The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 660 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday clips program with artist Kiyan Williams. Williams' work is on view in the 2024 Whitney Biennial [https://whitney.org/exhibitions/2024-biennial], which is at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York through August 11. On July 6, Art Omi in Ghent, NY will present "Kiyan Williams: Vertigo." [https://artomi.org/exhibition/kiyan-williams-vertigo/] It features large-scale works including Vertigo and 2022's Ruins of Empire, a reimagining of Thomas Crawford’s Statue of Freedom, which was installed atop the US Capitol dome in 1863. Ruins of Empire debuted at Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York as part of the Public Art Fund's "Black Atlantic" [https://www.publicartfund.org/exhibitions/view/black-atlantic/] exhibition. The Whitney exhibition was curated by Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli with Min Sun Jeon and Beatriz Cifuentes; the Art Omi show was curated by by Sara O’Keeffe, Senior Curator, with Guy Weltchek. This program was recorded on the occasion of the aforementioned Public Art Fund exhibition and the Hammer Museum's 2022 presentation of “Hammer Projects: Kiyan Williams”, [https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2022/hammer-projects-kiyan-williams] the artist’s first solo museum show. Instagram: Kiyan Williams [https://www.instagram.com/kiyanwilliams/], Tyler Green. [https://www.instagram.com/tylergreenbooks/]

Episode No. 659 features artists Barbara Bosworth and the Haas Brothers. Two art museums are showing exhibitions of Bosworth's [https://barbarabosworth.com/] work: the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is presenting "Barbara Bosworth: The Meadow" [https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/barbara-bosworth-the-meadow] through December 1. The show features photographs of a meadow in Carlisle, Massachusetts and near the Concord River that Bosworth made over 15 years, pictures that investigate time, human presence, and nature. The exhibition was curated by Karen Haas. In 2015 Radius Books published [https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/barbara-bosworth-margot-anne-kelley-the-meadow-order] a book of Bosworth's "The Meadow" pictures accompanied by texts by poet Margot Anne Kelley. "Barbara Bosworth: Sun Light Moon Shadow" [https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/barbara-bosworth-sun-light-moon-shadow] is at the Cleveland Museum of Art through June 30. The exhibition offers Bosworth's photographs of light, including eclipses, sunrises, and sunsets, many of which were made near Bosworth's childhood home in eastern Ohio. It was curated by Barbara Tannenbaum. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas is showing "Haas Brothers: Moonlight" [https://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/art/exhibitions/exhibition/id/2055?haas-brothers-moonlight] through August 25. The exhibition, which highlights the fusion of art, design, and technology in the brothers' practice, shows work made by twin brothers Nikolai and Simon Haas both inside and outside the museum. The Haas Brothers have previously had solo exhibitions at the Katonah (NY) Museum of Art, the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Ga., and at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Fla. Instagram: Barbara Bosworth [https://www.instagram.com/barbarabosworthstudio/], Barbara Bosworth (weather) [https://www.instagram.com/barbarabosworthweather/], Haas Brothers [https://www.instagram.com/thehaasbrothers/], Tyler Green. [https://www.instagram.com/tylergreenbooks/]

Episode No. 658 features artists Jes Fan and Emilio Rojas. Fan's work [https://www.jesfan.com/] is included in two ongoing -ennials: the 2024 Whitney Biennial [https://whitney.org/exhibitions/2024-biennial], which is at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York through August 11; and Greater Toronto Art 2024 [https://moca.ca/exhibitions/greater-toronto-art-2024/] at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto through July 28. The Whitney exhibition was curated by Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli with Min Sun Jeon and Beatriz Cifuentes; GTA 2024 was organized by Ebony L. Haynes, Toleen Touq, and Kate Wong. Fan's sculptures consider the constructs of race and gender and their relationship to the intersection of biology and identity. As part of his explorations, Fan often incorporates living matter, such hormones, and fluids, such as glass, into his work. Fan's work has been exhibited at the 2022 Venice Biennale, the 2021 New Museum Triennial at the New Museum, New York, the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, and more. As mentioned on the program: * Stills from Fan's 2023 video Palimpsest. [https://www.jesfan.com/Palimpsest-2023] * Byung-Chul Han's book Saving Beauty. [https://amzn.to/4ciQaSy] Rojas [https://emiliorojas.studio/] is included in "Descending the Staircase" [https://visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/descending-the-staircase/] at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition, presented across two floors of the MCA, presents ways in which artist have represented the human body. Curated by Jadine Collingwood and Jack Schneider, it is on view through August 25. Rojas works across disciplines to investigate and reveal sites of knowledge that are rich with historical narrative. His work often specifically addresses colonial histories, and the relationships between those histories and the present. Rojas' work has been exhibited at museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, and he has participated in festivals and biennials in the US, Europe, and in Asia. As mentioned on the program:  * Rojas' GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM (Santa Maria) [https://emiliorojas.studio/works/goback]; * The Columbian half dollar [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_half_dollar] coined for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  Instagram: Jes Fan [https://www.instagram.com/jes.j.fan/], Emilio Rojas [https://www.instagram.com/performanceroarte/], Tyler Green. [https://www.instagram.com/tylergreenbooks/]

Episode No. 657 features curator Natalie Dupêcher. Dupêcher is the curator of "Janet Sobel: All-Over" [https://www.menil.org/exhibitions/370-janet-sobel-all-over] at The Menil Collection, Houston. Across 30 paintings and drawings, the exhibition explores Sobel's short, meteoric, hugely influential career as one of the first New York artists associated with abstract expressionism as it began to coalesce in the early 1940s. Among other works, the Menil exhibition brings together six of Sobel's famed "all-over" paintings for the first time in 60 years. Sobel was an emigrant from Ukraine who began to make art around 1940. She used non-traditional supports such as glass and cardboard, and unusual paints, including oil and enamel borrowed from her family's costume jewelery-making business. Contemporary critics credited her with developing the action-driven, dripping technique that would become core to the legends created around other, male artists. The exhibition is on view through August 11. This episode was taped before a live audience at the Menil.

Episode No. 656 features artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons and curator Lauren Applebaum. "María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold", [https://nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions/maria-magdalena-campos-pons-behold/] now at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, is the first multimedia survey of Campos-Pons' work in 17 years. The exhibition spotlights Campos-Pons' photography, installation, and performance-based practices, which typically address global histories of enslavement, indentured labor, motherhood, and migration -- how their impacts continue into the present. The exhibition is on view at Duke through June 9. It was curated by Carmen earmo Hermo and Mazie Harris with Jenée-Daria Strand. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the Getty and the Brooklyn Museum. Amazon [https://amzn.to/4azEae4] and Bookshop [https://bookshop.org/p/books/maria-magdalena-campos-pons-behold-carmen-hermo/20045033?ean=9781606068588] offer it for $33-42. On the program host Tyler Green mentions this excellent website [http://alchemy.pem.org/] published by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. on the occasion of its 2016 Campos-Pons exhibition. With Daniel Ackermann, Lea Lane, and Jenny Garwood, Applebaum is a co-curator of "Layered Legacies: Quilts from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts at Old Salem" [https://ncartmuseum.org/exhibition/layered-legacies-quilts-from-the-museum-of-early-southern-decorative-arts-at-old-salem/] at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. The exhibition includes more than 30 quilts and related objects from the MESDA collection (as well as some from private collections) and presents new, revised investigations into their making. It is on view through July 21. NCMA published a catalogue to accompany the exhibition; it is only available at the museum.