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Video Episodes:
168 Views
13:07:51 10/21/10
William Kentridge: "The Nose" Opera Curtain
[LESS INFO] 168 VIEWS | ADDED 13:07:51 10/21/10
Episode #125: Set designer Sabine Theunissen and scenic artist John Pitts share how the opera curtain for William Kentridge's production of "The Nose" (2010) was enlarged, by hand, from a humble collage. Filmed on location at Kentridge's studio in Johannesburg, South Africa, and at The Metropolitan Opera's workshop in The Bronx, New York.Having witnessed first-hand one of the twentieth century’s most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—William Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects most often framed in narrowly defined terms. Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. Aware of myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge often uses optical illusions to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions.Learn more about William Kentridge at: http://www.art21.org/artists/william-kentridgeThe film "William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible" premieres October 21, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). For more information, visit: http://www.art21.org/anythingispossibleVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Eve Moros Ortega & Susan Sollins. Camera: Robert Elfstrom & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin & Ray Day. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: William Kentridge. Special Thanks: The Metropolitan Opera, New York; John Pitts & Sabine Theunissen.
174 Views
16:58:01 10/15/10
William Kentridge: Weaver Marguerite Stephens
[LESS INFO] 174 VIEWS | ADDED 16:58:01 10/15/10
Episode #124: Weaver Marguerite Stephens discusses translating the artist William Kentridge's original concepts into intricate, large-scale tapestries. Located in Diepsloot (a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa), the Stephens Tapestry Studio employs a team of local weavers, spinners, and dyers who work on vertical looms using mohair spun in Swaziland. Having witnessed first-hand one of the twentieth century’s most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—William Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects most often framed in narrowly defined terms. Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. Aware of myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge often uses optical illusions to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions.Learn more about William Kentridge at: http://www.art21.org/artists/william-kentridgeThe film William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible premieres October 21, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). For more information, visit: http://www.art21.org/anythingispossibleVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: William Kentridge. Special Thanks: Marguerite Stephens & Stephens Tapestry Studio.
81 Views
13:14:27 10/08/10
William Kentridge: Composer Philip Miller
[LESS INFO] 81 VIEWS | ADDED 13:14:27 10/08/10
Episode #123: Composer Philip Miller talks about his long-time collaboration with William Kentridge, scoring and performing original music for the artist's animated films such as "Felix in Exile" (1994) and the multi-channel video installation "I am not me, the horse is not mine" (2009). Miller's compositions synthesize and draw inspiration from various musical traditions, from the romantic classicism of Anton
84 Views
16:09:00 10/01/10
William Kentridge: Peter Gelb, The Metropolitan Opera
[LESS INFO] 84 VIEWS | ADDED 16:09:00 10/01/10
Episode #122: Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, discusses the historical context and artistic sensibility of William Kentridge's 2010 production of Dmitri Shostakovich's "The Nose" (1928), based on the short story by Nikolai Gogol (1836). Featuring behind-the-scenes technical and dress rehearsals, as well as performances from the production's opening night.Having witnessed first-hand one of the twentieth century's most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—William Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects most often framed in narrowly defined terms. Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. Aware of myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge often uses optical illusions to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions.Learn more about William Kentridge at: http://www.art21.org/artists/william-kentridgeThe film "William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible" premieres October 21, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). For more information, visit: http://www.art21.org/anythingispossibleVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: William Kentridge. Special Thanks: Peter Gelb & The Metropolitan Opera, New York.
183 Views
15:06:46 09/24/10
Krzysztof Wodiczko: Peace
[LESS INFO] 183 VIEWS | ADDED 15:06:46 09/24/10
Episode #121: "You cannot work towards peace being peaceful" says artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, who explains this paradoxical position in terms of his personal experiences growing up in Poland under communist rule. Filmed at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wodiczko's interview is punctuated by the sound of sirens from outside, the city in a state of "full alert."By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural fa
4759 Views
13:38:37 09/17/10
Allan McCollum: "Surrogate Paintings" & "Plaster Surrogates"
[LESS INFO] 4759 VIEWS | ADDED 13:38:37 09/17/10
Episode #120: Filmed in his Brooklyn studio, Allan McCollum discusses his "Surrogate Paintings" (begun in 1978) and "Plaster Surrogates" (begun in 1982). Wanting to “construct an emblem” for what an artist does and demystify what it means to be an artist, McCollum’s symbolic works reveal the social game of looking at, selling, and making art through theatrical installations of mass-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.Learn more about Allan McCollum: http://www.art21.org/artists/allan-mccollumVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Wesley Miller & Susan Sollins. 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 R
371 Views
15:12:10 09/10/10
Carrie Mae Weems: "Roaming"
[LESS INFO] 371 VIEWS | ADDED 15:12:10 09/10/10
Episode #119: Carrie Mae Weems describes the impetus for her series Roaming (2006). An investigation into “the edifice of power,” Weems performed a series of photographic actions throughout Rome, Italy, contrasting her body with grand architectural structures and monumental surroundings.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.Learn more about Carrie Mae Weems: http://www.art21.org/artists/carrie-mae-weemsVIDEO | 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.
220 Views
13:21:12 09/03/10
Laylah Ali: Choreographer Dean Moss
[LESS INFO] 220 VIEWS | ADDED 13:21:12 09/03/10
Episode #118: Dancer/choreographer Dean Moss discusses his collaboration with visual artist Laylah Ali, entitled figures on a field (2005). This behind-the-scenes look features preliminary rehearsals at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, as well as a preview performance at The Kitchen in New York City. An artist working in both dance and video, Dean Moss's recent projects use the irrational logic of the body to articulate personal, cultural, and socioeconomic forces that impact a perception of self and environment. Nameless forest, Moss's newest work (developed in collaboration with artist Sungmyung Chun), premieres at The Kitchen in May 2011 with previews at the Arts Presenters and Producers Conference (APAP) and Yale University. Artist Laylah Ali creates gouache-on-paper paintings that take her many months to complete. Ali meticulously plots out in advance every aspect of her work, from subject matter to choice of color, achieving a high level of emotional tension in her paintings as a result of juxtaposing brightly colored scenes with dark, often violent subject matter. In style, her paintings resemble comic-book serials, but they also contain stylistic references to hieroglyphics and American folk-art traditions. Learn more about Laylah Ali: http://www.art21.org/artists/laylah-aliLearn more about Dean Moss: http://www.gametophyte.org/VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Tom Hurwtiz & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin & Roger Phenix. Editor: Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Laylah Ali & Dean Moss. Special Thanks: MASS MoCA & The Kitchen.
39 Views
12:29:32 08/30/10
Trailer #1 | "William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible" (2010) | Art21
[LESS INFO] 39 VIEWS | ADDED 12:29:32 08/30/10
First trailer for "William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible," a new hour-long film from the producers of the Peabody-Award winning "Art in the Twenty-First Century" television series. The film gives viewers an intimate look into the mind and creative process of William Kentridge, the South African artist whose acclaimed work has made him one of the most dynamic and exciting contemporary artists working today."William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible" premieres October 21, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).For more information, visit:art21.org/anythingispossible
140 Views
12:54:51 08/06/10
Mike Kelley: Bad Boy
[LESS INFO] 140 VIEWS | ADDED 12:54:51 08/06/10
Episode #117: Mike Kelley sets the record straight about being called a “bad boy” throughout his career, describing the shifting tastes of critics and artists towards abject art in recent years.Mike Kelley’s work ranges from highly symbolic and ritualistic performance pieces, to arrangements of stuffed-animal sculptures, to wall-sized drawings, to multi-room installations that restage institutional environments (schools, offices, zoos), to extended collaborations with artists such as Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, and the band Sonic Youth. His work questions the legitimacy of ‘normative’ values and systems of authority, and attacks the sanctity of cultural attitudes toward family, religion, sexuality, art history, and education. He also comments on and undermines the legitimacy of the concept of victim or trauma culture, which posits that almost all behavior results from some form of repressed abuse. Kelley’s aesthetic mines the rich and often overlooked history of vernacular art in America, and his practice borrows heavily from the confrontational, politically conscious “by all means necessary” attitude of punk music.Learn more about Mike Kelley: http://www.art21.org/artists/mike-kelleyVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Norbert Arnsteiner & Nancy Schreiber. Sound: Stacy Hruby & Ullrich Vlasak. Editor: Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Mike Kelley. Special Thanks: MUMOK, Vienna.
232 Views
12:50:07 07/30/10
Mary Heilmann: Abstract Painting
[LESS INFO] 232 VIEWS | ADDED 12:50:07 07/30/10
Episode #116: Mary Heilmann describes a breakthrough she had of combining gestural and hard-edge abstracton in a single painting, combining the legacies of Willem de Kooning and Josef Albers. For every piece of Mary Heilmann's work—abstract paintings, ceramics, and furniture—there is a backstory. Imbued with recollections, stories spun from her imagination, and references to music, aesthetic influences, and dreams, her paintings are like meditations or icons. Her compositions are often hybrid spatial environments that juxtapose two- and three-dimensional renderings in a single frame, join several canvases into new works, or create diptychs of paintings and photographs in the form of prints, slideshows, and videos. Heilmann sometimes installs her paintings alongside chairs and benches that she builds by hand, an open invitation for viewers to socialize and contemplate her work communally. Learn more about Mary Heilmann: http://www.art21.org/artists/mary-heilmann VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Mark Falstad & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Mary Heilmann. Special Thanks: Wexner Center for the Arts.
98 Views
12:03:12 07/23/10
Doris Salcedo: Istanbul
[LESS INFO] 98 VIEWS | ADDED 12:03:12 07/23/10
Episode #115: Doris Salcedo discusses her installation for the Istanbul Biennial, describing how she wanted to create a “topography of war” that would transcend the specificity of historical events. Doris Salcedo’s understated sculptures and installations embody the silenced lives of the marginalized, from individual victims of violence to the disempowered of the Third World. Although elegiac in tone, her works are not memorials: Salcedo concretizes absence, oppression, and the gap between the disempowered and powerful. While abstract in form and open to interpretation, her works serve as testimonies on behalf of both victims and perpetrators. Salcedo’s work reflects a collective effort and close collaboration with a team of architects, engineers, and assistants and—as Salcedo says—with the victims of the senseless and brutal acts to which her work refers.Learn more about Doris Salcedo: http://www.art21.org/artists/doris-salcedoVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Paulo Padilha & Mark Sutton. Artwork Courtesy: Alexander & Bonin and Doris Salcedo.
468 Views
12:03:55 07/16/10
Kimsooja: Art & Everyday Life
[LESS INFO] 468 VIEWS | ADDED 12:03:55 07/16/10
Episode #114: With her video Sewing into Walking as a backdrop, Kimsooja tells a story about mending traditional Korean bed covers and realizing that art can be drawn out of everyday activities.Kimsooja's videos and installations blur the boundaries between aesthetics and transcendent experience through their use of repetitive actions, meditative practices, and serial forms. In many pieces, everyday actions—such as sewing or doing laundry—become two- and three-dimensional or performative activities. In videos that feature her in various personas (Needle Woman, Beggar Woman, Homeless Woman), she leads us to reflect on the human condition, offering open-ended perspectives through which she presents and questions reality.Learn more about Kimsooja: http://www.art21.org/artists/kimsoojaVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Richard Numeroff. Sound: Merce Williams. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Kimsooja.
2 Views
12:12:40 07/09/10
Florian Maier-Aichen: Rejecting Tradition
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 12:12:40 07/09/10
Episode #113: Florian Maier-Aichen talks about rejecting the dogmatic approach and lighting sensibility of the Dusseldorf School of photography, traveling to Los Angeles to make a fresh start. Alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly, Florian Maier-Aichen’s digitally altered photographs are closer to the realm of drawing and fiction than documentation. He embraces difficult techniques, chooses equipment that produces accidents such as light leaks and double exposures, and uses computer enhancements to introduce imperfections and illogical elements into images that paradoxically "feel" visually right, though they are factually wrong. Often employing an elevated viewpoint (the objective but haunting "God’s-eye view" of aerial photography and satellite imaging), Maier-Aichen creates idealized, painterly landscapes that function like old postcards. Interested in places where landscape and cityscape meet, he chooses locations and subjects from the American West and Europe—from his own neighborhoods to vistas of the natural world. Looking backwards for his influences, Maier-Aichen often reenacts or pays homage to the work of the pioneer photographers of the nineteenth century, sometimes even remaking their subject matter from their original standpoints. Always experimenting, he marries digital technologies with traditional processes and films (black-and-white, color, infrared, and tricolor), restoring and reinvigorating the artistry and alchemy of early photography.Learn more about Florian Maier-Aichen at: http://www.art21.org/artists/florian-maier-aichenVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Robert Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Joaquin Perez, Mark Sutton & Jake Yuzna.
17 Views
16:27:18 07/02/10
Jeff Koons: Art History
[LESS INFO] 17 VIEWS | ADDED 16:27:18 07/02/10
Episode #112: Jeff Koons describes how he likes to "communicate with other artists" by making art historical references — from Classical to Modern — in his sculptures and paintings. Jeff Koons plucks images and objects from popular culture, framing questions about taste and pleasure. His contextual sleight-of-hand, which transforms banal items into sumptuous icons, takes on a psychological dimension through dramatic shifts in scale, spectacularly engineered surfaces, and subliminal allegories of animals, humans, and anthropomorphized objects. The subject of art history is a constant undercurrent, whether Koons elevates kitsch to the level of Classical art, produces photos in the manner of Baroque paintings, or develops public works that borrow techniques and elements of seventeenth-century French garden design. Organizing his own studio production in a manner that rivals a Renaissance workshop, Koons makes computer-assisted, handcrafted works that communicate through their meticulous attention to detail.Learn more about Jeff Koons: http://www.art21.org/artists/jeff-koonsVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Kurt Branstetter &
Joel Shapiro. Sound: Mark Mandler. Editor: Paulo Padilha & Mark Sutton. Artwork Courtesy: Jeff Koons. Special Thanks: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
66 Views
12:22:19 06/25/10
Carrie Mae Weems & David Alan Grier: In Conversation
[LESS INFO] 66 VIEWS | ADDED 12:22:19 06/25/10
Carrie Mae Weems and David Alan Grier have an intimate discussion on a range of topics including childhood idols, the definition of blackness, race and politics during Obama's presidency, and a desire to make work that addresses not only personal identity but also the broader human condition.With the pitch and timbre of an accomplished storyteller, Carrie Mae Weems uses colloquial forms-jokes, songs, rebukes-in photographic series that scrutinize subjectivity and expose pernicious stereotypes. 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. David Alan Grier started his career in New York, on Broadway in the production of "The First" playing the role of Jackie Robinson for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Grier has appeared in many productions on the New York stage, including "Soldiers Play", and Shakespeare In The Park. On Broadway he has been seen in "Dream Girls", "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum", and starred in "Race", written and directed by David Mamet, for which he received a Tony nomination. Grier has appeared in over 30 films, most recently "Dance Flick", "The Woodsman", "Bewitched", and "The Poker House". Grier won the Golden Lion award for best actor for the film "Streamers" directed by Robert Altman at the Venice film festival. On television he has appeared in "The Chocolate News" and for four seasons in the Emmy award winning series "In Living Color". Grier is the author of the book "Barack Like Me: The Chocolate Covered Truth". Grier has been an avid collector of art, and has collaborated on a performance piece "The Alchemy Of Comedy, Stupid" with the artist Edgar Arceneaux which was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial.VIDEO | Producer: Ian Forster, Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Camera & Sound: Ian Forster & Nick Ravich. Additional Camera: Erica Matson. Editor: Ian Forster & Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Carrie Mae Weems. Photos Courtesy: Roberts J. Saferstein & Comedy Central. Thanks: CORE:club, Pablo de Ritis & Jason Smith.
10/21/10