The Dust Settles After the First Culture Wars

On January 28, Art21 and 92YTribeca piloted a program called Culture Wars: A Night of Trivia with Art21. The night began with a music play list created by artist Mary Heilmann (Season 5). By 6:30pm all 18 teams were registered, seated with beers in hand, and ready for the main event.  In addition to the general public forming teams, there were also teams representing institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, Cambridge University Press, Bomb Magazine, and 20X200.

Culture Wars was comprised of four rounds, ten questions per round. Every round had a different theme including; Ripped from the Headlines devoted to questions about current events in the art world, Personnel Changes was an audio round of selected song clips that represented a sonic shift because a personnel change (loosely inspired by a newly appointed director of LA MOCA), Art and the City explored the geography of NYC through public art, and finally the Best and Worst of the Naughts which was a decade of art, music, and film in review. For those of you unable to attend the first Culture Wars, the next event is set for March 24, 2010 at the 92Y Tribeca, so mark your calendars!  We also captured some rough footage with a small pocket video camera to give a sense of the evening.

Art21 Culture Wars: An Introduction from Art21 on Vimeo.

Perhaps this selected twitter feed is a better document to give you a sense of the event and the crowd.

6:46 PM    lisa_hoang I’m at Culture Wars Art21 – 92YTribeca w/ @thatwaszen.

6:55 PM    thatwaszen http://twitpic.com/1084fd – Great crowd at @art21’s #culturewars at the 92Y (via @thatwaszen)

7:33 PM    VAJIAJIA Team Guggenheim getting butts kicked at @Art21 Culture Wars at 92Y Tribeca. Hoping to make a comeback in non-audio trivia. Continue reading »

Join Us for Culture Wars!

For those of you who will be in the New York metropolitan area this Thursday, we invite you to participate in a NEW trivia event inspired by contemporary art and the culture of our time presented by Art21 and 92YTribeca. In the spirit of Art21’s mission to increase knowledge of contemporary art and in combination with the social traditions of game night and happy hour, this multi-media event invites you to test your knowledge of current art, film, music and online cultural phenomena. Form a team of colleagues, friends and frienemies—or come solo and join a team on the spot to meet other art appreciators/lovers/aficionados —and compete for cultural greatness…or maybe just a prize.

Art:21 Season 5 featured artist Mary Heilmann will be in attendance and is providing music for the first trivia night. The event will take place this Thursday, January 28 at 6:30 pm at the 92YTribeca, located at 200 Hudson Street. Prizes for Culture Wars are generously donated by the Phaidon Store, Soho and 20X200.

Teams will be limited to 5 people. This is not a ticketed event; however, there will be a cost of $5 per team, payable at the bar, to participate.

Announcing Art21 Educators 2010-2011

Art21 Educators: The Summer Institute, July 2009.

The Education staff at Art21 is launching the second year of Art21 Educators and we are now accepting applications. For those of you just hearing about this program, Art21 Educators is an intensive, year-long professional development initiative designed to cultivate and support K-12 art educators interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into their classrooms.

This program provides a unique professional development opportunity for educators to:

• Spend an intensive year working with Art21 and a network of peers,which kicks off with a 6-day institute in New York City;
• Share innovative ideas, resources, and strategies with educators from across the country;
• and use video and other media to document and reflect on your teaching practice.

Don’t take our word for it. Listen to some of the current participants present their perspectives on Art21 Educators. In this uncut video testimonial, Keeley Stitt, an art teacher from Chicago, IL, discusses how the program made her rethink her ideas about art education.

Art21 Educators Testimonial: Keeley Stitt from Art21 on Vimeo.

Stacey Ward Kelly, a current Art21 Educator from Beacon, NY, shares how the Art21 Educators program changed her approach to teaching.

Art21 Educators Testimonial: Stacey Ward Kelly from Art21 on Vimeo.

This round of Art21 Educators we will be accepting applications from K-12 art and media teachers from across the United States. We want to create a diverse group of participants who reflect urban, rural, and suburban communities as well as distinct student populations.

Join us and be part of a national group of educators who will explore, design, and implement curriculum utilizing the visual art of our time. Apply now!

For an application form or more information, please visit art21.org.
Applications must be received by the Art21 Education Staff by Monday, February 26, 2010.

Questions? Read our FAQs or, if you’re still stumped, email education [at] art21.org

The Real Story: Laurie Simmons Interviews Art21 Executive Director Susan Sollins

Season 4 artist Laurie Simmons recently sat down with Art21’s Executive Director Susan Sollins to uncover the story of how Art21 began and the experience of filming 86 of today’s most thought-provoking artists.

LAURIE SIMMONS: I am Laurie Simmons with Founder and Executive Director of Art21, Susan Sollins. It is Summer 2009.

SUSAN SOLLINS: You are such a pro.

LS: Well, you trained me, right?

After 20 years of working with art and artists, what made you think artists themselves would make for interesting TV?

SS: In general, when artists are interviewed in public settings or on film, I would find the result stiff, academic, or too theoretical. Sometimes these situations are more about the interviewer than the artist. I always had all sorts of questions that were never asked—or answered—unless I happened to be talking with an artist directly—like with you, Laurie, right now. This is a moment when things can be revealed. Most people don’t get a chance to talk with artists. You might see the work, but you’re remote from the person. I wanted to bring these experiences together. I thought it could be possible to make something for television that would provide people with a more complete understanding of artists’ methods and thinking.

LS: Well, toss me a question, one of those burning questions you wanted to ask with this idea of revealing something.

SS: Well, something simple—are you interested in beauty? Is beauty important to you? Do you ever think about or play with beauty? Is it a factor in what you do? For years beauty is a topic that has not been talked about. What is beauty for you—if it interests you at all? And what is beauty today?

LS: And yet that’s just a fraction of the way that you divided up the segments of Art21 series and the subjects that you’ve touched on. Beauty is…

SS: Well, it’s a subtext.

LS: A subtext, one of the many.

SS: I’m interested in the real voice of the artist. I want the artists to tell their stories.

LS: So you’re looking for the real story?

SS: I am looking for the real story.

LS: Walk me through the steps toward the creation of Art21.

Continue reading »

In Memoriam: Nancy Spero (1926-2009)

This morning, we at Art21 were sad to learn that Nancy Spero passed away on Sunday, October 18. A pioneer of feminist art, Spero’s work is an unapologetic statement against the pervasive abuse of power, Western privilege, and male dominance. Her imagery and subject matter were inspired by current and historical events such as the torture of women in Nicaragua, the extermination of Jews in the Holocaust, and the atrocities of the Vietnam War. We had the privilege of interviewing her and documenting her practice in the Season Four episode, Protest. Though we mourn the loss of this great artist, we also celebrate her legacy and fearless contribution to art, politics, and antiwar activism.

Announcing Art21 Access ‘09

Sign up for Art21’s Access ‘09 – an international screening initiative that will present your audiences with a sneak preview of a Season 5 of Art:21-Art in the 21st Century before the premiere on PBS. Art Access ’09 provides communities with resources, free of cost, to host their own public screening events, allowing audiences to explore the creative processes and ideas behind some of today’s most thought-provoking  artists.

Art21 Access ‘09 depends on people’s enthusiasm to make contemporary art accessible and relevant to their own community, so we want you to organize your own preview event around the Peabody-Award winning Art:21 series. Consider this season’s artists and themes and host an event at your local museum, library, university, community-based organization, art space, or even coffee shop. Whether you plan a conversation with local artists, a panel discussion, a community-based art project, or just a screening-party, join Access ’09 to broaden and inspire a diverse exchange of ideas and perspectives. All participants will receive:

·    Preview DVD screener
·    Educator Guides
·    Postcards
·    Posters
·    Customizable press release
·    Embeddable trailer of each Season 5 episode
·    Press images
·    Digital logos for web sites

If you are interested in hosting an Art21 Access ‘09 event between September 28 and October 30, 2009, please sign up here! Art21 Access ‘09 is organized in collaboration with Americans for the Arts as part of National Arts and Humanities Month Get ready for another dynamic season of Art:21. We look forward to hearing about your screening plans! Check us out on Facebook and Twitter if you haven’t already!

Announcing Season Five of Art:21

We are pleased to announce Season Five of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, premiering in October 2009 on PBS, and available on iTunes (link opens in iTunes), Hulu, and other online platforms in the United States and Canada. Meet fourteen of today’s most intriguing and thought-provoking contemporary artists as they create works that reflect important and timely issues. In its most international season to date, Art21 traveled to every continent (except Antarctica) to film artists in museums, galleries, studios and homes.

“This series provides an important glimpse into the minds and workspaces of artists who, regardless of their nationality or background, have the power to challenge the way we view the world,” says Susan Sollins, Executive Producer & Curator.

Season 5 Themes, Artists, and Air-Dates

Season Five features four one-hour episodes: Compassion, Fantasy, Transformation, and Systems. As in previous seasons, the thematic groupings serve as threads that loosely tie the artists together into a single episode.

Compassion
Wednesday, October 7 at 10:00 p.m. (ET)
This episode features three artists — William Kentridge, Doris Salcedo, and Carrie Mae Weems — whose works explore conscience and the possibility of understanding and reconciling past and present, while exposing injustice and expressing tolerance for others.

Fantasy
Wednesday, October 14 at 10:00 p.m. (ET)
This episode presents four artists — Cao Fei, Mary Heilmann, Jeff Koons, and Florian Maier-Aichen — whose hallucinatory, irreverent, and sublime works transport us to imaginary worlds and altered states of consciousness.

Transformation
Wednesday, October 21 at 10:00 p.m. (ET)
Whether satirizing society or reinventing icons of literature, art history, and popular culture, the artists in this hour — Paul McCarthy, Cindy Sherman, and Yinka Shonibare MBE — inhabit the characters they create and capture the sensibilities of our age.

Systems
Wednesday, October 28 at 10:00 p.m. (ET)
This episode features four artists — John Baldessari, Kimsooja, Allan McCollum, and Julie Mehretu — who invent new grammars and logics, finding comfort in some systems while rebelling against others in today’s supercharged, information-based society.

For more information about Season Five of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century please visit art21.org to read the full press release. Stay informed and join the conversation on Facebook & Twitter.

Major underwriting for Season Five of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century and its accompanying education programs has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Agnes Gund, Bloomberg, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Public Broadcasting Service, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and by individual contributions to Art21. Support for the production of “Jeff Koons” has been provided by The Broad Art Foundation; support for the production of “Kimsooja” has been provided by the Korea Foundation.

W.A.G.E. LIVE!

Image courtesy W.A.G.E.

After reading Trong Gia Nyugen’s great interview with activist group Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), I become really interested in their work. I started to poke around the Internet to see if there were any upcoming live events in New York City and there is one tonight! W.A.G.E. is speaking on a panel.

Here is the information:
Arts Funding for Sustainable Creative Practice
Thursday, April 30th
7:00pm

NYU’s Barney Building
34 Stuyvesant Street at 9th Street between 3rd and 2nd Avenues
Free and open to the public

Panelists: Ruby Lerner (President, Creative Capital), Katie Hollander (Deputy Director, Creative Time), Tim Cynova (incoming Deputy Director, Fractured Atlas), Jeff Hnilicka (Founder, FEAST [Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics]), Bryce Dwyer (InCUBATE, Chicago IL), A.K. Burns (W.A.G.E. [Working Artists in the Greater Economy])

Organized and moderated by Tracy Candido, a Master’s candidate in Steinhardt’s Visual Culture Theory program and founder of Sweet Tooth of the Tiger’s Bake Sale Residency for Artists, a mini grant for artists who like to bake.

If you live in New York City, please attend and let us know what you think!

A Live Feed: Art21 Tweets Mark Bradford

Art21 is presenting at the National Art Education Association’s convention in Minneapolis. We are working with Mark Bradford at this year’s convention on a couple presentations as well as shooting a new Art21 Exclusive video. We will be bringing the conference to you via a live Twitter feed, tweeting key ideas, reflections, and meditations on art and art education as well as behind the scenes of our film shoot. Please follow us this weekend and let us know what you think!

Art21 Educators 2009-2010 – Apply Now!

Art21 Educators: Contemporary Art in Contemporary Classrooms 2009-2010

Are you interested in contemporary art?
Are you a K-12 art and/or media teacher?
Do you teach in Los Angeles, Chicago, or New York?

Art21 Educators is a year-long professional development initiative designed to cultivate and support K-12 art educators interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into their classrooms. Join a national group of educators to explore, discuss, design, and document curriculum around the art of our times.

We’ll kick off the year with a 5-day workshop in NYC (July 15-21) and continue meeting virtually each month using online technologies and city-specific field trips. Art21 is looking for art and media teachers in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City to start. The initiative will expand to include additional cities and subject areas in future years.

For more information or download an application click here. Application deadline is Monday, May 4.