The Modern Art Notes Podcast

• Elizabeth Catlett, Beatriz Cortez

  Episode No. 705 features curators Dalila Scruggs and Catherine Morris, and artist Beatriz Cortez. With Mary Lee Corlett, Scruggs and Morris are the co-curators of "Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition surveys Catlett's career across over 150 sculptures, prints, paintings, and drawings. The exhibition is on view through July 6. An exceptional exhibition catalogue, titled Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies was published by the The University of Chicago Press, the NGA and the Brooklyn Museum, which originated the exhibition. It is available from Amazon and Bookshop for $56-60. Catlett was a feminist, activist, and radical who helped join the Black Left in the US to influences from the Mexican Revolution. Her work continued the practice of earlier US artists such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Carleton Watkins by using cultural production to advance ideas and ideologies. Cortez is featured in "Seeds: Containers of a World to Come" at the Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. The exhibition features work by ten artists whose research-driven practices are informed by inquiry into plant-human-land relations. "Seeds" was curated by Meredith Malone and Svea Braeunert, and remains on view through July 28. The exhibition brochure is available here. "Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza: Earth and Cosmos" is at the Americas Society, New York through May 17. The show considers the idea of ancient objects traveling across space and time. Cortez's work explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities, and imaginaries of the future. She has been featured in solo exhibitions at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY,; the Williams College Museum of Art; Clockshop, Los Angeles; and more. Instagram: Catherine Janet Morris, Beatriz Cortez, Tyler Green.

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• Wafaa Bilal

  Episode No. 704 features artist Wafaa Bilal. The MCA Chicago is presenting "Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me," the first major survey of Bilal's work. Across his genres-busting career, the Iraqi-American Bilal has made performances, sculptures and related digital presentations that have interrogated the United States' relationship with and conduct within Iraq, the Middle East, and broader geopolitics. Bilal's work also investigates the notion of cultural cannibalism, the ways in which the culture of one people may be used, disassembled, and consumed by another. "Indulge Me" was curated by Bana Kattan, and is on view in Chicago through October 19. An invaluable catalogue was published by the MCA. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $20-32. Bilal's work is in the collections of museums as unalike as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art Qatar. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah UAE; the Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi; and the 32015 Venice Biennale. Instagram: Wafaa Bilal, Tyler Green.

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• Dakota Mace, Gorky & Noguchi

  Episode No. 703 features artist Dakota Mace and curator Claire Howard. SITE Santa Fe is showing "Dakota Mace: DAHODIYINII—SACRED PLACES," an investigation of an atrocity during which the United States expelled the Diné people from Dinétah, their ancestral homeland, and forced them to march as many as 400 miles to the Bosque Redondo in central-eastern New Mexico, where they were forced to remain in a concentration camp from 1864-68. The exhibition is organized into themes such as memory, land, and the stars; with each section of the show considering Diné cosmology. The exhibition, which is on view through May 19, was curated by Brandee Caoba. Mace is also featured in "Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time" at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY. The exhibition examines how Native artists have explored memory and time, including how the past is continually remembered and reimagined. It was curated by Sháńdíín Brown and will remain on view through August 31, 2025. "Smoke in Our Hair" features previous MAN Podcast guests such as Saif Azzuz, Teresa Baker, and Andrea Carlson. Series of Mace's work discussed on the program and presented in full on her website include: Dahodiyinii; Distorted Landscapes; Łichíí (Red) Series; and Akágí (Skin). Host Tyler Green mentions two books on the program: Hardship, Greed, and Sorrow: An Officer's Photo Album of 1866 New Mexico Territory, by Daniel Kosharek and Deborah Romanek, with a forward by Jennifer Nez Dennetdale; Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache, by Keith Basso. Howard is the curator of one section of "In Creative Harmony: Three Artistic Partnerships" an exhibition that considers artistic discourse, at the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin. Howard's section considers the relationship between Arshile Gorky and Isamu Noguchi. Other sections present dialogue between Nora Naranjo Morse and her daughter Eliza Naranjo Morse and José Guadalupe Posada and Artemio Rodríguez. It's on view through July 20. Instagram: Dakota Mace, Claire Howard, Tyler Green.

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• Holiday clips: María Magdalena Campos-Pons

  Episode No. 702 is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles is presenting "María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold" through May 4. It 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 — and how their impacts continue into the present. It was curated by Carmen Hermo and Mazie Harris with Jenée-Daria Strand. It is accompanied by a catalogue published by the Getty and the Brooklyn Museum. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $33-42. This program was taped on the occasion of the exhibition's presentation at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in 2024. For images, please see Episode No. 656.

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• Caillebotte's Men, Native Pop!

  Episode No. 701 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator Scott Allan, and curators Will Hansen and River Ian Kerstetter. With Gloria Groom and Paul Perrin, Allan is the co-curator of "Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men" at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition, which is on view through May 25, looks at how Caillebotte's interest in male subjects significantly distinguishes him from his impressionist colleagues. A fine exhibition catalogue was published by the Getty. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $50-58. Hansen and Kerstetter are the curators of "Native Pop!" at the Newberry Library, Chicago. "Native Pop" examines how Indigenous people, and art by and of them, are central to the story of our popular culture. The exhibition is on view through July 19. Instagram: Scott Allan, Tyler Green.

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