Announcing Season Six of “Art in the Twenty-First Century”
It’s official: “Art in the Twenty-First Century,” the Peabody Award-winning biennial television series, is returning to PBS this April for a sixth season. The new season premieres nationally on PBS on Friday, April 13 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).
The new season features artists Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, David Altmejd, El Anatsui, assume vivid astro focus, Lynda Benglis, Rackstraw Downes, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mangold, Catherine Opie, Mary Reid Kelley, Sarah Sze, and Tabaimo across four episodes.
We will be posting additional previews, resources, features, and more throughout the weeks leading into broadcast. Be sure to join us on Facebook and Twitter—and keep an eye on the Art21 website—to catch the latest on Season 6.
In the meantime, check out the season trailer and episode listing below, and please feel free to let us know what you think about the new season in the comments!
The Art21 Blog’s Most-Viewed Posts of 2011
The Art21 Blog continued to grow over 2011, adding five new columns and presenting original writing from a wealth of fantastic contributors. In between all of the publishing, we bid farewell to our founding editor, Kelly Shindler, and welcomed our new editor, Claudine Isé.
Needless to say, the posts featured in this ‘most-viewed’ list only represent a fraction of the writing featured on the Art21 Blog throughout 2011. Please be sure to browse through posts from all of our columnists and contributors via the ‘columns’ category list in the right sidebar, includng the year’s worth of guest blog posts. Be sure to also check out additional writing in the Ideas area of the recently-launched Art21.org.
And with that, we present to you the top 10 most-viewed posts on the Art21 Blog for 2011.
Cindy Sherman: Fashion
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Episode #143: Commissioned by French Vogue to create a fashion editorial featuring clothes from the Spanish design house Balenciaga, artist Cindy Sherman discusses the first time she used a digital camera to make pictures, ultimately creating different versions of images for the magazine and for herself.
In self-reflexive photographs and films, Cindy Sherman invents myriad guises, metamorphosing from Hollywood starlet to clown to society matron. Often with the simplest of means—a camera, a wig, makeup, an outfit—Sherman fashions ambiguous but memorable characters that suggest complex lives lived out of frame. Shermans investigations have a compelling relationship to public images, from kitsch (film stills and centerfolds) to art history (Old Masters and Surrealism) to green-screen technology and the latest advances in digital photography.
Cindy Sherman is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Transformation of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
CREDITS | Producer: Ian Forster, Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Cindy Sherman. Video: © 2011, Art21, Inc. All rights reserved.
Paul McCarthy: “Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement”
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Episode #142: Artist Paul McCarthy discusses his interest in art as political theater and his sculptures as akin to amusement park rides. Featuring the works “Bang Bang Room” (1992), “Spinning Room” (2008), and “Mad House” (2008) in the exhibition “Paul McCarthy: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement, Three Installations, Two Films” (2008) at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Paul McCarthy’s video-taped performances and provocative multimedia installations lampoon polite society, ridicule authority, and bombard the viewer with a sensory overload of often sexually-tinged, violent imagery. With irreverent wit, McCarthy often takes aim at cherished American myths and icons—Walt Disney, the Western, and even the Modern Artist—adding a touch of malice to subjects that have been traditionally revered for their innocence or purity. Whether conflating real-world political figures with fantastical characters such as Santa Claus, or treating erotic and abject content with frivolity and charm, McCarthy’s work confuses codes, mixes high and low culture, and provokes an analysis of fundamental beliefs.
Paul McCarthy is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Transformation of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
CREDITS | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom & Richard Numeroff. Sound: Doug Dunderdale & Merce Williams. Editor: Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Paul McCarthy. Special Thanks: Whitney Museum of American Art. Video: © 2011, Art21, Inc. All rights reserved.
Spinning Room, 1970/2008. Installation view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Show control, video equipment, steel, Servo motors, industrial motion controller, electrical components, plywood and lights; 132 x 744 x 744 inches. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth. © Paul McCarthy. Photo by Ann-Marie Rounkle.
View additional related images
Cao Fei: “PRD Anti-Heroes”
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Episode #140: Artist Cao Fei discusses her multi-media theatrical work “PRD Anti-Heroes” (2005), a play performed by non-professional actors. Investigating the “anonymous and unsung heroes” of the Pearl River Delta or “the factory of the world,” Cao’s production incorporates elements of traditional Chinese legends, Hong Kong soap operas, and Cantonese farces.
Cao’s work reflects the fluidity of a world in which cultures have mixed and diverged in rapid evolution. Her video installations and new media works explore perception and reality in places as diverse as a Chinese factory and the virtual world of Second Life. Depictions of Chinese architecture and landscape abound in scenes of hyper-capitalistic Pearl River Delta development, in images that echo traditional Chinese painting, and in the design of her own virtual utopia, “RMB City.” Fascinated by the world of Second Life, Cao Fei has created several works in which she is both participant and observer through her Second Life avatar, China Tracy, who acts as a guide, philosopher, and tourist.
Cao Fei is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Fantasy of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
CREDITS | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview & Translation: Phil Tinari & Xiaotong Wang. Camera: Takahisa Araki. Editor: Joaquin Perez. Voiceover: Clara Jo. Artwork Courtesy: Cao Fei. Video: © 2011 Art21, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Cao Fei. "PRD Anti-Heroes," 2006. Video still. Multi-media opera, single-channel color video with sound, 2 hours 22 minutes. Courtesy the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects, New York. © Cao Fei.
Carrie Mae Weems: “The Kitchen Table Series”
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Episode #138: Filmed in her Syracuse studio, artist Carrie Mae Weems discusses the impetus for her work “The Kitchen Table Series” (1990), a photographic investigation of a single domestic space in which the artist staged scenes of “the battle around the family” between women and men, friends and lovers, parents and children.
Carrie Mae Weems’s vibrant explorations of photography, video, and verse breathe new life into traditional narrative forms—social documentary, tableaux, self-portrait, and oral history. Eliciting epic contexts from individually framed moments, Weems debunks racist and sexist labels, examines the relationship between power and aesthetics, and uses personal biography to articulate broader truths. Whether adapting or appropriating archival images, restaging famous news photographs, or creating altogether new scenes, she traces an indirect history of the depiction of African Americans for more than a century.
Carrie Mae Weems is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Compassion of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
CREDITS | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Catherine Tatge. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Jack Shainman Gallery & Carrie Mae Weems. Special Thanks: Elvira Dyangani Ose. Video: © 2011, Art21, Inc. All rights reserved.
Carrie Mae Weems. “Untitled,” from Kitchen Table Series,1989–90. Set of 20 gelatin-silver prints, 28 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches each. © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Allan McCollum: “Lost Objects” & “Natural Copies”
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Episode #137: Filmed in his Brooklyn studio, artist Allan McCollum discusses two projects utilizing dinosaur fossils—”Lost Objects” (begun 1991) and “Natural Copies (begun 1994)—and his interest in how both scientific and local communities define the historical value of objects.
Applying strategies of mass production to hand-made objects, Allan McCollum’s labor-intensive practice questions the intrinsic value of the unique work of art. McCollum’s installations—fields of vast numbers of small-scale works, systematically arranged—are the product of many tiny gestures, built up over time. Viewing his work often produces a sublime effect as one slowly realizes that the dizzying array of thousands of identical-looking shapes is, in fact, comprised of subtly different, distinct things. Engaging assistants, scientists, and local craftspeople in his process, McCollum embraces a collaborative and democratic form of creativity.
Allan McCollum is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Systems of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
CREDITS | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Wesley Miller. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Allan McCollum. Special Thanks: Vera Alemani, Celina Paiz, Marcie Paper & Adele Röder. Video: © 2011, Art21, Inc. All rights reserved.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Allan McCollum. Lost Objects, 1991. Enamel on glass fiber-reinforced concrete, dimensions variable. Installation view at John Weber Gallery, New York. Produced in collaboration with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh. Photo by Fred Scruton. © Allan McCollum. Courtesy the artist.
The Art21 Blog’s Most-Viewed Posts of 2010
The continuing rise and social influence of Facebook and Twitter may have contributed plenty to the growing readership of the Art21 Blog, but ultimately, it is quality of writing and the diverse approaches to contemporary art-related topics and issues that keeps the Art21 Blog going so strong.
First, before we get into the top 10, an honorable mention:
Honorable Mention, Teaching with Contemporary Art
Joe Fusaro’s weekly column, Teaching with Contemporary Art, continues to have a very loyal and consistently-growing readership, with the main category page being the most-viewed overall page on the Art21 Blog for 2010 (as it has been on an almost-monthly basis for the year). If you aren’t among the tens of thousands of readers that enjoy and discuss Joe’s posts, catch up and be sure to keep an eye out for more in the new year!
With that, join us past the break as we present the top 10 most-viewed posts on the Art21 blog for 2010.
Allan McCollum: “Over Ten Thousand Individual Works”
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Episode #129: Filmed in his Brooklyn studio, Allan McCollum reveals the process and logic behind the project Over Ten Thousand Individual Works (begun in 1982). Cast in plaster, hand-painted, and displayed in vast quantities, each Individual Work is a unique combination of shapes adapted from commercially-produced objects.
Applying strategies of mass production to hand-made objects, Allan McCollum’s labor-intensive practice questions the intrinsic value of the unique work of art. McCollum’s installations—fields of vast numbers of small-scale works, systematically arranged—are the product of many tiny gestures, built up over time. Viewing his work often produces a sublime effect as one slowly realizes that the dizzying array of thousands of identical-looking shapes is, in fact, comprised of subtly different, distinct things. Engaging assistants, scientists, and local craftspeople in his process, McCollum embraces a collaborative and democratic form of creativity.
Allan McCollum. Over Ten Thousand Individual Works, 1987–88. Enamel on cast Hydrocal, 2 inches in diameter each, with variable lengths, each unique. Photo by Fred Scruton. © Allan McCollum. Courtesy the artist.
Allan McCollum is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Systems of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Wesley Miller. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Allan McCollum & Friedrich Petzel Gallery. Special Thanks: Celina Paiz, Marcie Paper & Adele Röder.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Paul McCarthy: “Black & White Tapes”
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Episode #128: Interviewed in his Los Angeles studio, Paul McCarthy discusses the genesis of his Black and White Tapes (1970–75), a suite of 13 videos begun while he was a student at the University of Southern California (USC). Also featuring excerpts from the video Ma Bell (1971) and works in the exhibition Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement—Three Installations, Two Films (2008) at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Paul McCarthy’s video-taped performances and provocative multimedia installations lampoon polite society, ridicule authority, and bombard the viewer with a sensory overload of often sexually-tinged, violent imagery. With irreverent wit, McCarthy often takes aim at cherished American myths and icons—Walt Disney, the Western, and even the Modern Artist—adding a touch of malice to subjects that have been traditionally revered for their innocence or purity. Whether conflating real-world political figures with fantastical characters such as Santa Claus, or treating erotic and abject content with frivolity and charm, McCarthy’s work confuses codes, mixes high and low culture, and provokes an analysis of fundamental beliefs.
Paul McCarthy is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Transformation of the Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes (link opens application), or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom & Richard Numeroff. Sound: Doug Dunderdale & Merce Williams. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Paul McCarthy. Special Thanks: Whitney Museum of American Art.
