Episode No. 705 features curators Dalila Scruggs and Catherine Morris, and artist Beatriz Cortez.
With Mary Lee Corlett, Scruggs and Morris are the co-curators of "Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The exhibition surveys Catlett's career across over 150 sculptures, prints, paintings, and drawings. The exhibition is on view through July 6. An exceptional exhibition catalogue, titled Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies was published by the The University of Chicago Press, the NGA and the Brooklyn Museum, which originated the exhibition. It is available from Amazon and Bookshop for $56-60.
Catlett was a feminist, activist, and radical who helped join the Black Left in the US to influences from the Mexican Revolution. Her work continued the practice of earlier US artists such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Carleton Watkins by using cultural production to advance ideas and ideologies.
Cortez is featured in "Seeds: Containers of a World to Come" at the Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. The exhibition features work by ten artists whose research-driven practices are informed by inquiry into plant-human-land relations. "Seeds" was curated by Meredith Malone and Svea Braeunert, and remains on view through July 28. The exhibition brochure is available here. "Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza: Earth and Cosmos" is at the Americas Society, New York through May 17. The show considers the idea of ancient objects traveling across space and time.
Cortez's work explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities, and imaginaries of the future. She has been featured in solo exhibitions at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY,; the Williams College Museum of Art; Clockshop, Los Angeles; and more.
Instagram: Catherine Janet Morris, Beatriz Cortez, Tyler Green.