Podcast
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Hosted by Tyler Green · EN
The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a weekly, hour-long interview program featuring artists, historians, authors, curators and conservators. Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee called The MAN Podcast "one of the great archives of the art of our time." When the US chapter of the International Association of Art Critics gave host Tyler Green one of its inaugural awards for criticism in 2014, it included a special citation for The MAN Podcast.
39episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Danielle Joy Mckinney
Oct 200:53:29Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 726 features artist Danielle Joy Mckinney. The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is presenting "Danille Mckinney: Tell Me More" through January 4, 2026. The exhibition, Mckinney's first solo presentation in a US museum, spotlights Mckinney's introspective explorations of Black womanhood. It was curated by Gannit Ankori. Concurrently, Galerie Max Hetzler is presenting Mckinney's work in "Second Wind" in London through November 1. Mckinney has been featured in exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and many more. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Instagram: Danielle Joy Mckinney, Tyler Green.
Transcribe →
Photography & the Black Arts Movement
Sep 2500:51:54Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 725 features curators Philip Brookman and Deborah Willis (and a cameo, of sorts, from artist Anthony Barboza). Brookman and Willis are the co-curators of "Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-85" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition considers photography's engagement with the post-war cultural and aesthetic movement that celebrated Black history, identity, and beauty, and which often influenced the broader civil rights movement of which it was a part. The exhibition features 150 works from photographers and other artists who used photography in their work, such as in collage or assemblage. It is on view through January 11, 2026. An excellent catalogue was published by the NGA In association with Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $60. Instagram: Philip Brookman, Anthony Barboza, Deborah Willis, Tyler Green. Air date: September 25, 2025.
Transcribe →
Antony Gormley
Sep 1800:55:58Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 724 features artist Antony Gormley. It was taped before a live audience at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. The Nasher is showing "SURVEY: Antony Gormley" through January 4, 2026. The exhibition is the first major museum survey of Gormley's work in the United States. Across sculptures, models, and notebooks, "SURVEY" spans Gormley's career from the 1980s to today. The exhibition extends beyond the Nasher's galleries to include sculptures installed on the rooftops of both the Nasher and skyscrapers in and around downtown Dallas. It was curated by Jed Morse. Gormley is the UK's most honored living sculptor. His works often use the body to address fundamental questions of where humans stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Major exhibitions of his work have been held at museums and in biennials all over the world. Air date: September 18, 2025.
Transcribe →
Rauschenberg Fabrics, Nanette Carter
Sep 1101:11:46Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 723 features curator Michelle White and artist Nanette Carter. White is the curator of "Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s" at The Menil Collection, Houston. The exhibition considers Rauschenberg's conceptual, expressive use of fabric as a medium through a focus on three groups of works from the 1970s: Venetians (1972-73), Jammers (1975-76), and Hoarfrosts (1974-76). It is on view through March 1, 2026. "Fabric" is accompanied by an excellent catalogue published by the Menil. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $60-65. The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University is presenting "Nanette Carter: Afro Sentinels" through January 11, 2026. The exhibition features works Carter has made over the last decade, including work from her Cantilevered, Destabilizing, and Shifting Perspectives series, plus new sculptural works commissioned by the Wexner. It was curated by Rebecca Lowery. Carter's abstract collages, produced in Mylar, often engage with contemporary social issues. The Montclair Art Museum presented a retrospective of Carter's career last year. As discussed on the program: Carter's 2021 oral history for the Archives of American Art. Instagram: Michelle White, Nanette Carter, Tyler Green. Air date: September 11, 2025.
Transcribe →
Ann Burroughs, the museum director who stood up to Trump, Giambologna
Sep 401:03:50Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 722 features museum director and human rights activist Ann Burroughs, and curator Cory Korkow. Burroughs is the director of the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, which has led the museum sector in resisting Trumpism and the rise of fascism in the United States. Even as many US institutions capitulated when the Trump administration demanded a return to racist and white supremacist policies and practices, JANM stood by its diversity and equity foci and programs. Over the summer, armed and often masked Border Patrol agents conducted what appeared to be an operation aimed at intimidating speakers at a program at the museum's Daniel K. Inouye National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, including at a press conference held by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The museum aggressively resisted the federal show of force, drawing lines between illegal federal actions in 1942 and the present. JANM's mission is "to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience." Its collections and programs feature art and art's history. The museum holds work by and the archives of artists such as Hisako Hibi, George Hoshida, Estelle Ishigo, Henry Sugimoto, Chikashi Tanaka, Kango Takamura, and Jack Iwata. In addition to leading JANM, Burroughs is the two-time former chairperson of the board of Amnesty International USA, the chair of the Amnesty International Global Assembly, and presently sits on the board of Amnesty International. As mentioned on the program: Burroughs' op-ed for the American Alliance of Museums; and JANM's "History Unpacked" program. Korkow helped lead the Cleveland Museum of Art's acquisition and initial installation of Giambologna's Fata Morgana (ca. 1572), which had been the last of the roughly dozen marble sculptures made by the artist remaining in private hands. Giambologna made the sculpture for installation in a fountain at Bernardo Vecchietti's Villa il Reposo in Bagno a Ripoli, Italy. Instagram: Cory Korkow, Tyler Green. Air date: September 4, 2025.
Transcribe →
Summer clips: Saif Azzuz
Aug 2800:41:26Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 721 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Saif Azzuz. The Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, is presenting "Saif Azzuz: Keet Hegehlpa' (the water is rising)," which interrogates the privatization of land, water, and natural resources within settler-colonial systems. Across the exhibition, Azzuz and family members Lulu Thrower, Elizabeth Azzuz, Viola Azzuz, Moya Azzuz, and Colleen Colegrove reference the myths, origin stories, and fabricated tales animating the land now known as Houston. The artists in the exhibition draw upon ecological knowledge to visualize histories of land stewardship and rematriation practices that gesture to Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor’s notion of survivance, the fusion of resistance and survival. The exhibition was curated by Erika Mei Chua Holum and will be on view through December 20. Azzuz is a Libyan-Yurok artist based in suburban San Francisco. His work, which often addresses nature, land, and California Native American cultural practices, is in the collections of museums such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. This episode was taped on the occasion of ICA San Francisco's presentation of Azzuz' work in 2024. For images, see Episode No. 638. Instagram: Saif Azzuz, Tyler Green.
Transcribe →
Summer clips: Tidawhitney Lek
Aug 2100:52:57Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 720 is a summer clips episode featuring artist Tidawhitney Lek. Lek is among the 30+ artists featured in "Spirit House" at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. The exhibition considers how 33 contemporary artists of Asian descent challenge the boundary between life and death through art, including how the spiritual relates to diaspora, connections to ancestral homelands, and the experience of feeling present within multiple cultures and multiple geographies. The show’s curatorial framework was inspired by spirit houses, small devotional structures found throughout Thailand that provide shelter for the supernatural. "Spirit House" originated at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, and was curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander with Kathryn Cua. It is on view in Seattle through January 11, 2026. An excellent exhibition catalogue, titled “Spirit House: Hauntings in Contemporary Art of the Asian Diaspora,” was published by the Cantor and Gregory R. Miller & Co. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $45-50. Lek is a southern California-based, Cambodian-American artist whose work examines narratives surrounding and the daily experiences of a first-generation American born to immigrant parents. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and she's been featured in the Made in LA biennial at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles. Her first museum solo show was at the Long Beach Museum of Art in 2023. Discussed on the program: Martha Rosler’s “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home” series may be viewed on the website of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The work of Amir Fallah and Annie Lapin. Lek’s website. Instagram: Tidawhitney Lek, Tyler Green. Air date: August 21, 2025.
Transcribe →
Ben Shahn
Aug 1400:52:58Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 719 features curator Laura Katzman. Katzman is the curator of "Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity" at the Jewish Museum, New York. Shahn's first US retrospective in nearly 50 years. The exhibition examines Shahn's progressive commitment to the major issues between the Great Depression and the Vietnam War, as well as his exploration of spirituality and Jewish texts. The exhibition features 175 paintings, mural studies, prints, photographs and more, spotlighting Shahn's skill and vision across media. The exhibition debuted at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and was adapted by the Jewish Museum. It's on view through October 26. A catalogue was published by Princeton University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $32-42.
Transcribe →
Masako Miki, Katherine Simóne Reynolds
Aug 7, 202501:25:15Tap to summarizeEpisode No. 718 features artist Masako Miki and artist/curator Katherine Simóne Reynolds. The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco is presenting "Midnight March," a far-ranging presentation of Miki's two-dimensional and three-dimensional practice. The Japanese-born Miki's paintings, sculptures, and installations live between the sacred and the secular. Her often exuberant sculptures are rooted in the blending of Japanese and US cultures. Her previous solo shows have been at museums such as the de Young Museum, San Francisco, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, and the ICA San José. Her work is in the permanent collections of BAMPFA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and more. Reynolds is the curator of "Held Impermanence (Artists Select: Katherine Simóne Reynolds)" at the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver. The exhibition uses the museum's art collection and archive to consider multiple competing desires, including Still's and the desires of art institutions, such as the unknown future museum to which he directed his art and archive be entrusted. Reynolds is an artist and curator who investigates emotional dialects and psychogeographies of Blackness. Her previous exhibitions have been at venues such as SculptureCenter, New York, Counterpublic 2023, St. Louis, and the Stanley Museum of Art, University of Iowa. As mentioned on the program: The CSM's gallery booklet. Instagram: Masako Miki, Tyler Green.
Transcribe →