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 »

Production still from the Art21 Exclusive video "Catherine Opie: Cleveland Clinic."

Our latest Exclusive video is now live! Click to watch Catherine Opie: Cleveland Clinic at Art21.org!

In this Exclusive short, photographer Catherine Opie describes her intentions behind the permanent installation “Somewhere in the Middle” (2011) at Hillcrest Hospital, a branch of Cleveland Clinic, in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Created specifically for the hospital setting, the installation consists of 22 photographs taken from the shores of Lake Erie near Opie’s hometown of Sandusky, Ohio. It is Opie’s hope that the photographs provide a space for patients, doctors, vistors and hospital employees to experience an ethereal moment during what may be a difficult time in their lives.

Catherine Opie 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: Wesley Miller & Susan Sollins. Camera: Mark Falstad & Laura Paglin. Sound: Darryl Dickenson & Heidi Hesse. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Catherine Opie. Special Thanks: Cleveland Clinic. Theme Music: Peter Foley.