Episode No. 237 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Richard Misrach and curator Alexis Belis.
Misrach’s latest project is “Border Cantos,” a book and exhibition on which he has collaborated with Mexican composer and performer Guillermo Galindo. Since 2004, and especially since 2009, Misrach has been making pictures along the 2,000-mile-long United States border with Mexico, the latest investigation of American deserts that make up what Misrach calls his Desert Cantos series. As Misrach traveled the borderlands, he accumulated discarded objects such as water bottles, backpacks, clothing and shotgun shells and turned them over to Galindo, who made that material into instruments and who then performed on them. The book, “Border Cantos,” is out this month from Aperture. Amazon offers it $45, a forty percent discount. The exhibition is on view at the San Jose Museum of Art through July 31. It will travel to the Amon Carter Museum and to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. All of the “Border Cantos” series images below are via Aperture.
Misrach was last on The MAN Podcast in 2012 to discuss “Petrochemical America,” an Aperture book he made with landscape architect Kate Orff. Galindo regularly performs at festivals, concert halls and exhibitions in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
On the second segment, J. Paul Getty Museum curator Alexis Belis discusses her exhibition “Roman Mosaics across the Empire,” which It’s on view at the Getty Villa through September 12. The Getty has published the catalogue for the exhibition online, allowing readers to not just learn more about Roman mosaics, but to discover their geography, to zoom in on them and more. Artworks discussed on the program include Mosaic Floor with Bear Hunt, Mosaic Floor with Orpheus and Animals, Mosaic Floor with Combat between Dares and Entellus, and Mosaic of a Lion Attacking an Onager.
Belis is a classical archaeologist specializing in Greek and Roman art and architecture. Her fieldwork and research have focused on early Greek temple architecture, altars, and the relationship between topography and ritual activity in Greek sanctuaries.
Air date: May 19, 2016.
Richard Misrach, Wall, east of Nogales, Arizona, 2015.
Richard Misrach, Wall, Tierra del Sol Road, Boulevard, California, 2014.
Richard Misrach, Wall (Normandy-style vehicle barrier) near Ocotillo, California, 2015.
Richard Misrach, Wall, Los Indios, Texas, 2015.
Richard Misrach, Wall, Brownsville, Texas, 2015.
Richard Misrach, Four-tire Drag, near Calexico, California, 2014.
Richard Misrach, Animal tracks, near Calexico, California, 2015.
Richard Misrach, Agua #1, near Calexico, California, 2004.
Richard Misrach, Lee S., No More Deaths, near Arivaca, Arizona, 2014.
Richard Misrach, Migrant grave site, Carrizo Creek Gorge, California, 2014.
Richard Misrach, Home, Brownsville, Texas, 2013.
Mitch Epstein, Amos Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia, from the series “American Power,” 2004.
Richard Misrach, Home and Grain Elevator, Destrehan, La, 1998 from “Cancer Alley.”
Richard Misrach, Protest sign, Brownsville, Texas, 2014.
Richard Misrach, Altar, Colonia Libertad, Tijuana, Mexico, 2014.
Richard Misrach, John Doe, pauper’s grave, Holtville, California, 2013.
Richard Misrach, Effigy #3, near Jacumba, California, 2009.
Guillermo Galindo playing Efigie, 2014.
Guillermo Galindo, LIsto, 2015.
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