Episode No. 49 features curator Paul Schimmel and artist Gedi Sibony. 

Schimmel is the former chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the curator of the new MOCA exhibition “Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962.” The show is accompanied by a fascinating catalogue from Skira Rizzoli.

The exhibition examines the way artists responded to the unprecedented killing and destruction of World War II by (often) literally attacking the picture plane. The show, which features 26 artists (but only three Americans) charts the way artists used abstraction to respond to a post-atomic world, and in so doing offers an alternate history about post-abstract expressionism abstract art.

Schimmel is one of the world’s most accomplished curators of contemporary art. His exhibitions have included: “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s”; “Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition 1955–1962”; “Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979”; “Ecstasy: In and About Altered States”; and “Under the Big Black Sun: California Art, 1974–1981.”

On the second segment, artist Gedi Sibony discusses his exciting installation for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis. Titled “In the Still Epiphany,” Sibony’s intervention features artworks by artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso in dialogue with each other, as well as in dialogue with installations Sibony has made from multiple objects. As usual, the Pulitzer’s website is chock full of fantastic installation shots taken by Sam Fentress, pictures that reveal the show in a way most installation shots do not. They’re must-see stuff.

Sibony’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in the United States and in Europe. His work has also been shown at the Sao Paulo and Berlin Biennials and in group shows at MoMA, the Hammer, the Walker Art Center and more.

Air date: Oct. 11, 2012.