The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Episode No. 753 features artist Delilah Montoya and author Mario T. García.
Montoya's work is featured in three major exhibitions around the US this season. The Albuquerque Museum is featuring "Delilah Montoya: Activating Chicana Resistance," 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. Amazon and Bookshop 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 featured in "Hyphen American: Intersections of Identity." The exhibition, which pointedly rejects increasing right-wing claims that the US is, or should be an ethnostate, presents the many ways identity is presented and interrogated in our art. The excellent exhibition catalogue, which was published in the four languages most commonly spoken in Lincoln (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic), was published by the museum. "Hyphen American" was curated by Christian Wurst and is on view through July 5.
Artists in the exhibition who have been guests on The Modern Art Notes Podcast include Radcliffe Bailey, Binh Danh, Catherine Opie, Alec Soth, and Renée Stout.
The Riverside (Calif.) Art Museum and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture are showing Montoya in "Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966–2026." The exhibition shows how 45 artists have used their camera as a tool of representation, empowerment, and change over the past 60 years. It is the first major survey of Chicano/a/x lens-based image making. "Chicano Camera Culture" was curated by Elizabeth Ferrer. It's on view at the Riverside Art Museum through July 5, and at The Cheech through September 6. The excellent catalogue was published by The Cheech and is distributed by University of Washington Press. It is available from Amazon for $44.
Artists in the exhibition who have been guests on The Modern Art Notes Podcast include Christina Fernandez and Ken Gonzales-Day.
Montoya is one of the major figures in the development of Chicana art in the United States. Her community-oriented work addresses colonialism, identity, land, feminine power, and justice. It is held by museums such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the New Mexico Museum of Art.
García is the author of "Rupert García: The Making of an American Artist, a Testimonio," which was just published by Rutgers University Press. It is the first biography of the Chicano artist Rupert García. The book, which is informed by 50 hours of interviews conducted over 30 years, is illustrated by 80 artworks. It is immediately the major volume on García's career. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $31-33.
Instagram: Delilah Montoya, Tyler Green.
Air date: April 9, 2026.

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 "Melvin Edwards: Five Decades." 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 sculptures at the Whitney Museum of American Art, dozens of Edwards' best-known works, his 'lynch fragments' series, and more.
The show traveled to the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers and to the Columbus Museum of Art. The show's excellent catalogue was published by the Nasher and appears to have sold out. Amazon offers it used for about $100.
The Nasher's website features a Q&A between Craft and Edwards that host Tyler Green mentions on the program. For images, see Episode No. 170.

Episode No. 751 features artist Kahlil Robert Irving and curator Rebecca Head Trautmann.
Irving is included in "Monuments," 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, and Bennett Simpson with Hannah Burstein and Paula Kroll. The museum says that a catalogue is forthcoming.
Irving has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and at 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. He was also a guest on Episode No. 591 in 2023.
Trautmann is the curator of "Water's Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe" at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. "Water's Edge" is the first career-length survey of Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk) artist. It is on view through January 1, 2027. Smithsonian Books published a catalogue of the exhibition; Amazon and Bookshop offer it for about $33-37.
Instagram: Kahlil Robert Irving, Tyler Green.
Air date: March 26, 2026.

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 is a leading feminist artist and one of the most important photographers of her generation. In 2009 the J. Paul Getty Museum presented a retrospective of her work titled "Woman Twirling." Callises are in the permanent collection of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Air date: March 19, 2026.

Episode 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.