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Video Episodes:
26 Views
15:22:34 10/23/09
Mary Heilmann: Inspiration
[LESS INFO] 26 VIEWS | ADDED 15:22:34 10/23/09
Episode #079: In her Long Island studio, Mary Heilmann discusses two inspirations for her work: tea bowls that adhere to the Japanese aesthetic philosophy of "Wabi-sabi" and the cartoon color pallette used in "The Simpsons" television show. Heilmann contrasts her working method with that of the Abtract Expressionists, preferring to find "the easiest way to do it" which often involves thinking through the compositions and colors with a computer. The video features ceramics and paintings installed as part of the artist's traveling retrospective "To Be Someone" at the New Museum and the Wexner Center for the Arts.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 at: http://www.art21.org/artists/mary-heilmannVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Mark Falstad & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Paulo Padilha & Mark Sutton. Artwork Courtesy: Mary Heilmann. Special Thanks: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, & The New Museum, New York.
8 Views
15:03:04 10/16/09
Carrie Mae Weems: Thirteen Questions for Wynton Marsalis & Cornel West
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 15:03:04 10/16/09
Episode #078: As part of a panel discussion moderated by Baraka Sele at the 20th National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, artist Carrie Mae Weems poses thirteen questions to musician Wynton Marsalis and professor Cornel West, followed by an impromptu song and dance by the participants and audience. 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 at: http://www.art21.org/artists/carrie-mae-weemsVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Evan McIntosh. Editor: Paulo Padilha & Mark Sutton. Thanks: Wynton Marsalis, Baraka Sele, Dr. Cornel West, and the National Black Arts Festival.
47 Views
16:01:27 10/13/09
William Kentridge: "Breathe"
[LESS INFO] 47 VIEWS | ADDED 16:01:27 10/13/09
Episode #091: Shot in his Johannesburg studio in South Africa, William Kentridge reveals the process behind the video work "Breathe" — a component of the larger project "(REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo" that debuted at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the nearby Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in San Barnaba, Italy. 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-kentridgeVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Paulo Padilha & Mark Sutton. Artwork Courtesy: William Kentridge.
3 Views
20:45:46 10/09/09
Josiah McElheny: History & Originality
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 20:45:46 10/09/09
Episode #077: Artist Josiah McElheny discusses the relationship between artworks and the context in which they were created, highlighting the distinctions between history and the personal and interpretive reinvention of historical facts.Josiah McElheny creates finely crafted, handmade glass objects that he combines with photographs, text, and museological displays to evoke notions of meaning and memory. McElheny's work takes as its subject the object, idea, and social nexus of glass. Influenced by the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, McElheny's work often takes the form of historical fictions. Part of McElheny's fascination with storytelling is that glassmaking is part of an oral tradition handed down generation to generation, artisan to artisan. Sculptural models of Modernist ideals, these totally reflective environments are both elegant seductions as well as parables of the vices of utopian aspirations.Learn more about Josiah McElheny at: http://www.art21.org/artists/josiah-mcelhenyVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera & Sound: Kurt Branstetter, Joel Shapiro, and Tom Bergin. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Josiah McElheny. Special Thanks: Donald Young Gallery, Chicago and MoMA QNS, Long Island City.
12 Views
19:06:02 10/01/09
Richard Tuttle: Pollock & Tiffany
[LESS INFO] 12 VIEWS | ADDED 19:06:02 10/01/09
Episode #076: Artist Richard Tuttle pays homage to American art giants Jackson Pollock and Louis Comfort Tiffany, placing his work in an aesthetic tradition that spans abstraction and craft, expressionism and pragmatism. Interviewed outside his home New Mexico, Tuttle's dialogue on being the "brush of society" versus "using society as your paintbrush" is paired with a retrospective of his works installed at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.Richard Tuttle commonly refers to his art as drawing rather than sculpture, emphasizing the diminutive scale and idea-based nature of his work. He subverts the conventions of modernist sculptural practice by creating small, eccentrically playful objects in decidedly humble materials. Influences on his work include calligraphy, architecture, and poetry.Learn more about Richard Tuttle at: http://www.art21.org/artists/richard-tuttleVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom & Sam Henriques. Sound: Ray Day & Merce Williams. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Richard Tuttle. Special Thanks: The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
8 Views
21:00:39 09/25/09
Arturo Herrera: Failure
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 21:00:39 09/25/09
Episode #075: In his Berlin studio, Arturo Herrera discusses the importance of accepting failure in order to be able to learn and grow as an artist.Arturo Herrera’s work includes collage, work on paper, sculpture, relief, wall painting, photography, and felt wall-hangings. Rooted in the history of abstraction, Herrera’s playful work taps into the viewer’s unconscious, often intertwining fragments of cartoon characters with cut-out shapes and partially obscured images that evoke memory and recollection.Learn more about Arturo Herrera at: http://www.art21.org/artists/arturo-herreraVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera & Sound: Terry Doe and Leigh Crisp. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Arturo Herrera.
7 Views
18:21:05 09/17/09
Laylah Ali: Meaning
[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 18:21:05 09/17/09
Episode #074: While painting in her Williamstown, Massachusetts studio, artist Laylah Ali discusses the imperative she feels to make things and the nuanced relationship of political and personal events to the work.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.Learn more about Laylah Ali at: http://www.art21.org/artists/laylah-aliVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Laylah Ali.
7 Views
21:38:03 09/10/09
Ida Applebroog: City & Country
[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 21:38:03 09/10/09
Episode #073: Artist Ida Applebroog discusses the differences between living and making work in New York City versus her home in Upstate New York. Ida Applebroog propels her paintings and drawings into the realm of installation by arranging and stacking canvases in space, exploding the frame-by-frame logic of comic-book and film narrative into three-dimensional environments. Strong themes in her work include gender and sexual identity, power struggles, and the pernicious role of mass media in desensitizing the public to violence.Learn more about Ida Applebroog at: http://www.art21.org/artists/ida-applebroogVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Mead Hunt. Sound: Merce Williams. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Ida Applebroog
8 Views
13:36:45 09/03/09
Jessica Stockholder: Becoming an Artist
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 13:36:45 09/03/09
Episode #072: Artist Jessica Stockholder recounts her earliest memories of wanting to become an artist while she and her son Charlie paint and draw in the basement of their home in New Haven, Connecticut.A pioneer of multimedia genre-bending installations, Jessica Stockholder’s site-specific interventions and autonomous floor and wall pieces have been described as "paintings in space." Her work is energetic, cacophonous, and idiosyncratic, but closer observation reveals formal decisions about color and composition, and a tempering of chaos with control. Learn more about Jessica Stockholder at: http://www.art21.org/artists/jessica-stockholderProducer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Mead Hunt. Sound: Merce Williams. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Jessica Stockholder. Special Thanks: Charles Pippin Chamberlain.
15 Views
16:23:56 08/27/09
Oliver Herring: Participant Davis Thompson-Moss
[LESS INFO] 15 VIEWS | ADDED 16:23:56 08/27/09
Episode #071: Artist Davis Thompson-Moss discusses his experiences appearing as a performer, alongside his brother, in two videos by Oliver Herring: BASIC (2003) and THE DAY I PERSUADED TWO BROTHERS TO TURN THEIR BACKYARD INTO A MUD POOL (2004).Among Oliver Herring’s earliest works were his woven sculptures and performance pieces in which he knitted Mylar, a transparent and reflective material, into human figures, clothing and furniture. Since 1998, Herring has created stop-motion videos, photo-collaged sculptures, and impromptu participatory performances with ‘off-the-street’ strangers, embracing chance and chance-encounters in his work.Learn more about Julie Mehretu at: http://www.art21.org/artists/julie-mehretuVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Eve Moros Ortega. Camera & Sound: Joel Shapiro and Roger Phenix. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Oliver Herring. Special Thanks: Davis Thompson-Moss.
61 Views
15:59:00 08/20/09
Oliver Herring: Participant Joyce Pensato
[LESS INFO] 61 VIEWS | ADDED 15:59:00 08/20/09
Episode #070: Artist Joyce Pensato discusses her experiences appearing as a performer in Oliver Herring's videos. The work, which also features participant Davis-Thompson Moss, is the first in a series of Oliver Herring videos that feature the pair of performers.Among Oliver Herring’s earliest works were his woven sculptures and performance pieces in which he knitted Mylar, a transparent and reflective material, into human figures, clothing and furniture. Since 1998, Herring has created stop-motion videos, photo-collaged sculptures, and impromptu participatory performances with ‘off-the-street’ strangers, embracing chance and chance-encounters in his work.Learn more about Oliver Herring at: http://www.art21.org/artists/oliver-herringVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Eve Moros Ortega. Camera & Sound: Joel Shapiro and Roger Phenix. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Oliver Herring. Special Thanks: Joyce Pensato.
5 Views
19:38:55 08/13/09
Josiah McElheny: Assistant Anders Rydstedt
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 19:38:55 08/13/09
Episode #069: Long-time assistant and collaborator Anders Rydstedt discusses the differences between creating traditional forms in glass—such as vases—with Josiah McElheny's sculptural objects and installations. Filmed at the Michael Davis Stained Glass workshop in Long Island City, New York, objects from this session were later given a mirrored surface as part of the artist's "Total Reflective Abstraction" series of works that took as their point of departure a conversation between Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi.Josiah McElheny creates finely crafted, handmade glass objects that he combines with photographs, text, and museological displays to evoke notions of meaning and memory. McElheny’s work takes as its subject the object, idea, and social nexus of glass. Influenced by the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, McElheny’s work often takes the form of historical fictions.Learn more about Josiah McElheny at: http://www.art21.org/artists/josiah-mcelhenyVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Gary Silver. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Josiah McElheny. Special Thanks: Michael Davis Stained Glass & Anders Rydstedt.
189 Views
17:08:17 08/07/09
Arturo Herrera: Assistant Jeff Bechtel
[LESS INFO] 189 VIEWS | ADDED 17:08:17 08/07/09
Episode #068: Arturo Herrera's assistant Jeff Bechtel describes the process for translating one of the artist's complex drawings into a refined monochromatic paper collage. Filmed in Herrera's New York studio, Bechtel discusses how cartoon sources and stock imagery become abstracted into larger systems. Arturo Herrera’s work includes collage, work on paper, sculpture, relief, wall painting, photography, and felt wall-hangings. Rooted in the history of abstraction, Herrera’s playful work taps into the viewer’’s unconscious, often intertwining fragments of cartoon characters with cut-out shapes and partially obscured images that evoke memory and recollection.Learn more about Arturo Herrera at: http://www.art21.org/artists/arturo-herreraVIDEO | Producer Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Eve Moros Ortega. Camera: Mead Hunt. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Arturo Herrera. Special Thanks: Jeff Bechtel.
8 Views
18:25:09 07/30/09
Laylah Ali: Television
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 18:25:09 07/30/09
Episode #067: In her Williamstown, Massachusetts studio, artist Laylah Ali describes how the television cartoons she watched as a child inform the way she works and thinks today.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.Learn more about Laylah Ali at: http://www.art21.org/artists/laylah-aliVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin. Editor: Jenny Chiurco & Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Laylah Ali
8 Views
13:55:02 07/23/09
Jessica Stockholder: "Vortex in the Play of Theater with Real Passion: In Memory of Kay Stockholder"
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 13:55:02 07/23/09
Episode #066: At her home in New Haven, Jessica Stockholder discusses the inspiration for "Vortex in the Play of Theater with Real Passion: In Memory of Kay Stockholder" (2000) at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in Switzerland. A temporary site-specific installation, the materials for the project include Duplo, work site construction containers, and elements from a theatrical stage.A pioneer of multimedia genre-bending installations, Jessica Stockholder’s site-specific interventions and autonomous floor and wall pieces have been described as "paintings in space." Her work is energetic, cacophonous, and idiosyncratic, but closer observation reveals formal decisions about color and composition, and a tempering of chaos with control.Learn more about Jessica Stockholder at: http://www.art21.org/artists/jessica-stockholderVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Mead Hunt. Sound: Merce Williams. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Jessica Stockholder
10 Views
16:55:00 07/16/09
Oliver Herring: Participant Davide Borella
[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 16:55:00 07/16/09
Episode #065: On the roof of his Brooklyn studio, artist Oliver Herring photographs Davide Borella during an exhausting performance as Borella spits various colors of water, tinted by food dye, up into the air and onto his face. Among Oliver Herring’s earliest works were his woven sculptures and performance pieces in which he knitted Mylar, a transparent and reflective material, into human figures, clothing and furniture. Since 1998, Herring has created stop-motion videos, photo-collaged sculptures, and impromtu participatory performances with ‘off-the-street’ strangers, embracing chance and chance-encounters in his work. Learn more about Oliver Herring at: http://www.art21.org/artists/oliver-herringVIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Gary Silver. Editor: Jenny Chiurco and Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Oliver Herring. Special Thanks: Davide Borella.
10/23/09