Episode No. 279 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Dara Birnbaum and curator Julie J. Thomson.

Dara Birnbaum’s Local TV News Analysis (1980), made with Dan Graham, is included in “Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media,” at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The exhibition examines how artists have used newspapers, magazines and televised news programs to consider media, news and the messages included therein. The exhibition was curated by Arpad Kovacs and will be on view through April 30.

Birnbaum is among the pioneers of video art. Her work often includes pointedly feminist critiques of mass media, including of entertainment and journalism. Retrospectives of her work include “The Dark Matter of Media Light” at SMAK, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent, Belgium, and at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, and “Dara Birnbaum Retrospective exhibition” at the Kunsthalle Wien in Austria and at the Norrtalje Konsthall in Sweden.

Several of the Birnbaums discussed on this week’s program are available online, including:

• Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79);
• Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry (1979) (clip);
• Canon: Taking to the Street (1990) (clip); and
• Walkthrough of Psalm 29(30) (2016) at Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris.

On the second segment, Julie J. Thomson discusses “Begin to See: The Photographers of Black Mountain College.” The exhibition surveys photography made at Black Mountain College, including landscapes, documentary work (including of performance), experiments with the medium and more. The exhibition is at the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center in Asheville, North Carolina through May 20. Thomson’s excellent catalogue is available from the museum for $20.

This is the third recent MAN Podcast episode to look at Black Mountain College. Curator Helen Molesworth discussed her “Leap Before You Look” exhibition on the school in February, 2016, and her assistant curator Ruth Erickson discussed educational practice at the school last November.

Air date: March 9, 2017.