3rd of May

Mitch Epstein, Eastern Cottonwood Tree, Staten Island II 2011, 2011.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Mitch Epstein.

Epstein is one of America’s most prominent and most honored photographers. His work is in the collection of virtually every major museum in the world and has been exhibited recently at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris and at the Kunstmuseum Bonn. He was the winner of the 2011 Prix Pictet for his series “American Power.” His most recent work, an examination of the trees of New York City, is on view now at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in Chelsea. (The gallery has an unusually good website: Click-through to see large images of all the works in the show, plus installation shots.)

Epstein and I discuss:

After spending several years traveling to make “American Power” and to work in Berlin, why he chose to focus on trees in his own city;

The unexpected, often disjunctive relationships he noticed between trees and the neighborhoods in which he found them;

How trees began to interest him as he was working on “American Power”;

The trees of “American Power”; and

How the history of trees in photography motivated his new work.

On the second segment of this week’s show, Denver Art Museum curator Eric Paddock and I discuss work by Epstein’s teacher, Garry Winogrand. Fifty photographs from Winogrand’s “Women are Beautiful” series are on view now at the Denver Art Museum.

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The Modern Art Notes Podcast is an independent production of Modern Art Notes Media. It is released under this Creative Commons license. For images of more of the works discussed on this week’s show, click through to Modern Art Notes.