The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man (Self-Portrait?), 1433. Collection of the National Gallery, London.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast is devoted to Jan van Eyck, the greatest painter of the northern Renaissance. 

My first guest, Craig Harbison, wrote “Jan Van Eyck: The Play of Realism.” The book, which was first published in 1991 and has now been revised and expanded to reflect new research on van Eyck’s work, is a wonderful read. It’s smart and detailed, but reads lightly. It’s a too-rare example of a top art historian willing to allow his sense of wonder at his subject’s work to infuse every page. 

Among the works we discuss is this remarkable painting, almost certainly a self-portrait. (Also, compare the head-covering van Eyck wears here to the head-covering on the figure van Eyck places in the center of The Rolin Madonna…)

To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here or on the image above. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. You can stream the program and see images of the art discussed on this week’s show here.

In a related story, the SFMOMA Tumblr is a super follow…

sfmoma:

Love this photo of Richard Serra! Reminds us of this.

At the Menil Collection, Serra poses with Triangle (1974/2011) and Diamond (1974/2011).

(via The Modern Art Notes Podcast: Richard Serra | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes)

Richard Serra standing in Two Corner Cut: High Low (2012), a site-specific drawing he just created for The Menil Collection in Houston.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Richard Serra, our greatest living sculptor. A retrospective of his drawings has just opened at its originating institution, The Menil Collection. It will be on view through June 10.  The exhibition was previously at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was organized by the Menil’s Michelle White and Bernice Rose, and SFMOMA’s Gary Garrels.

The Menil installation results in an exhibition that bears virtually no resemblance to the presentation at the Met. The spaces are more thoughtfully created to emphasize the physicality of the work and they’re better-lit. The show’s narrative is clearer. Just as great: Serra has created a site-specific drawing for the Menil, Two Corner Cut: High Low. White and Serra have installed it in the last gallery of the show — and to me it’s the best work there. It’s the rare, remarkable drawing that leaves a viewer feeling unsteady and disoriented.

On the program, Serra and I discuss:

• How the Met’s installation of the exhibition stacks up against the Menil’s presentation;
• The new, site-specific drawing installation he did for the Menil, Two Corner Cut: High Low;
• The role drawing played in Serra’s acceptance into Yale’s art school;
• The relationship between steel and Serra’s formative years in San Francisco;
• Why Serra thinks there’s a link between his landmark Pulitzer Piece and the first anti-Vietnam War newspaper editorial;
• The emotional responses that viewers have to his torqued ellipses and spirals, complete with special on-tape appearances by Kirk Varnedoe and Emily Rauh Pulitzer; and
• What happened when Richard Serra cut into one of Tadao Ando’s architectural models as he suggested a modification to an Ando design.

To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. You can stream the program and see more images of artworks discussed on the podcast here.

The Modern Art Notes Podcast is an independent production of Modern Art Notes Media. It is released under this Creative Commons license. This week’s program was edited by Wilson Butterworth. 

You can also stream the show from the MANPodcast.com post immediately below this one.

For International Women’s Day: Zoe Strauss, Daddy Tattoo, Philadelphia, 2004. Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Philadelphia-based artist Zoe Strauss is an American treasure and a self-described lesbian anarchist. Strauss’s work is the subject of a ten-year survey, on view now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It’s been my pleasure to write about her over the years, and it was a special privilege to have her on The Modern Art Notes Podcast a few weeks ago. Please download or listen to that episode here. 

Here’s some of my writing on Strauss:

• The artist who keeps office hours at her exhibition;
• Strauss, Philadelphia, and a museum’s ridiculous admissions price; 
• My column for the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Modern Painters focuses on how little American artists have focused on our declining economic circumstances during and immediately after The Great Recession. The column features two artists who are an exception: Alec Soth and Strauss. Unfortunately, it’s not online.
• Strauss visits communities along the Gulf after the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A MAN Q&A: Part one, part two.

Shirin Neshat, Way In Way Out from the “Women of Allah” series, 1994. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This artwork has just gone on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the exhibition “Contemporary Iranian Art from the Permanent Collection.” The show, installed in the museum’s new suite of Islamic art galleries, will stay on view through September 3.

A few weeks ago Shirin Neshat was my guest on Episode No. 11 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast. We talked about her art, Iran, her hopes for her home country and more. Download the program here. You can see images of Neshat’s newest work as well as other artworks we discussed during the program here.

3rdofmay:

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.

Henri Evenepoel, The White Hat, 1897. Henri Evenepoel, Louise at Wépion, summer 1897.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Elizabeth Easton, the curator of “Snapshot: Painters and Photography: Bonnard to Vuillard.” The exhibition, organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, is on view at the Phillips through May 6. The Yale University Press-published catalogue is top-notch.

The exhibition spotlights six artists – Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Henri Evenepoel, Henri Riviere and George Hendrik  Breitner – and examines how their use of the hand-held Kodak camera, which was introduced in 1888, informed their work. Even more interesting: The exhibition shows how their painting informed the pictures they took.

To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. You can stream the program and see images of the artworks discussed on the program here.

Top: Maurice Denis, Marthe offering Bernadette a bunch of grapes, Le Pouldu, September 15, 1890. Bottom: Maurice Denis, Noële and Her Mother, 1896.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Elizabeth Easton, the curator of “Snapshot: Painters and Photography: Bonnard to Vuillard.” The exhibition, organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, is on view at the Phillips through May 6. The Yale University Press-published catalogue is top-notch.

The exhibition spotlights six artists – Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Henri Evenepoel, Henri Riviere and George Hendrik  Breitner – and examines how their use of the hand-held Kodak camera, which was introduced in 1888, informed their work. Even more interesting: The exhibition shows how their painting informed the pictures they took.

To download or subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download the program directly, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. You can stream the program and see images of the artworks discussed on the program here.

Shirin Neshat, Beginning of the Cold Season, the ‘Winter’ op-video for The New York Times’s ‘Seasons’ series (still), 2011.

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat, who joins me to discuss the art she’s made in response to Iran’s Green Revolution and to the Arab Spring. An exhibition of that new work, titled “The Book of Kings,” is on view at New York’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through February 11. The op-video Neshat made for the New York Times, from which I’ve taken the still pictured above, is viewable here. 

To subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download this week’s program or to stream it, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. To see images of the art discussed during this week’s show,visit Modern Art Notes.

Shirin Neshat, Bahram from the series “Villains,” 2012. 

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat, who joins me to discuss the art she’s made in response to Iran’s Green Revolution and to the Arab Spring. An exhibition of that new work, titled “The Book of Kings,” is on view at New York’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through February 11. 

To subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes, click here. To download this week’s program or to stream it, click here. To subscribe to The MAN Podcast’s RSS feed, click here. To see images of the art discussed during this week’s show,visit Modern Art Notes.