Episode No. 628 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Lyle Ashton Harris and curator Scott Allan. 

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is presenting “Lyle Ashton Harris: Our first and last love,” a survey of Harris’ career featuring photographs, collage, archival material, and more. It’s on view through January 7. 2024. Harris‘ work engages transatlantic social and political dialogues even has he foregrounds personal struggles, sorrows, and self-illuminations. The exhibition was co-curated by Caitlin Julia Rubin and Lauren Haynes. A catalogue is forthcoming. 

Harris’ work is also included in “Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility,” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition, which was curated by Ashley James with Faith Hunter, presents works of art that feature partially obscured or hidden figures, works that conceal the body to explore a key tension in contemporary society: the desire to be seen, and the desire to be hidden from sight. It’s on view through April 7, 2004. A catalogue was published by the museum. Amazon and Indiebound offer it for about $60-65.  

With Nii Obodai, Harris is the co-editor of the latest issue of Aperture magazine, which considers the Ghanaian capital of Accra as a site of dynamic photographic voices and histories that connect visual culture in West Africa to the world. It’s available from Aperture for $25.

Series of Harris’ work discussed on the program may be seen in their entirety on Harris’ website:

• Reflection of Past Life through Glass;
• Americas;
• The Good Life;
• The Chocolate Portraits;
• Ombre à l’Ombre; and
• Shadow Works.

Allan curated “Reckoning with Millet’s Man with a Hoe,” at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition is an intensive look at arguably the most historically significant painting in the JPGM’s collection of nineteenth-century European art. Man with a Hoe debuted in Paris in 1863, where it was attacked for its depiction and glorification of peasant labor. The exhibition is on view through December 10. The Getty-published catalogue is available from Amazon and Indiebound for about $27-30.

Instagram: Lyle Ashton Harris, Scott Allan, Tyler Green. 

Air date: November 16, 2023.