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass. The exhibition surveys a 75-year career during which Leaf explored the human experience in works that are layered, whimsical, playful, and sometimes dark. It is on view through July 31. The Addison, the Grey Art Museum, New York Univers

Episode No. 713 is a Fourth of July weekend clips episode featuring artist Carmen Winant. This episode was taped in 2023 on the occasion of the Minneapolis Institute of Art's presentation of Winant’s “The last safe abortion” through December 31. It features Winant’s assemblages of historical photographs gathered from across the Midwest that detail the work of providing health care to women. That work includes answering phones, presenting training sessions, scheduling appointments, and more. “The last safe abortion” was curated by Casey Riley. Winant’s work typically explores representations of women through strategies such as collage and installation. Her exhibition credits include the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Sculpture Center, Queens, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and many venues in Europe. For images, see Episode No. 621. Instagram: Carmen Winant, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 712 features artist Julian Hoeber and curator María Elena Ortiz. Hoeber is included in "Generations: 150 Years of Sculpture" at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. The exhibition offers a new selection of works from the Nasher collection that offers conversations between works from the past and present. Hoeber's practice centers perception and searches for ways to exceed and reconcile limits set by binary ideas such as interior and exterior, or psychic and somatic. Paradoxically, he often uses binary systems, such as stereoscopic vision, in his work. His exhibition credits include Desert X 2019, a Hammer Projects show in 2010, and gallery shows in San Francisco, New York, Milan, Los Angeles, London, and more. His work is in the collection of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Hammer Museum, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.  Ortiz is the curator of "Feeling Color: Aubrey Williams and Frank Bowling" at the Modern A

Episode No. 711 is a summer clips episode featuring artist Patrick Martinez. Martinez is among the artists showing in the Boston Public Art Triennial, which was developed by Pedro Alonzo, Tess Lukey, and a(n unspecified) curatorial advisory group. Martinez's 2025 Cost of Living may be seen at Boston's Downtown Crossing. Martinez is a Los Angeles-based painter whose work investigates socio-economic position, immigration, police violence, and civic and cultural loss. He’s had solo shows at museums and kunsthalles such as the ICA San Francisco, the Tucson (Ariz.) Museum of Art, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Vincent Price Art Museums. He’s been in recent group shows at the Riverside (Calif.) Art Museum, The Broad, Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark., and El Museo del Barrio, New York. Martinez also operates Mixed Media Editions. This program was taped in 2024 on the occasion of “Patrick Martinez: Histories” at th

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, comm

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 exhib