Episode No. 647 is a holiday weekend clips episode featuring artist Kahlil Robert Irving. The Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in Saint Louis is presenting "Kahlil Robert Irving: Archaeology of the Present" through July 29. "Archaeology of the Present" is a presentation of new Irving sculptures, video, and found objects. Irving has situated his sculptures and other items within a large plywood platform, resembling a stage. Viewers can move onto the structure to encounter both artworks and manufactured objects alike. The episode was taped in 2023 when Irving was included in “I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen” at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The exhibition was an examination of the screen’s vast impact on art from 1969 to the present. It was curated by Alison Hearst. Concurrently, the exhibition now at the Kemper had just opened at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It was curated by William Hernández Luege. At the Kemper, the show was curated by Meredith Malone. Irving’s assemblages of images and replicas of every day objects challenge constructions of Western identity and culture. His ceramic sculptures incorporate neglected objects that represent a historical moment, as do his room-sized, image-driven installations. Irving has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis; he’s been featured in group exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and more.

Episode No. 646 features curators Edouard Kopp and Shelley Langdale. With Kim Conaty, Kopp is the co-curator of "Ruth Asawa: Through Line," a survey of Asawa's lifelong drawing practice. (Kirsten Marples and Scout Hutchinson assisted Kopp and Conaty.) The exhibition, which is at Houston's Menil Collection through July 21, presents drawings, collages, watercolors, sketchbooks, paper-folds and other work. The show is accompanied by an excellent catalogue published by the Menil and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $36-$46.  Langdale is the curator of "The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy," an exhibition of German expressionist works on paper from the rich collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The show features a wide range of rarely exhibited (and little-known) drawings, as well as prints. It is on view through May 27.

Episode No. 645 features curator María Elena Ortiz and artist Kenny Rivero. Ortiz is the curator of "Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The exhibition investigates the history of surrealism in the Caribbean and posits that Caribbean intellectuals were key to the development of surrealism in other sites, such as Europe. The exhibition also examines the relationship between Caribbean surrealism and the Afrosurreal in the United States. The exhibition is at MAMFW through July 28. An excellent exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Books. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $50. Rivero is among the artists whose work is included in "Surrealism and Us." Rivero's work deconstructs histories and explores the construction of identity through paintings, collage, drawings, and sculpture. His work is in the collections of museums such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark., the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, El Museo del Barrio, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Instagram: María Elena Ortiz, Kenny Rivero, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 644 features artists Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi and Trey Burns. The Hammer Museum is presenting "Hammer Projects: Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi" through August 11. The exhibition features ARENA V (2024), Nkosi's latest investigation of the social and psychological experiences of Black gymnasts. "Nkosi" is curated by Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi with Connie Butler. Nkosi is a South Africa-based artist whose work often uses the world of sport, and especially athletes, to consider imperial histories and their impacts on the present, fellowship, competition, and performance. She has been featured in group exhibitions at the 15th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates, at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, and more. In collaboration with East Side Projects, Nkosi presented the multimedia work Equations for a Body at Rest across many spaces in Birmingham, UK as part of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Nkosi's short film The Same Track, referenced on the program, may be viewed here. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas is showing "Nasher Public: Trey Burns" through April 21. The exhibition features Burns' Prairie Piece which examines north Texas' ecology through seemingly incongruent subjects such as Robert Smithson's unrealized proposals for the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, and the George W. Bush administration and Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University. Burns has exhibited at the Pavilion Vendôme and the Ecole Nationale d'Architecture in Paris, at Wassaic Projects, and more. He is also the co-director of Dallas' Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, a non-profit that provides space and support for outdoor sculpture.

Episode No. 643 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curator and art historian John P. Bowles and artist Stacy Kranitz. Along with Dennis Carr and Jacqueline Francis, Bowles is the co-curator of "Sargent Claude Johnson," a survey of the artist's career at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. through May 20. The exhibition features over 40 works Johnson, a major Harlem Renaissance-era sculptor who lived in Oakland, Calif., made between the Great Depression and the civil rights era. It is the first Johnson exhibition in over 25 years. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by the Huntington. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $40. The second segment features photographer Stacy Kranitz. Earlier this month Pro Publica published "The year after a denied abortion," an extraordinary story and photo essay by Kranitz and Kavitha Surama. The piece follows Mayron Michelle Hollis as the state of Tennessee simultaneously questioned Hollis' fitness to care for her four children and forced her to continue a life-threatening pregnancy. Kranitz was featured on the program in September 2023 when “A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845” debuted at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. The exhibition opens at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass., this weekend. It will remain on view through July 31. The exhibition considers the South as a forger of American identity and examines how Southern photographers have contributed to both the advance of their medium, and the US project. “A Long Arc” was curated by Gregory J. Harris and Sarah Kennel. The catalogue was published by Aperture. Bookshop and Amazon offer it for about $70. Kranitz’s work, primarily made in the southern Appalachian Mountains, presents the complexity and instability of a rugged region on which industry has preyed. Her work is in the collection of museums such as the Harvard Art Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her 2022 book As it Was Give(n) to Me was published by Twin Palms and was shortlisted for a Paris Photo-Aperture First Photobook Award. Bookshop and Amazon offer it for about $75-80. For images of Kranitz's work discussed on the program presented by series or project, please see Episode No. 620 and: As it Was Give(n) to Me; From the Study on Post Pubescent Manhood; Fulcrum of Malice; and Target Unknown.

Episode No. 642 features curator Simon Kelly and artist Marc Bauer. Kelly is the curator of "Matisse and the Sea," at the Saint Louis Art Museum through May 12. The exhibition examines the significance of the sea across Matisse's oeuvre. It especially examines SLAM's own 1907-08 Bathers with a Turtle, long considered one of Matisse's most challenging, enigmatic paintings. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by the museum and Hirmer. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $45. Bauer is showing a 36-foot-wide charcoal and pastel mural titled RESILIENCE, Drawing the Line, 2023 in the latest installment of The Menil Collection's wall drawing series. The work adapts imagery from art history with cultural references specific to global and Houston-specific events. For this work Bauer is trying something new: he's repeatedly modifying the work over the course of its year-long display. It will be on view through this summer. Bauer was the 2020 recipient of the Prix Meret Oppenheim, Switzerland's most prestigious art award. His work is in the collections of museums such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Museum Folkwang, Essen, and he was included in the 2022 Congo Biennial in Kinshasa. Instagram: Simon Kelly, Marc Bauer, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 641 is a President's Day weekend clips show featuring artist Stanley Whitney. The Buffalo AKG Art Museum (née the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) is presenting "Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon," a retrospective of Whitney's fifty-year career. The exhibition features the square-format, semi-gridded abstract canvases Whitney has been making since 2002, as well as works preceding them as far back as the 1970s. The exhibition was curated by Cathleen Chaffee and will be on view through May 26. From Buffalo, the exhibition will travel to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston. A catalogue was published by DelMonico Books and the museum. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $70-75. This program was taped on the occasion of an exhibition of Whitney's then-recent work at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2017. For images, see Episode No. 272.

Episode No. 640 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Judy Ledgerwood and curator Lisa Volpe.  Ledgerwood is included within "50 Paintings" at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The exhibition features paintings made in the last five years by 50 artists from around the world.  It was curated by Margaret Andera and Michelle Grabner and is on view through June 23. Ledgerwood is also on view in "Disguise the Limit: John Yau’s Collaborations" at the University of Kentucky Art Museum in Lexington through June 1. Ever since the 1980s, Ledgerwood's paintings have engaged transatlantic histories related to abstraction and decoration from a distinctive feminist point-of-view. Her work is in the collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the MCA Chicago.   Volpe is the curator of “Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955”, which opens at the Addison Gallery of American Art this weekend. It will remain on view through July 31. The exhibition presents work the famed Frank and the less-well-known Webb made as they traveled the United States on Guggenheim fellowships in 1955. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by the MFAH in association with Yale University Press. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $25-47. Frank and Webb images are at Episode No. 630. Instagram: Judy Ledgerwood, Lisa Volpe, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 639 features artists Sin Wai Kin and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork. The Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley is presenting "MATRIX 284/Sin Wai Kin: The Story Changing," the artist's first US exhibition. BAMPFA's exhibition includes Sin's two most recent video works: The Breaking Story (2022) and Dreaming the End (2023). "The Story Changing" was curated by Victoria Sung and is on view through March 10. BAMPFA's eight-page exhibition brochure features a conversation between Sung and Sin. Sin often uses speculative fiction and narrative in performance and in filmic works. Informed by their experience in London's drag scene, Sin's work asks questions about history, the present, and the construction of reality and factuality. Sin was shortlisted for the UK's Turner Prize in 2022. Their work has been shown at museums such as Fondazione Memmo, Rome, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Somerset House, London, The British Museum, London, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, the 2019 Venice Biennale, and more. On the second segment, a re-air of a 2017 segment with Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork. The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University is presenting "Poems of Electronic Air," Gork's East Coast institutional debut, through April 7. The exhibition combines recent sculpture with a commissioned, site-specific installation made for the CCVA's Le Corbusier-designed building. Gork has previously exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, SFMOMA, SculptureCenter, New York, BAMPFA, and in the Hammer Museum's 2019 Made in L.A. biennial. For images, see Episode No. 302. Instagram: Sin Wai Kin, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, Tyler Green.

Episode No. 638 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Saif Azzuz and Maryam Taghavi. The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco is presenting "Saif Azzuz: Cost of Living," an exhibition of paintings, sculptures and installation that considers settler colonialism and gentrification as related processes. The exhibition is on view through May 19. 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. He was a 2022 SFMOMA SECA Award finalist. Taghavi's work is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Chicago in "Chicago Works: Maryam Taghavi مریم تقوی." Taghavi's work explores perception, often by wielding or adapting Persian calligraphy. The exhibition was curated by Bana Kattan with Kamala GhaneaBassiri. Taghavi has previously exhibited at museums such as LAXART, Los Angeles and the Queens Museum. Chicago's O'Hare Airport has recently installed a commissioned work by Taghavi in its Terminal Five. Instagram: Saif Azzuz, Maryam Taghavi.