The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 773 is a summer clips episode featuring artist Lotus L. Kang. The Frye Art Museum, Seattle is showing "Lotus L. Kang: I hear the hollow boom of time" through September 27. The installation features large sheets of unfixed industrial film that have been exposed to light sources as part of a process Kang calls 'tanning,' a process that aligns film's surface to skin. Sculptures that include tatami mats as their base take up some of the space between the film sheets, which are suspended from above. The show also includes a kinetic sculpture that evokes the body. "I hear the hollow boom of time" was organized by Georgia Erger. Kang's work often blends sculpture, photography and installation in address of bodies, memories, and histories that change over time. Kang has been featured in exhibitions at the MCA Chicago, the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, and the 2021 triennial at New York's New Museum. This conversation was recorded in 2023 on the occasion of Kang's presentation of a project in the MCA Chicago's atrium. For images, see Episode No. 604. Instagram: Lotus L. Kang, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 771 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a summer clips episode featuring art historian Michael W. Cole. Princeton University Press has just published Cole's Sofonisba's Lesson, New Edition: A Renaissance Artist and Her Work. The book updates Cole's 2020 edition of the book, an assessment of Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625), a pathbreaking painter who substantially made it possible for women to be students of art. Bookshop and Amazon offers Sofonisba's Lesson for $63-68. Cole's book considers Sofonisba Anguissola's art, how her background, teaching and learning were important to her career and art, and how her relationships with her father Amilcare, her teacher Bernardino Campi, Michelangelo and a series of royals and royal courts resulted in her work — and in work attributed to her. This new, expanded volume offers new considerations of paintings whose status has been uncertain, and provides an up-to-date illustrated catalogue of over 200 known paintings and drawings that have been associated with Sofonisba. Cole is a professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University. This episode was taped in 2020, when Princeton published the first edition of the book. For images, see Episode No. 457. Air date: August 13, 2026.

Episode No. 769 features a conversation with Betye Saar recorded in 2016. Saar died on Sunday a few days short of her one hundredth birthday. Saar, known especially for her use of assemblage and her often pioneering address of complicated and often troubling US, and diasporic African and Caribbean histories, was one of the most influential artists of the last 60 years. Generations of artists, including Saar's artist-daughters Lezley and Alison, have found Saar's work foundational. Even though Saar was recognized around the world as among the most influential artists of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century United States, remarkably, shamefully, and revealingly, none of Saar's hometown art museums ever launched a retrospective of her work. Saar was a guest on The Modern Art Notes Podcast in 2016 on the occasion of a survey of her work organized by De Domijnen (which was formerly known as Museum Het Domein) in Sittard, the Netherlands in partnership with Scottsdale (Ariz.) Museum of Contemporary Art. For images of artworks discussed in this conversation, see Episode No. 222. Air date: July 30, 2026.

Episode No. 757 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features art historian and curator Yve-Alain Bois. Bois is the curator of "Matisse in Vence: The Stations of the Cross," at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The exhibition presents about 80 of the drawings Matisse made for the painted ceramic mural of the Stations of the Cross at the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence. The exhibition reveals how Matisse worked through each of the Stations to arrive at a syncretic, dramatic presentation. Bois was assisted by Alix Agret and Katy Rothkopf. The exhibition, which is on view through June 28, is accompanied by a fascinating, essential catalogue published by Musée Matisse Nice and Bernard Chauveau Publishing. It is available from the BMA for $35. Instagram: Yve-Alain Bois, Tyler Green. Air date: May 7, 2026.

Episode No. 755 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Jess T. Dugan and author D.B. Dowd. Radius Books is publishing "Jess T. Dugan & Charlotte Cotton: Love Pictures," a collaboration featuring Dugan's photographs and conversations with Cotton and members of Cotton's and Dugan's communities, such as Dawoud Bey, Kate Palmer Albers, and Michelle Millar Fisher. Radius, Amazon, and Bookshop offer the two-volume publication for about $75. Dugan is a St. Louis-based artist whose work explores subjects such as personhood, relationship, desire, and love. Their work is in the collection of over 70 museums. The Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum are among the institutions that have presented solo exhibitions of Dugan's work. This is Dugan's sixth book. Dowd is the author of "Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration," which was just published by Princeton University Press. "Reading Pictures" details how, for many centuries, illustration has often worked between written, published text and art history to advance ideas and ideologies. Princeton, Amazon, and Bookshop offer it for $52-60. Instagram: Jess T. Dugan, D.B. Dowd, Tyler Green. Air date: April 23, 2026.

Episode No. 753 features artist Delilah Montoya and author Mario T. García. Montoya's work is featured in three major exhibitions around the US this season. The Albuquerque Museum is featuring "Delilah Montoya: Activating Chicana Resistance," the first retrospective of Montoya's forty-year career. The exhibition, which was curated by Josie Lopez, is on view through May 3. A valuable catalogue was published by University of New Mexico Press and the Albuquerque Museum. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $32. Two significant historical group shows also foreground Montoya's work. At the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Montoya is featured in "Hyphen American: Intersections of Identity." The exhibition, which pointedly rejects increasing right-wing claims that the US is, or should be an ethnostate, presents the many ways identity is presented and interrogated in our art. The excellent exhibition catalogue, which was published in the four languages most commonly spoken in Lincoln (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic), was published by the museum. "Hyphen American" was curated by Christian Wurst and is on view through July 5. Artists in the exhibition who have been guests on The Modern Art Notes Podcast include Radcliffe Bailey, Binh Danh, Catherine Opie, Alec Soth, and Renée Stout. The Riverside (Calif.) Art Museum and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture are showing Montoya in "Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966–2026." The exhibition shows how 45 artists have used their camera as a tool of representation, empowerment, and change over the past 60 years. It is the first major survey of Chicano/a/x lens-based image making. "Chicano Camera Culture" was curated by Elizabeth Ferrer. It's on view at the Riverside Art Museum through July 5, and at The Cheech through September 6. The excellent catalogue was published by The Cheech and is distributed by University of Washington Press. It is available from Amazon for $44. Artists in the exhibition who have been guests on The Modern Art Notes Podcast include Christina Fernandez and Ken Gonzales-Day. Montoya is one of the major figures in the development of Chicana art in the United States. Her community-oriented work addresses colonialism, identity, land, feminine power, and justice. It is held by museums such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the New Mexico Museum of Art. García is the author of "Rupert García: The Making of an American Artist, a Testimonio," which was just published by Rutgers University Press. It is the first biography of the Chicano artist Rupert García. The book, which is informed by 50 hours of interviews conducted over 30 years, is illustrated by 80 artworks. It is immediately the major volume on García's career. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $31-33. Instagram: Delilah Montoya, Tyler Green. Air date: April 9, 2026.

Episode No. 751 features artist Kahlil Robert Irving and curator Rebecca Head Trautmann. Irving is included in "Monuments," at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition juxtaposes decommissioned Lost Cause monuments with artworks that address the histories the Lost Cause aimed to whitewash. "Monuments" features two Irvings: New Nation (States) Battle of Manassas - 2014, 2024-25; and Viewfinder, 2024 which address the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri and its aftermath. The exhibition, which is on view through May 3, was curated by Hamza Walker, Kara Walker, and Bennett Simpson with Hannah Burstein and Paula Kroll. The museum says that a catalogue is forthcoming. Irving has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and at the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis; he's been featured in group exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and more. He was also a guest on Episode No. 591 in 2023. Trautmann is the curator of "Water's Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe" at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. "Water's Edge" is the first career-length survey of Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk) artist. It is on view through January 1, 2027. Smithsonian Books published a catalogue of the exhibition; Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $33-37. Instagram: Kahlil Robert Irving, Tyler Green. Air date: March 26, 2026.