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.