Frida, the Making of an Icon, Isabelle Frances McGuire
Release Date: 03/12/2026
Matisse's Stations of the Cross in Vence
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 757 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features art historian and curator Yve-Alain Bois. Bois is the curator of at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The exhibition presents about 80 of the drawings Matisse made for the painted ceramic mural of the Stations of the Cross at the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence. The exhibition reveals how Matisse worked through each of the Stations to arrive at a syncretic, dramatic presentation. Bois was assisted by Alix Agret and Katy Rothkopf. The exhibition, which is on view through June 28, is accompanied by a fascinating, essential catalogue published by...
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Frederic Edwin Church, Manet & Morisot
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 756 features author Victoria Johnson and curator Emily A. Beeny. Johnson is the author of the first major biography of the most important and influential painter in the US nineteenth century. The book will be published by Scribner next week. Johnson's book tells the story of Church's life, and especially his travels even as she explains how Church's work engaged with the scientific and political worlds of his time. It is likely to be the authoritative source on Church's life for decades to come. and offer it for about $35. Beeny is the curator of an exploration of the...
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Jess T. Dugan, D.B. Dowd
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 755 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Jess T. Dugan and author D.B. Dowd. Radius Books is publishing "Jess T. Dugan & Charlotte Cotton: Love Pictures," a collaboration featuring Dugan's photographs and conversations with Cotton and members of Cotton's and Dugan's communities, such as Dawoud Bey, Kate Palmer Albers, and Michelle Millar Fisher. , , and offer the two-volume publication for about $75. is a St. Louis-based artist whose work explores subjects such as personhood, relationship, desire, and love. Their work is in the collection of over 70 museums. The...
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Vermeer, Rachel Burgess
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 754 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features author Andrew Graham-Dixon and artist Rachel Burgess. Graham-Dixon is the author of "Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found," which was just published by WW Norton. The book, a biography-ish of one of the most famous and elusive artists of the Dutch seventeenth century, offers exciting new ideas about Vermeer's life and presents new arguments about why and for whom Vermeer made most of his paintings. and offer "Vermeer" for $35-42. The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University is showing "Rachel Burgess: Particles and Waves" through June...
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Delilah Montoya, Rupert García
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 753 features artist Delilah Montoya and author Mario T. García. work is featured in three major exhibitions around the US this season. The Albuquerque Museum is featuring the first retrospective of Montoya's forty-year career. The exhibition, which was curated by Josie Lopez, is on view through May 3. A valuable catalogue was published by University of New Mexico Press and the Albuquerque Museum. and offer it for about $32. Two significant historical group shows also foreground Montoya's work. At the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Montoya is...
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Easter clips: Melvin Edwards
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 752 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Melvin Edwards. Edwards, one of the most important and influential sculptors of his generation, the rare artist whose work simultaneously addressed the past, the present, and the future, died on March 30. He was 88. This program was taped in 2015 when the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas opened the major retrospective It was the first Edwards museum retrospective in 20 years, and the most thorough. "Five Decades" was organized by Catherine Craft. It included a re-creation of Edwards’ important 1970 installation of barbed-wire...
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Kahlil Robert Irving, Truman Lowe
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 751 features artist Kahlil Robert Irving and curator Rebecca Head Trautmann. is included in at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition juxtaposes decommissioned Lost Cause monuments with artworks that address the histories the Lost Cause aimed to whitewash. "Monuments" features two Irvings: New Nation (States) Battle of Manassas - 2014, 2024-25; and Viewfinder, 2024 which address the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri and its aftermath. The exhibition, which is on view through May 3, was curated by Hamza Walker, Kara Walker,...
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Clips: Jo Ann Callis
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 750 (!!!) is a clips episode featuring artist Jo Ann Callis. Starting in the early 1970s, Callis has constructed both black-and-white and color photographs that consider, sex, sexuality, pleasure and more pleasure. This program was taped in 2014 when Aperture published “Other Rooms,” a book of Callis’ investigations of the nude body and sexuality, mostly from the mid-1970s. Last year Luhz Press published "Jo Ann Callis - Dish Trick," featuring Callis pictures that explores the emotions latent in the objects of the home. Luhz lists it at $45; Amazon offers it for $80. Callis...
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Frida, the Making of an Icon, Isabelle Frances McGuire
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 749 features curator Mari Carmen Ramírez and Isabelle Frances McGuire. Ramírez is the curator of at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition reveals how Frida Kahlo went from virtually unknown to mainstream audiences at the time of her death in 1954 to becoming famed as both an artist and as a kind of celebrity icon. Among the factors it identifies are North American geopolitics, the role of culture in the promotion of nationhood, tourism, and international trade, and more. "Frida" features more than 30 works by Kahlo and 120 more by five generations of artists she...
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Edmonia Lewis
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Episode No. 748 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Shawnya L. Harris and Jeffrey Richmond-Moll. Harris and Richmond-Moll are the curators of at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. The exhibition presents the life and work of nineteenth-century Black and Indigenous sculptor Edmonia Lewis in the context of her contemporaries and artists she may have influenced. The exhibition is on view through June 7. A valuable catalogue was published by the Peabody Essex Museum and Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. and offer it for $50-55. Episode No. 748 of The Modern Art...
info_outlineEpisode No. 749 features curator Mari Carmen Ramírez and Isabelle Frances McGuire.
Ramírez is the curator of "Frida: The Making of an Icon" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition reveals how Frida Kahlo went from virtually unknown to mainstream audiences at the time of her death in 1954 to becoming famed as both an artist and as a kind of celebrity icon. Among the factors it identifies are North American geopolitics, the role of culture in the promotion of nationhood, tourism, and international trade, and more. "Frida" features more than 30 works by Kahlo and 120 more by five generations of artists she inspired. It is on view at the MFAH through May 17. A fascinating catalogue was published by the MFAH in association with Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $60.
McGuire is included in the 2026 biennial exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The show was curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer with Beatriz Cifuentes and Carina Martinez. It's on view through August 23. This segment was taped when McGuire was included in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's “Descending the Staircase” exhibition in 2024. McGuire is a Chicago-based artist whose work considers the body and how our understanding of it can be filtered by video games, film, animatronics, and other technologies. The 2024 MCA Chicago exhibition marked her first inclusion in a museum exhibition; since then McGuire has shown at Artist’s Space, New York, and at the Renaissance Society, Chicago. For images see Episode No. 648.
Instagram: Isabelle Frances McGuire, Tyler Green.