Episode No. 56 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Sophie Calle and curator Joaneath Spicer.
Calle’s work is featured in the new exhibition “The Progress of Love,” a three-venue collaborative project now on view at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis, the Menil Collection in Houston and the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos. The exhibition is now on view at all three venues. For closing dates at the various venues, see the exhibition website. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Yale University Press.
The Pulitzer’s section of the exhibition includes Calle’s Take Care of Yourself (2007), an installation that was first exhibited at the 2007 Venice Biennale. The piece documents how 107 women responded to a break-up letter Calle received from her lover via email. This is the first time Take Care of Yourself has been shown in an American museum.
In addition, Siglio Press has published Calle’s “The Address Book,” the first time the book has been published in its entirety in English. The artwork dates back to 1983 when it was published in Paris’ Liberation newspaper and consists of Calle’s documenting her experiences contacting the people in a lost address book she found on a Parisian street. Amazon offers the book for $20, a $10 discount.
On the second segment, Walters Art Museum curator Joaneath Spicer talks about her new show “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,” which is on view in Baltimore through Jan. 21, 2013. The exhibition documents the increasing presence of Africans in European art from around 1400 through the 16th century. The website the Walters has put together for the show is particularly good. The exhibition’s excellent catalogue is not available via the usual online sources; it’s $25 at the Walters’ own store.
Air date: Nov. 29. 2012

Jacopo Pontormo, Portrait of Maria Salviati de’ Medici and Giulia de’ Medici, ca. 1539. Collection of the Walters Art Museum.