The Modern Art Notes Podcast - Alexis Smith, "Called to the Camera"

Alexis Smith, "Called to the Camera"

09/23/22 • 53 min

1 Listener

The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 568 features curators Anthony Graham and Brian Piper.

Graham is the curator of the retrospective "Alexis Smith: The American Way." Across Smith's career she has used collage and installation to explore how we are shaped by the culture and media around us. The exhibition is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego's new La Jolla building through January 29, 2023. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by Scala. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for about $50.

Piper discusses his exhibition "Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers," which is at the New Orleans Museum of Art through January 8, 2023. The show examines how Black photographers have worked to produce beautiful portraits, while also engaging in a range of other photographic work. "Called to the Camera" also reveals how Black studio photographers engaged movements such as pictorialism, modernism, and abstraction. The museum will publish the exhibition catalogue next month; Amazon offers it for $50.

Instagram: Anthony Graham, Brian Piper, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 568 features curators Anthony Graham and Brian Piper.

Instagram: Anthony Graham, Brian Piper, Tyler Green.

Previous Episode

Rose B. Simpson, George Masa

Episode No. 567 features artist Rose B. Simpson and author Brent Martin.

The Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston is showing "Rose B. Simpson: Legacies," an exhibition of 14 sculptures Simpson has made over the last eight years. It was curated by Jeffrey De Blois and is on view through January 29, 2023.

Rose B. Simpson is included in two other New England presentations: her Counterculture is installed at Field Farm, a Trustees property in Williamstown, Mass.; and in "Ceramics in the Expanded Field," at MASS MoCA. Counterculture was organized by Jamilee Lacy and will be on view through April 30, 2023. "Ceramics," which is up until early March 2023, was curated by Susan Cross.

This fall The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia will feature "Rose B. Simpson: Dream House." The exhibition opens October 7.

Across ceramic sculpture, performance, installation, and more, Simpson's work addresses ideas as far ranging as resistance, apocalypse, spirituality, and automobile design. Museums such as the University of New Mexico Art Museum (Simpson lives in Santa Clara Pueblo), Nevada Museum of Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design's SCAD Museum of Art, and the Pomona College Museum of Art have all presented solo exhibitions of her work, and Simpson has been in group shows at the Henry Art Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Denver Museum of Art, and plenty more.

Martin discusses his new book "George Masa's Wild Vision," which was recently published by Hub City Press. Masa was an Asheville, North Carolina-based photographer who had a significant impact on the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and on determining the Southern route of the Appalachian Trail, the two crown jewels of the eastern United States' natural infrastructure. Amazon and Indiebound offer the book for around $25.