The Modern Art Notes Podcast

The second segment of this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Alexander Dumbadze on the life of Bas Jan Ader. Dumbadze’s new book, “Bas Jan Ader: Death is Elsewhere,” mixes the story of Ader’s life and work in a thoughtful and entertaining way. Published by the University of Chicago Press, it’s the most significant book on Ader’s life and work published to date. Dumbadze teaches art history at The George Washington University in Washington.

The image above is a detail from the photograph I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1970) from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The photograph is likely from an early version of the work Ader made in California and later re-made in the Netherlands. I’m Too Sad to Tell You is best-known through a three-and-a-half-minute film Ader made in 1971. The film shows Ader in deep anguish, apparently crying for the entirety of the work. The intensity of this piece is typical of Ader’s art. 

How to listen to this week’s program: Download the show to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Joyce Pensato. The Santa Monica Museum of Art is currently showing “I Killed Kenny,” a survey of Pensato’s work. Curated by Jeffrey Uslip, the exhibition will be on view through August 17.

This is Pensato’s first solo museum show. She’s been the focus of a three-person show at the Saint Louis Art Museum (with Mike Kelley and Raymond Pettibon), at the Wexner Center for the Arts and more. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA, the Hammer Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art, among others.

This is a detail of Pensato’s 2004 charcoal drawing Felix, which is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. On this week’s program, host Tyler Green and Pensato discuss her long-time interest in drawing.

On the second segment, Alexander Dumbadze discusses the life of Bas Jan Ader and his new book, “Bas Jan Ader: Death is Elsewhere.” It was published by the University of Chicago Press. It is the most significant book on Ader’s life and work published to date. Dumbadze teaches art history at The George Washington University in Washington.

How to listen to this week’s program: Download the show to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program.

The Modern Art Notes Podcast: Joyce Pensato

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Joyce Pensato. The Santa Monica Museum of Art is currently showing “I Killed Kenny,” a survey of Pensato’s work. Curated by Jeffrey Uslip, the exhibition will be on view through August 17.

This is Pensato’s first solo museum show. She’s been the focus of a three-person show at the Saint Louis Art Museum (with Mike Kelley and Raymond Pettibon), at the Wexner Center for the Arts and more. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA, the Hammer Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art, among others.

On the second segment, Alexander Dumbadze discusses the life of Bas Jan Ader and his new book, “Bas Jan Ader: Death is Elsewhere.” It was published by the University of Chicago Press. It is the most significant book on Ader’s life and work published to date. Dumbadze teaches art history at The George Washington University in Washington.

How to listen to this week’s program: Download the show to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program.

The second segment of this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features art historian Jonathan Fineberg talking about his new book “A Troublesome Subject: The Art of Robert Arneson,” which was just published by the University of California Press. The book examines Arneson’s life and career, from his early work which was informed by pop art, Peter Voulkos and a dark sense of humor, to his use of his own image as a kind of ground on which ideas and narratives could play out. 

This is Portrait of George (1981), Arneson’s memorial to San Francisco mayor George Moscone who, along with Harvey Milk, was assassinated by San Francisco supervisor Dan White. Now in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the sculpture is one of the most important artworks of the 1980s. Fineberg and MAN Podcast host Tyler Green discussed it at length on this week’s program.

How to listen: Download the show to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or RSS. See (many, many) more images of art discussed on the program.

The Modern Art Notes Podcast: Renaissance Florence

This is the last week for the thrilling exhibition “Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300-1350” at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The show, which debuted at the J. Paul Getty Museum, closes on Sunday. Exhibition curator Christine Sciacca was the lead guest on Episode No. 65 of The MAN Podcast. 

“Florence” argues for the existence of a link between manuscript painting and panel painting, two practices that scholars have long considered as unrelated disciplines. It also argues for a significant re-evaluation of Pacino di Bonaguida, a little-studied near-contemporary of Giotto. (Giotto is represented in the exhibition with an astonishing seven paintings.) Sciacca also edited the exhibition’s terrific, richly illustrated and readable catalogue. The exhibition was included on MAN’s 2012 top ten list. The Getty’s Iris blog has a super lineup of posts on the show.

The image above is a detail from Duccio’s Peruzzi Altarpiece, now at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Listen to the program: Download the show to your PC/mobile device by clicking here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud or RSS. See images of artworks discussed on the show.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Katharina Grosse. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas just opened “Wunderblock,” an indoor/outdoor exhibition of new Grosses. It’s on view through September 1. The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland is at about the halfway point of a year-long presentation of a towering work it commissioned from Grosse, “Third Man Begins Digging Through Her Pockets.” That work will be up through the end of the year.

The image here is an exterior view of the MOCA Cleveland commission. See more pictures of it here. 

Grosse is known for her intensely colorful, usually spray-painted installations that often begin on walls but that typically extend into a room, the surrounding space(s) and who knows where else. She’s exhibited at numerous museums all over the world, including most recently the Museum for New Art, Freiburg im Breisgau, MassMoCA, Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin, the Neues Museum, Nürnberg, and the Arken Museum for Modern Art, Copenhagen. There’s an astonishing amount of her work on Flickr and almost everything she’s ever made is on her own website.

How to listen: Download the show to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or RSS. See (many, many) more images of art discussed on the program.

The Modern Art Notes Podcast: Katharina Grosse

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Katharina Grosse. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas just opened “Wunderblock,” an indoor/outdoor exhibition of new Grosses. It’s on view through September 1. The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland is at about the halfway point of a year-long presentation of a towering work it commissioned from Grosse, “Third Man Begins Digging Through Her Pockets.” That work will be up through the end of the year.

This is a detail from an untitled work that’s a part of Grosse’s installation at the Nasher. On this week’s show, Grosse and MAN Podcast host Tyler Green discussed the range of different materials on which Grosse paints, surfaces that include balloons, Styrofoam, soil, concrete and more.

Grosse is known for her intensely colorful, usually spray-painted installations that often begin on walls but that typically extend into a room, the surrounding space(s) and who knows where else. There’s an astonishing amount of her work on Flickr and almost everything she’s ever made is on her own website.

How to listen: Download the show to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or RSS. See more images of art discussed on the program.