Michelangelo & Titian
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 743 features author and art historian William E. Wallace. Wallace is the author of Michelangelo & Titian, which will be published by Princeton University Press on February 3. The book examines what Michelangelo and Titian saw in each other's work, how they spoke to each other in paintings and sculptures, and details their two meetings. Wallace's narrative animates the many relationships with church officials, collectors, and intellectuals that the two men had in common, providing insight into their world and the many ways in which the two artists may have addressed each...
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Woody De Othello, Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 742 features artist Woody De Othello, and artists Jason Garcia, Michael Namingha, and curator Bess Murphy. The Pérez Art Museum Miami is presenting a presentation of new ceramic and wood sculptures, tiled wall works, and a large-scale bronze, all of which explore the primordial relationship between body, earth, and spirit. The exhibition was organized by Jennifer Inacio with the support of Fabiana A. Sotillo. It is on view in Miami through June 28 after which it will travel to the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis. sculpture, painting, and drawing...
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Robert Therrien, Gabriella Nugent
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 741 features curator Ed Schad and critic Gabriella Nugent. Schad is the curator of at The Broad in Los Angeles. The retrospective presents Therrien's meditations on scale and material, while revealing Therrien's repeatedly mined vocabulary of forms and symbols. The exhibition is on view through April 5. The Broad published a fine catalogue to accompany the show. and offer it for $50-55. is a London-based art historian and curator who routinely publishes essays in Burlington Contemporary and Art Monthly. She particularly discusses her recent essay which was published in...
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Firelei Báez, Black photojournalism
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 740 features artist Firelei Báez and curators Charlene Foggie-Barnett and Dan Leers. The MCA Chicago is presenting the first North American mid-career survey of the artist's paintings and installations. Báez's work often explores the legacies of colonialism across the American and the African diaspora, in the Caribbean, and beyond. Her works are often explosively colorful and use complex and layered materials, including archival material and paint, to unsettle fixed categories and historical events. The exhibition was curated by Eva Respini with Tessa Bachi Haas; the MCA...
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Holiday clips: Dara Birnbaum
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 739 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Dara Birnbaum. Birnbaum, a pioneering titan of video art, passed away this year at 78. "Her work is now displayed in museum collections around the world as the example of feminist video art," wrote curator and critic Karen Archey in an Birnbaum's work often included 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,...
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Holiday clips: Wafaa Bilal
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 738 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Wafaa Bilal. Earlier this year the MCA Chicago presented the first major survey of work. Across his genres-busting career, the Iraqi-American Bilal has made performances, sculptures and related digital presentations that have interrogated the United States' relationship with and conduct within Iraq, the Middle East, and broader geopolitics. Bilal's work also investigates the notion of cultural cannibalism, the ways in which the culture of one people may be used, disassembled, and consumed by another. "Indulge Me" was curated by...
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Wifredo Lam, Yoko Ono
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 737 features curators Beverly Adams and Jamillah James. With Christophe Cherix, Adams is the co-curator of at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition includes more than 130 works made between the 1920s and 1970s, making it the most extensive Lam retrospective presented in the United States. "When I Don't Sleep, I Dream" argues that Lam, a Cuban-born artist who spent much of his life in Spain, France, and Italy, was a prototypical transnational artist. It is on view in New York through April 11, 2026. The exhibition catalogue was published by MoMA; and offer it...
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Dyani White Hawk
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 736 features artist Dyani White Hawk. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is presenting a 15-year survey of White Hawk's career. The exhibition spotlights how (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) has foregrounded Lakota forms and motifs to challenge prevailing histories and practices around abstract art. The exhibition was curated by Siri Engberg and Tarah Hogue with Brandon Eng. The Walker has published an excellent catalogue; and offer it for around $50. After closing at the Walker on February 15, "Love Language" will travel to the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. White Hawk's...
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Sixties Surreal, Filippino Lippi
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 735 features curators Dan Nadel and Laura Phipps, and curator Alexander J. Noelle. With Elizabeth Sussman and Scott Rothkopf, Nadel and Phipps are the co-curators of at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The exhibition works to complicate the march of -isms which, outside the academy and too few art museums, has too often ossified into the the era's US art history. "Sixties Surreal" offers some of the ways in which artists working around the US (and not only in New York or for its market) mined surrealist thought and theory to help them reckon with the era's...
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Holiday clips: Aliza Nisenbaum
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 734 is a Thanksgiving weekend clips program featuring artist Aliza Nisenbaum. The Des Moines Art Center is presenting through January 11, 2026. For the latest iteration of DMAC's annual Día de los Muertos celebration, and as the museum's Toni and Tim Urban International Artist-in-Residence, Nisenbaum created five paintings. The presentation was curated by Beth Gollnick. Earlier this fall, the Obama Presidential Center announced that it had commissioned a mural from Nisenbaum. Titled Reading Circles/ Weaving Dreams/ Seeding Futures, the mural will depict moments of civic life...
info_outlineEpisode No. 743 features author and art historian William E. Wallace.
Wallace is the author of Michelangelo & Titian, which will be published by Princeton University Press on February 3. The book examines what Michelangelo and Titian saw in each other's work, how they spoke to each other in paintings and sculptures, and details their two meetings. Wallace's narrative animates the many relationships with church officials, collectors, and intellectuals that the two men had in common, providing insight into their world and the many ways in which the two artists may have addressed each other in their art. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $19-33.
Wallace was previously on Episode No. 439 to discuss Michelangelo, God's Architect.
Air date: January 29, 2026.