Episode No. 149 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist George Herms and curator Cornelia Homburg.
Herms’ work is presented in a new, two-volume monograph called “George Herms: The River Book.” The book includes new pictures of Herms’ work, photographs as well as texts by both Herms and Dave Hickey. It was just published by Hamilton Press. Amazon offers it for under $60 — a 40 percent discount.
Herms is also the subject of a new exhibition presented by Fluent Collaborative and testsite in Austin, Texas. Titled “LOVE George Herms,” the exhibition includes a selection of Herms’ found-object sculptures and more recent collages. It was curated by Sarah Bancroft and will be on view through October 19.
Herms came to prominence in California in the 1950s, one of a group of artists who accumulated found objects into wondrous sculptures. Herms work has been the subject of numerous retrospectives, including at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (1979) and at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (2005). Herms has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome and a Guggenheim fellowship.
On the second segment, Cornelia Homburg discusses her forthcoming show “Neo-Impressionism and the Dream of Realities.” The exhibition, which opens at The Phillips Collection on September 27, presents neo-impressionism less as formal innovation in painting, and more as a response to symbolist music and writing. The exhibition catalogue is available from Yale University Press.
Air date: Sept. 11, 2014.

George Herms, California Landscaping, 1978. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

George Herms, Coffee Table Book with Blue Marble, 1990. Collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington.