3rd of May

Zoe Strauss, Daddy Tattoo, Philadelphia, 2004.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Philadelphia-based artist Zoe Strauss, who joins me to discuss the new exhibition that surveys her 10-year “Under I-95” project at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show opens on Saturday and is on view through April 22. A terrific catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes particularly strong essays by Strauss and exhibition curator Peter Barberie. Strauss and the Philly Museum have also installed 54 billboards featuring her work throughout Philadelphia. The museum has set up a dedicated website for the billboard project. It includes images of the billboards, a map and even some help with driving the circuit. Zoe Strauss’s own website/blog is here.

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In our conversation, Strauss and I discuss:

The “Under I-95” project, a series of annual, three-hour-long exhibitions of her photographs which Strauss installed and sold (for as little as $5) under an elevated section of I-95 in south Philadelphia;

Strauss’s mid-project realization that she could either continue with “I-95” or have a child, and why she chose “I-95”;

Why her south Philly neighborhood is important to her and her work;

A double-murder that happened on her block this week as she was preparing to open her exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and

Why she focuses her camera on people, neighborhoods and landscapes that some people consider to be on the margins of American society.

This week’s draft features artist Kianja Strobert, whose first New York solo show is on view at Zach Feuer Gallery through Saturday. Clyfford Still is one of Strobert’s major influences, so she and I draft some favorite Still paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox, SFMOMA and the Hirshhorn.

To see images of the artworks discussed on this week’s show, visit Modern Art Notes.