May 2012
35 posts
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features New York-based artist Mickalene Thomas. An exhibition of Thomas’s recent paintings, “Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe,” is on view at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through August 19.
Thomas’s work is in the collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
Photographer Marco Breuer, whose latest work is on view now at Chelsea’s Von Lintel Gallery, is the second guest. Breuer’s manipulations of photographic paper create fantastic, often surprising abstractions.
His most recent museum exhibition was last year’s“Marco Breuer: Line of Sight,” which was organized by Julian Cox at the de Young in San Francisco.His work is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, MoMA, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Harvard Art Museums and SFMOMA.
To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Images of artworks discussed on the program are here.
Image: Mickalene Thomas, Din, Une Très Belle Négresse #2 (detail), 2012.
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Today the New York Times published three letters from prominent gay thinkers on topical issues. On a recent Modern Art Notes Podcast, Lari Pittman talked extensively about being a gay man who channels his thoughts and experiences onto canvas. I think it’s one of our best shows, so don’t miss it below!
This is the last weekend in Chicago for the exhibition “This Will Have Been,” an show that looks at how artists responded to the crises of the 1980s. The exhibition, curated by Helen Molesworth, pays special attention to how feminism motivated American artists to make sociopolitically engaged work.
I haven’t seen the show, but I’ve read the outstanding catalogue. It seems to me that the key work in the show is Lari Pittman’s The Veneer of Order (1985, above, click to enlarge). Pittman and I discussed that painting and how his art is motivated by the politics of personhood on a really great show that first aired back in March. Don’t miss it — I think it’s one of the best MAN Podcast artist interviews!
“This Will Have Been” will travel next to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where it opens on June 30.
You may download the program directly to your PC/mobile device here. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast on iTunes here.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features three critics discussing their impressions of the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Guests include:
Christopher Knight, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the art critic of the Los Angeles Times; Tom Freudenheim, the former director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Worcester Art Museum and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal; James Russell, the architecture critic for Bloomberg.
Discussed at length: The Chaim Soutines at the Barnes, easily the best place in America to see a range of Soutine’s work.
Knight reviewed the show here for the LAT. Russell reviewed the building here for Bloomberg. I wrote about the new Barnes here on MAN.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here.
Image: Chaim Soutine, The White Hat (detail), ca. 1923.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features three critics discussing their impressions of the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Joining me are:
Christopher Knight, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the art critic of the Los Angeles Times; Tom Freudenheim, the former director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Worcester Art Museum and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal; James Russell, the architecture critic for Bloomberg.
Knight reviewed the show here for the LAT. Russell reviewed the building here for Bloomberg. I wrote about the new Barnes here on MAN.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here.
Image: Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de vivre, 1905-06.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features three critics discussing their impressions of the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Joining me are:
Christopher Knight, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the art critic of the Los Angeles Times; Tom Freudenheim, the former director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Worcester Art Museum and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal; James Russell, the architecture critic for Bloomberg.
Knight reviewed the show here for the LAT. Russell reviewed the building here for Bloomberg. I wrote about the new Barnes here on MAN.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here.
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This is Drowning Girl (1963), one of Roy Lichtenstein’s first comic-strip-referencing paintings. Lichtenstein, a fan and student of art history, said that the painting was inspired by Hokusai’s famed woodcut The Great Wave Off of Kanagawa (1829-32).
The painting is included in the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago. This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features the exhibition’s curator, James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl, 1963. Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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This is a detail from Cold Shoulder (1963), Roy Lichtenstein’s first painting to refer to a comic strip. According to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the painting’s home:
The artist’s son, actor Mitchell Lichtenstein, claims a bit of credit for his father’s very first comic-style painting.
“One day, when I was about five and my brother David was seven, we told our father that he wasn’t a real artist, because he didn’t paint anything people could recognize. To please us, he reproduced this comic strip image, and something clicked. In that moment Roy realized a new personal style.”
The painting is included in the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago. This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features the exhibition’s curator, James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Roy Lichtenstein, Cold Shoulder (detail), 1963. Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Click here to see a JPEG of the entire painting.
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You can’t talk about Roy Lichtenstein without talking about art history. Here’s one of Roy Lichtenstein’s riffs on Henri Matisse, complete with goldfish, drawings, an arabesque, a cityscape and a semi-still-life on a tabletop. (Click on the image or here to see the entire painting.) I’ve opened photo-replying on this post: If you think you know Matisse paintings/drawings that informed this Lichtenstein painting, Still Life with Goldfish (1974) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, reply with a JPEG!
It’s Roy Lichtenstein week on The Modern Art Notes Podcast! This week’s program features James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Lichtenstein retrospective. It opens to the public tomorrow. The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Roy Lichtenstein, Still Life with Goldfish, 1974. Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art curator Keith Davis on his exhibition “Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs,” which is on view in Kansas City through September 2. O’Sullivan is one of the pioneers of American photography and took many of his most important pictures while exploring and chronicling the West with Clarence King. Don’t miss the exhibition catalogue, which is one of this year’s top books on American art.
This remarkable picture features a group of Shoshone. Note that O’Sullivan (and perhaps survey leader Clarence King) have posed the Shoshone with an American flag, a reference to the American conquest of Western lands and tribes. Note also O’Sullivan himself — or at least his shadow — in the lower-left. A 2,500-pixel-wide version with much more detail is available here, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website. It’s well-worth the click!
On the first segment of this week’s program, I talk with James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. Rondeau co-organized the exhibition with Sheena Wagstaff, the head of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Shoshoni, 1867-72. Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Mo., Library of Congress, Washington and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (from which this image comes).
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art curator Keith Davis on his exhibition “Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs,” which is on view in Kansas City through September 2. O’Sullivan is one of the pioneers of American photography and took many of his most important pictures while exploring and chronicling the West with Clarence King. Don’t miss the exhibition catalogue, which is one of this year’s top books on American art.
On the first segment of this week’s program, I talk with James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. Rondeau co-organized the exhibition with Sheena Wagstaff, the head of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Sand Dunes, Carson Desert, Nevada, 1867. Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Mo.
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It’s Roy Lichtenstein week at the Art Institute of Chicago — and on The Modern Art Notes Podcast! This week’s program features James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Lichtenstein retrospective. Rondeau co-organized the exhibition with Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Sheena Wagstaff.
The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years. Currently in member previews, the show opens at the AIC on May 22 before traveling to the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern and to the Centre Pompidou.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape in Fog, 1996. Click on the image to enlarge it.
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It’s Roy Lichtenstein week at the Art Institute of Chicago — and on The Modern Art Notes Podcast! This week’s program features James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Lichtenstein retrospective. Rondeau co-organized the exhibition with Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Sheena Wagstaff.
“The big influence is Picasso,” Roy Lichtenstein said in 1996, the year before he died. And for most of Lichtenstein’s career — especially the early years — Picasso was. But by 1969, when he started his mirror paintings, Lichtenstein seems to have begun thinking about Matisse. Come 1973, when Lichtenstein made Artist’s Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey!), he seems to have completely bought into Matisse.
Artist’s Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey!) (click image above to enlarge) is a riff on Matisse’s famed ‘studio’ paintings, in which Matisse would paint his own previous works lying around a room, often his studio. This Lichtenstein is richly informed by Matisse’s The Red Studio (1911). Note that Lichtenstein placed the stretcher-revealing rear of a painting (a riff on not just Matisse, but on Lichtenstein’s own 1968 Stretcher paintings) in roughly the same part of the canvas Matisse does. The paintings on the rear wall are in roughly the same places Matisse put them. That jug that appears in so many Matisses. And so on.
The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years. Currently in member previews, the show opens at the AIC on May 22 before traveling to the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern and to the Centre Pompidou.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Roy Lichtenstein, Artist’s Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey!), 1973. Collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art curator Keith Davis on his exhibition “Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs,” which is on view in Kansas City through September 2. O’Sullivan is one of the pioneers of American photography and took many of his most important pictures while exploring and chronicling the West with Clarence King. Don’t miss the exhibition catalogue, which is one of this year’s top books on American art.
On the first segment of this week’s program, I talk with James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. Rondeau co-organized the exhibition with Sheena Wagstaff, the head of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years. Currently in member previews, the show opens at the AIC on May 22 before traveling to the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern and to the Centre Pompidou.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Timothy O’Sullivan, Pyramid and Domes, Pyramid Lake, Nevada, 1867. Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Mo.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features James Rondeau, the head of the contemporary art department at the Art Institute of Chicago, talking about his new Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. Rondeau co-organized the exhibition with Sheena Wagstaff, the head of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The exhibition is the first career-length survey of Lichtenstein’s art and the first retrospective of the artist in 18 years. Currently in member previews, the show opens at the AIC on May 22 before traveling to the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Modern and to the Centre Pompidou.
In the second segment, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art curator Keith Davis tells us about “Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs,” which is on view in Kansas City through September 2.
Image: Roy Lichtenstein, Brushstroke and Spatter, 1966.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Martha Rosler. An exhibition of Rosler’s pictures of Cuba, taken in January, 1981, are on view now at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in Chelsea. Rosler and I talked last week in front of a live audience at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Rosler will receive her first solo show at the Museum of Modern Art this November when MoMA hosts Rosler’s “Meta-Monumental Garage Sale” in the museum’s atrium.
Rosler has been the subject of dozens of major exhibitions, including the 1999 retrospectinve “Martha Rosler: Positions in the Life World,” which was organized by Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and Generali Foundation, Vienna. That show traveled throughout Europe and to the New Museum and the International Center of Photography in New York.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Martha Rosler, Playboy (On View) from “Bringing Home the War: House Beautiful,” 1967-72. Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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The art: Mitch Epstein, American Elm, Central Park, New York, 2012, 2012.
The news: “In New York, Neglected, Rotting Trees Turn Deadly,” by William Glaberson and Lisa W. Foderaro in the New York Times.
The source: MitchEpstein.net and The Modern Art Notes Podcast. More images of Epstein’s new pictures of the trees of New York City are available here.
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I wonder if this is the greatest artwork about the Iraq War…
This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Martha Rosler. An exhibition of Rosler’s pictures of Cuba, taken in January, 1981, are on view now at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in Chelsea. Rosler and I talked last week in front of a live audience at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Rosler has been the subject of dozens of major exhibitions, including the 1999 retrospectinve “Martha Rosler: Positions in the Life World,” which was organized by Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and Generali Foundation, Vienna. That show traveled throughout Europe and to the New Museum and the International Center of Photography in New York. She will receive her first solo show at the Museum of Modern Art this fall when her Meta-Monumental Garage Sale takes over MoMA’s atrium for 13 days at the end of November.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Martha Rosler, The Gray Drape, 2008. Collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Martha Rosler. An exhibition of Rosler’s pictures of Cuba, taken in January, 1981, are on view now at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in Chelsea. Rosler and I talked last week in front of a live audience at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Rosler has been the subject of dozens of major exhibitions, including the 1999 retrospectinve “Martha Rosler: Positions in the Life World,” which was organized by Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and Generali Foundation, Vienna. That show traveled throughout Europe and to the New Museum and the International Center of Photography in New York. She will receive her first solo show at the Museum of Modern Art this fall when her Meta-Monumental Garage Sale takes over MoMA’s atrium for 13 days at the end of November.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. Click here to see images of art discussed on the show.
Image: Martha Rosler, Cleaning the Drapes from “Bringing Home the War: House Beautiful,” 1967-72.
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The last stop of the Wexner-organized Mark Bradford survey is the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where the show has just over a month left to run. On the occasion of the show’s arrival in San Francisco, I talked with Bradford on The Modern Art Notes Podcast. I think it’s one of the very best episodes of the show yet: Bradford opened up about his life and work in strikingly personal, even emotional ways. Don’t miss it.
Click here to download the show directly to your PC/mobile device. Click here to access The MAN Podcast in iTunes, where the Bradford show is Episode No. 19. Click here to see images of works discussed on the program.
Image: Mark Bradford, Scorched Earth, 2006.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features one of the greatest living artists, Robert Irwin. A exhibition of Irwin’s newest work is on view now at The Pace Gallery in New York, where Irwin and I taped this week’s show.
Irwin told me that one of his greatest disappointments related to an unrealized project was for the quad at Ohio State University. He used some of those ideas here, at the Richard Meier-designed Rachofsky House in Dallas.
To download the program directly to your mobile device/PC, click here. To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. To see more images of artworks discussed on this week’s show, visit Modern Art Notes.
Image: Robert Irwin, Tilted Planes, 1999.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features one of the greatest living artists, Robert Irwin. A exhibition of Irwin’s newest work is on view now at The Pace Gallery in New York, where Irwin and I taped this week’s show.
Before Irwin started making pieces with light and scrim, he was a painter. On this week’s show Irwin and I discussed how eliminating frames from his paintings was something of a step for him — and Irwin names several of the painters that have been important to him, even as he moved away from painting. The painters and paintings he offers are great examples of how oil-on-canvas can still motivate artists who have given up on the medium.
To download the program directly to your mobile device/PC, click here. To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. To see more images of artworks discussed on this week’s show, visit Modern Art Notes.
Image: Robert Irwin, Untitled, ca. 1960-61. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features one of the greatest living artists, Robert Irwin. A exhibition of Irwin’s newest work is on view now at The Pace Gallery in New York, where Irwin and I taped this week’s show.
The piece pictured here is one of Irwin’s first pieces made out of scrim, a thin, ephemeral, synthetic material that Irwin used to great effect starting in the 1970s. On this week’s show, Irwin talks about how he ‘discovered’ scrim and about how he used it in his studio starting in 1969, first exhibited a scrim piece guerilla-style at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970 and then did this major piece at the Walker Art Center in 1971. Don’t miss the Walker’s fascinating blog post about Irwin’s 1971 installation. There are some great pictures there too. That untitled work is in the Walker’s collection; the museum has installed it four times.
To download the program directly to your mobile device/PC, click here. To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. To see images of artworks discussed on this week’s show, visit Modern Art Notes.
Image: Robert Irwin, Untitled, (1971). Collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features one of the greatest living artists, Robert Irwin. A exhibition of Irwin’s newest work is on view now at The Pace Gallery in New York, where Irwin and I taped this week’s show.
Irwin’s recent exhibition highlights have incldued a fantastic 2007 semi-retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, a 2006 presentation at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas and a long-term installation at Dia Center for the Arts in New York that opened in 1998.
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. To see images of artworks discussed on this week’s show, visit Modern Art Notes.
Image: Robert Irwin, 1° 2° 3° 4°, (1997). Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
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Earlier today Artinfo’s Julia Halperin reported that the major Doug Wheeler installation exhibited at David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea earlier this year (at left) was sold to a private collector who “plans to install the work at his foundation.”
At the time Wheeler and I recorded his February appearance on The Modern Art Notes Podcast, the work was unsold — and Wheeler was a little disappointed in that. So far as I know, this episode of the program is only the third one-on-one interview Wheeler has ever done. Don’t miss it!
To see images of the artworks Wheeler and I discussed on the show, click here. To download the program directly to your PC/mobile device, click here.
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This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Cory Arcangel, who is included in “The Sports Show” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. (Video here.) Arcangel is best-known for his tweaks of video games and his media-based tricksterism.
The work shown here is from Arcangel’s breakthrough series of hacks of the iconic Mario Bros. video game for Nintendo. Super Mario Clouds v2k3 (2003) is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. To learn more about and to see more of Arcangel’s Mario Bros.-related work, visit his web page. Arcangel even invites you to help him tweak/improve the piece! (For example, the source code for the Whitney’s piece is here.)
To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly to your mobile device/PC, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. For images of the works discussed on this week’s show, click here.
