Dorothea Lange, Toward Los Angeles, Calif., 1937. Collection of the Library of Congress, Washington.
3rd of May’s artwork for Day One of the Democratic National Convention.
Mars Curiosity & empty space photography
This is really quite terrific. It references this post, published today on Modern Art Notes.
Robert Adams, Quarried Mesa Top, Pueblo County, Colorado, 1978Robert Adams wrote a great essay, “In the Nineteenth-century West,” which was originally printed in a book of landcape photography (reprinted in the must-own collection Why People Photograph, page 133), but it’s relavent to Mars photography. Comparing the painters and photographers from the period, specifically Timothy O’Sullivan, when they painted similar scenes, Adams believes the photographers’ work holds up better. He uses Thomas Eakins as an example of a talented painter from the east that flailed in the west.
Thomas Eakins, 1888
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.
The art: Zoe Strauss, proof of a potential layout from her forthcoming book “On the Beach.” The project and book chronicle the aftermath of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The proof is from 2011, the photographs are from 2010.
The news: “BP to Pay $7.8 Billion to Settle Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Lawsuit, Is It a Bad Deal for Gulf Residents?” on Democracy Now! radio.
The source: Zoe Strauss’s Flickr.
Nota bene: Strauss is currently the subject of this solo exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 2010 she and I conducted this Q&A about her “On the Beach” project on Modern Art Notes: Part one, part two. She was also a guest on The Modern Art Notes Podcast earlier this year. She was a great guest. I guarantee you’ll love the program.
The art: Garry Winogrand, Coney Island, New York, c.1958.
The news: “Record highs broken in slew of cities,” from CNN. More than one percent of all U.S. high temperature records were broken yesterday.
The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
![Today on Modern Art Notes: Did Los Angeles-based artist Amir Zaki prepare us for Carmageddon? [Image: Amir Zaki, Untitled (OH_04X), 2004.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_looppoHqm91qe0into1_1280.jpg)
Today on Modern Art Notes: Did Los Angeles-based artist Amir Zaki prepare us for Carmageddon? [Image: Amir Zaki, Untitled (OH_04X), 2004.]
The art: Robbert Flick, AR77166-30, from the series Arena, 1977.
The news: “Car Clash: Europe vs. the U.S.” on the New York Times’ Room for Debate site.
The source: Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The art: Catherine Yass, Wall/Al-Eizariya/End, 2004. This work is a lightbox related to one of Yass’ strongest film installation, Wall (2004). I couldn’t find any of Wall to post here, but there’s a still and a description here, at the website for the Jewish Museum, Berlin.
The news: “West Bank barrier to be rerouted around Palestinian village,” by the Associated Press and published by The Guardian.
The source: Alison Jacques Gallery.
The art: Taryn Simon, Ronald Jones. Scene of arrest, South Side, Chicago, Illinois. Served 8 years of a death sentence for Rape and Murder, 2002. From the series The Innocents.
The news: “The Haunting of Rick Perry,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the New York Times.
The source: tarynsimon.com.
![The art: Carleton Watkins, View from Caleb Carriger Orange Orchard, One Mile South of El Verano, Looking [East] Across Sonoma Valley, ca. 1887. According to the Online Archive of California, the Sonoma Valley Improvement Country hired Watkins to photograph the countryside and estates of the Sonoma Valley as a promotional tool. Best known for his dramatic mountain landscapes, Watkins’ pictures often showed the ways in which the federal government enabled or promoted new agricultural products in California.
The news: “How Uncle Sam Helped Define America’s Diet,” by Renee Montagne on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
The source: Collection of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, via Calisphere.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmfavlQi971qe0into1_1280.jpg)
The art: Carleton Watkins, View from Caleb Carriger Orange Orchard, One Mile South of El Verano, Looking [East] Across Sonoma Valley, ca. 1887. According to the Online Archive of California, the Sonoma Valley Improvement Country hired Watkins to photograph the countryside and estates of the Sonoma Valley as a promotional tool. Best known for his dramatic mountain landscapes, Watkins’ pictures often showed the ways in which the federal government enabled or promoted new agricultural products in California.
The news: “How Uncle Sam Helped Define America’s Diet,” by Renee Montagne on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
The source: Collection of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, via Calisphere.
The art: Pirkle Jones, House Being Moved, from the series “Death of a Valley,” 1956 (printed 1960). Jones and Dorothea Lange collaborated on “Death of a Valley,” which chronicled the last days of Monticello, Calif., before the town and the surrounding Berryessa Valley were dammed into Lake Berryessa. The reservoir is sited west of Sacramento, about halfway between the state capital and the Napa Valley wine-growing region. It’s one of the least-known great narrative photo-documentary series in American art.
The news: “Water, water everywhere, but not enough is saved,” by George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times. Skelton reports that California built its last dam in 1979. Since then the state’s population has increased by about 50 percent, or over 14 million people.
The source: Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. More of the series is online here.
RSS feed: http://3rdofmay.tumblr.com/rss
