Shahzia Sikander, Drawing for “The Last Post.” Courtesy the artist.

“I’m interested in taking a form, breaking it apart, and then rebuilding it. It is about transformation for me — whether it is the transformation of a image or a mark or a symbol or if it’s a transformation of a genre or transformation of a medium – but it is a very core notion that I think stabilizes my practice.”

In today’s Exclusive episode, Shahzia Sikander discusses her animated video work The Last Post (2010). Sikander also describes how beginning to create animations was a natural evolution in her studio process because she had already been working with narrative and layering in her paintings and large-scale installations.

Filmed in 2012 at her Manhattan studio, the video tells a story about the development of her work yet the nature of editing is that content gets cut, even things that you or I may find interesting. During our interview, Sikander shared personal observations that didn’t make it into our final video, but because these thoughts shed more light on her creative process, I thought it important to share them here.

The Last Post began with a series of paintings that Sikander created using gouache, ink and watercolors. The images were then scanned at high resolution, allowing her to analyze and manipulate them in Photoshop and After Effects. In looking at her work under a digital microscope, she was presented with new opportunities and challenges. “One very interesting observation for me is that everything is magnified in HD space,” she said. “So all the marks that create the tactile experience of a drawing become magnified, and may not necessarily sit well in the animation or in a digital space. It’s a very fine line.”

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Production still from the Exclusive episode, Richard Serra: Tools & Strategies. © Art21, Inc. 2013.

“What’s interesting about artists is that they constantly come up with ways of informing themselves by inventing tools or techniques or processes that allow them to see into a material manifestation in the way that you would not if you dealt with standardized or academic ways of thinking.”
—Richard Serra

The latest video from our Exclusive series is now available for your viewing: Richard Serra: Tools & Strategies.

Filmed in 2000 at Richard Serra’s Manhattan studio, the artist describes the various tools and conceptual strategies he has used throughout his career when working with lead and steel. Serra discusses his early focus on the nature of the art production process itself which resulted in his writing a “Verb List” (1967-68). Multiple lead works that resulted from Serra acting out the “Verb List” are shown through archival images. Serra’s invention of a tool that twisted sheet metal around a wheel enabled him to shape steel in a new way–from the inside out. “Torqued Ellipses” (1996-97), which resulted from this process, are shown at Dia:Beacon in 2004.

Watch the full episode and learn more about Richard Serra on Art21.org.

Production still from the Exclusive video “David Altmejd: Assistants.”

Our latest Exclusive video has just gone live! Click to watch David Altmejd: Assistants on Art21.org.

Filmed in early 2011, two of David Altmejd’s assistants describe the experience of working for the sculptor in his Queens, New York studio. Shown preparing new works for Altmejd’s 2011 show at Andrea Rosen Gallery, the assistants provide unique insight into Altmejd’s creative process. Time-lapse photography captures the team at work on the large-scale sculptures “The Vessel” (2011) and “The Swarm” (2011).

David Altmejd appears in the Season 6 (2012) episode “Boundaries“ of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Jarred Altmerman, Nicholas Lindner & Zach Spira-Bauer. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: David Altmejd. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Production still from Art21′s Exclusive video, “Tabaimo: ‘dolefullhouse.’”

Our latest Exclusive video is now live! Click to watch Tabaimo: “dolefullhouse” on Art21.org.

Filmed in 2010 at 601Artspace in New York and Parasol Unit in London, Tabaimo discusses her animated video installation dolefullhouse (2007). The Japanese artist did not begin working on the artwork with a preconceived idea but rather started by adding disparate elements to the animation that then formed meaning through their interactions. Tabaimo asks that viewers not seek to understand her intentions behind dolefullhouse but instead create their own interpretations.

Tabaimo appears in the Season 6 (2012) episode “Boundaries” of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Craig Feldman & Yasushi Kishimoto. Editor: Morgan Riles & Mark Sutton. Translation: Hitomi Iwasaki, Justin Jesty, Reiko Tomii. Voiceover: Jennifer Weiser. Artwork Courtesy: Tabaimo & 601Artspace. Special Thanks: James Cohan Gallery. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Production still from the Art21 Exclusive video, “Mary Reid Kelley: ‘You Make Me Iliad.’”

Art21′s latest Exclusive video has just gone live! Click to watch “Mary Reid Kelley: ‘You Make Me Iliad‘” at Art21.org.

Filmed in 2011 at Mary Reid Kelley’s home and studio in Saratoga Springs, New York, the video artist and painter discusses her video work You Make Me Iliad (2010). In researching the lives and experiences of women who lived during the first World War, Reid Kelley was struck by how few first-hand accounts she was able to uncover. By creating an imagined narrative involving a prostitute, a soldier, and a medical officer, Mary Reid Kelley attempted to reconstitute an experience that would have otherwise been lost to history.

Mary Reid Kelley appears in the Season 6 (2012) episode “History” of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Mary Reid Kelley. Special Thanks: Patrick Kelley. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Production still from Art21′s Exclusive video “Robert Mangold: Town & Country.”

Our latest Exclusive video is now live! Click to watch Robert Mangold: Town & Country on Art21.org.

Filmed at Robert Mangold’s upstate New York home and studio in 2011, the artist describes his experiences living and working in New York City in the early 1960s as well as his decision to move to the country later that decade. Mangold’s shift from the city to the country is reflected in his work including the series Walls and Areas (1963) and Curved Areas (1968). Robert Mangold and his wife, painter Sylvia Plimack Mangold, provided images from their personal archive for this video.

Robert Mangold translates the most basic of formal elements—shape, line, and color—into paintings, prints, and drawings whose simplicity of form expresses complex ideas. He renders the surface of each canvas with subtle color modulations and sinewy, hand-drawn graphite lines. Mangold works in multiple series of shaped canvases over many years, exploring variations on rings, columns, trapezoids, arches, and crosses, and compositions without centers.

Robert Mangold is featured in the Season 6 (2012) episode “Balance” of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Robert Mangold. Archival Images Courtesy: Al Held Foundation, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack Mangold. Photography: John Sherman. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Our latest Exclusive video is now live! Click to watch Rackstraw Downes: Some Painters on Art21.org!

Filmed in Presidio, Texas in late 2010, painter Rackstraw Downes describes why he views the work of some long-deceased painters to be relevant to his own contemporary practice. Paintings by such artists are shown including Claude Lorrain’s Sunrise (1646–47), Jacob van Ruisdael’s Wheat Fields (1670), and J.M.W. Turner’sThe Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1834–35). Despite not using the same techniques as these painters, Downes seeks out their work because he considers it “useful,” “provocative,” and “like challenges.”

Rackstraw Downes is featured in the Season 6 (2012) episode “Balance” of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Rackstraw Downes, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Production still from the Exclusive video “El Anatsui: Language & Symbols.”

Our latest Exclusive video is now live! Click to watch El Anatsui: Language & Symbols art Art21.org.

Filmed in 2011 at The Museum of Modern Art in Hayama, Japan, El Anatsui discusses the role of language and symbols in his artwork. When naming works such as “Gli” (2010), Anatsui often uses his native language of Ewe because Ewe words can have a range of meanings when pronounced differently. Anatsui also describes the formative experience of discovering adinkra symbols, a West African system of abstract symbols that represent specific concepts or aphorisms.

El Anatsui is featured in the Season 6 (2012) episode “Change” of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Takahisa Araki & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Steve Bores. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: El Anatsui & Museum for African Art. Special Thanks: Lisa Binder, The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, Japan, Jack Shainman Gallery & Wellesley College. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Production still from Art21's Exclusive video, "Lynda Benglis: India."

Our lastest Exclusive video is now live! Click to watch Lynda Benglis: India at Art21.org.

Filmed in 2011, artist Lynda Benglis gives a tour of the family home of Anand Sarabhai in Ahmedabad, India, a city she has been visiting and working in for over thirty years. Benglis describes her interest in the Indian landscape and culture and why she enjoys spending time with the Sarabhai family. Various works are shown in Benglis’s studio on the property including “The Manu” (2008) which she created by manipulating a beeswax mixture and then making stainless steel casts of the resulting forms.

Lynda Benglis is featured in the Season 6 (2012) episode “Boundaries” of the Art in the Twenty-First Century program on PBS. Watch full episodes online for free via Art21.org, PBS Video or Hulu, as a paid download via iTunes, or as part of a Netflix streaming subscription.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Nick Ravich & Susan Sollins. Camera: Sunil Pillai. Sound: Gissy Michael. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Lynda Benglis. Special Thanks: Anand Sarabhai. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

Arturo Herrera, "Untitled", 2002. Courtesy Sikkema, Jenkins & Co., New York

Monday evening I had the pleasure of participating in a dynamite online conversation with our current group of Art21 Educators. We decided, based on some recent requests, to spend a little time actually looking at art together. While teaching, planning, and discussing ways of bringing contemporary art into the classroom are topics that come up a lot in our yearlong relationship, sometimes the simple act of looking at art together gets lost in the shuffle.

We focused on Arturo Herrera’s collage, Untitled, above. The group was initially asked about their interpretations and ideas about it:

Ca: Student made?

JH: Such an interesting comment- why do you say that?

D: I’m thinking “I saw the Figure Five in Gold”

S: Is this a photo of something sculptural or a painting?

A: It makes me think of paper graffiti…. dripping, tubes, lines, subway

G: I love that I don’t know what I’m looking at… what’s the scale?  The space is so deep but flat at the same time!

T: Thinking about paper cutouts…

M: It reminds me of a spiral made out of a simple piece of graffiti

Ch: It looks 3-dimensional but I think it is a 2-dimensional piece

M: Not graffiti- paper

T: Is it 3d?

Ca: I see what looks like some photo with some paint?

D: Charles Demuth painting – the gold floating in the air

Cr: Something about it makes me think of Warner Bros. Cartoons

CM: There are lots of layers within layers

A: Intestines!

M: Looks like some fun with an X-acto

J: Yes!

Ch: It looks like it might twist like a mobile

Ca: That looks like a sleeping loft up above

A: I just saw the bodies exhibit

D: Awesome

T: My brain wants to see more than I do but I don’t.  If that makes sense

C: it looks like a collage/painting . . . and the background creates the illusion of space and the overlay . . . flattens it out. A cabin interior or stage curtain?

J: Do tell…

D: Arturo Herrera, I’m looking for Disney

M: It looks like it is done in Photoshop or with a computer

CM: Are there some figures within it? The front piece (intestine shape)

M: Agreed- looks digital

T: I want the missing pieces

A: I want to unravel it

J: Nice

Then we revealed the “credit line” including the artist’s name and title of the work: Continue reading »