Currently on view at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco are two new exhibitions by Art21 artists. The museum is presenting Maya Lin (Season 2) in Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes, as well as a new exhibition of prints by Martin Puryear (Season 2) titled Martin Puryear Prints.

Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes is an exhibition of new work consisting of sculptures, drawings and installations. The exhibition continues the artist’s interest in fusing potent social messages with a reconsideration of the natural world through minimalist design.  Two new websites have been launched in support of the artist’s work. The deYoung Museum is presenting a day-by-day behind the scenes look at the installation of Systematic Landscapes, while the Lin has released a new portfolio website featuring her art, architecture and memorials.

Martin Puryear is perhaps best know for his objects and installations, however in the past several years the artist has returned in part to the art of printmaking. Martin Puryear Prints is supplementing a large retrospective of the artist’s sculpture, which opened on November 8th at SFMOMA. Puryear utilizes the medium to investigate his three dimensional forms before they are fully realized. The result is an array of stunningly graphic prints that stand alone as compelling images, while helping to inform the viewer about the artistic process for creating his objects. Paulson Press, a major lender to the exhibition at the deYoung, is the print shop which assisted in the creation of an ongoing series of etchings starting in 2001.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, Ireland is currently exhibiting In Praise of Shadows, on view from November 5 – January 4, 2009. The exhibition, which is comprised of over 200 items by eight international contemporary artists, will primarily focus on the work of artists Kara Walker (Season Two), William Kentridge and Jockum Nordstrom.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, the work celebrates the use of the shadow. By using drawings, collages, texts, wall installations, film, photographs and stop-motion animation, this exhibition explores shadow theater and silhouettes as they relate to contemporary art practices. One of the works in the show will be the debut of a collaborative video by Kara Walker and William Kentridge, produced in 2004.

After  IMMA, the show will travel to the Benaki Museum in Athens from May to July 2009. Read more about the show here.

On Thursday evening, Deitch Projects hosted a conversation featuring Kiki Smith (Season Two), alongside Ann Messner and Swoon. The talk was held at Deitch Studios in Long Island City, NY, the location of a new massive installation by Swoon titled Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea. It is also the site of Swoon’s recent performance featuring several crafted mid-sized boating vessels designed by the artist, which set sail down the East River, eventually docking at Deitch Studios. A crowd of hundreds welcomed the ships and the combined crew of 40 on opening night, as the band Dark, Dark, Dark played in the middle of an excited crowd.

The conversation was moderated by Carlo McCormick, a critic, curator, and the Senior Editor of Paper Magazine, who also conducted a brief interview with Kiki Smith for the Journal of Contemporary Art.

In addition to the conversation, selections from Todd Chandler’s upcoming film FLOOD, shot aboard several of the Switchback Sea vessels, was screened.

The Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York City is currently presenting an exhibition by photographer Juergen Teller. The exhibition follows the installation Reflection by Season 2 Art21 artist Do-Ho Suh, which was on view into the start of this month. Teller’s work is exhibited in the gallery’s 540 West 26th Street space and includes the his recent body of work, Ukraine. The work was commissioned, along with four other artists, by the PinchukArtCentre for the Venice Biennale 2007.

The works included investigate modern Ukraine through the lens of the fashion and luxury industries. The artist used the country as a setting for a W Magazine fashion photo shoot, depicting inviting young girls and excessive wealth. The works divert viewers from the economic reality of the land and places that attention on the artist’s perception of a country obsessed with capitalism and new growth.

Teller was born in Germany, and has lived and worked in London for the past 20 years.

The book Nongovernmental Politics, published in April 2007, contains a collection of scholarly essays that are centered on the challenges and importance of nongovernmental activism in contemporary society.

The cover image for the book features a video still from the work Under Discussion by artists Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, who were featured in Art21′s latest season, in the Paradox episode.

The practice of these two artists is rooted in ideas of nongovernmental politics because they examine problems inherent to authorship, nationalism, borders, and democracy among other issues. The collaborative duo approaches these ideas through a mixture of photography, video, sculpture, performance and sound.

An article featuring the work of artist Trenton Doyle Hancock was released this week in Issue V of Beautiful/Decay magazine. Hancock was featured in Season 2 of Art:21 in the episode Stories. He debuted as one of the youngest artists to ever exhibit in the Whitney Biennial, shortly after completing his MFA at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.

The article further explains Hancock’s epic saga of the Mounds and the Vegans, which serve as mythical creations in an ongoing narrative illustrated through the artist’s drawings, paintings, collages, sculptures, and installations.

Laurie Anderson, Art:21 Season 1 artist, will be conducting a follow-up spring tour for her project Homeland, which traveled throughout Europe last summer. The tour will begin on April 4th and will continue into June with her final confirmed date at the Spoleto USA festival in Charleston, South Carolina. The tour will visit several international venues, including stops in Moscow, London, and Spain, as well as domestic cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Boston.

The Homeland tour will follow the artist’s latest projects, including Night Life, a new book of drawings released in March of 2007, and the re-release of Big Science with exclusive bonus material by nonesuch records in July of 2007.