art:21 screening guides to the sixth season © Art21 2012. All Rights Reserved. www.pbs.org/art21 | www.art21.org season six GETTING STARTED ABOUT THIS SCREENING GUIDE unique opportunity to experience first-hand the complex artistic process—from inception to finished This screening guide is designed to help you plan product—behind some of today’s most thought- an event using Season Six of Art in the Twenty-First provoking art. These artists represent the breadth Century. This guide includes an episode synopsis, of artistic practices across the country and the artist biographies, discussion questions, group world and reveal the depth of intergenerational activities, and links to additional resources online. and multicultural talent. Educators’ Guide The 32-page color manual ABOUT ART21 SCREENING EVENTS includes information on the ABOUT ART21, INC. artists, before-viewing and Public screenings of the Art in the Twenty-First after-viewing questions, and Century series illuminate the creative process of Art21 is a non-profit contemporary art organization curriculum connections. today’s visual artists by stimulating critical reflection serving students, teachers, and the general public. FREE | www.art21.org/teach as well as conversation in order to deepen Art21’s mission is to increase knowledge of contem- audience’s appreciation and understanding of porary art, ignite discussion, and empower viewers contemporary art and ideas. Organizations and to articulate their own ideas and interpretations individuals are welcome to host their own Art21 about contemporary art. Art21 seeks to achieve events year-round. Art21 invites museums, high this goal by using diverse media to present an schools, colleges, universities, community-based independent, behind-the scenes perspective on organizations, libraries, art spaces and individuals contemporary art and artists at work and in their to get involved and create unique screening own words. Beyond the Art in the Twenty-First art:21 events. These public events can include viewing Century series, Art21 produces New York Close Up, parties, panel discussions, brown bag lunches, an online documentary series that explores the guest speakers, or hands-on art-making activities. lives of young artists living in New York City; Exclusive, a video series presenting singular aspects of an artist’s process, significant individual ABOUT THE ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY works and exhibitions, provocative ideas, and CENTURY SERIES ON PBS biographical anecdotes; and film specials such Companion Book The first and only nationally broadcast public as the Peabody Award-winning film William The 208-page book with over television series to focus exclusively on contempo- Kentridge: Anything Is Possible. Art21 videos 400 illustrations; features excerpts rary visual art and artists in the United States and can also be seen on Vimeo, iTunes, ArtBabble, of artists’ conversations with around the world, Art in the Twenty-First Century Blip.tv, YouTube, and Hulu platforms. Executive Producer Susan Sollins $45.00 | www.art21.org/shop introduces audiences to a diverse range of established and emerging artists working today, CREDIT LINE and to the art they are producing now. A biennial event for television, Art21 produces four one-hour Please use the following credit line in publications episodes each season. The Art in the Twenty-First and publicity association with your event: Century series premieres nationwide on PBS in the This event is produced in collaboration with United States and is distributed internationally. Art21, Inc., a non-profit contemporary art Through in-depth profiles and interviews, the organization serving artists, students, teachers, four-part series reveals the inspiration, vision, and and the general public worldwide. techniques behind the creative works of some of today’s most accomplished contemporary artists. Art21 travels across the country and abroad to film CONTACT contemporary artists, from painters and photogra- Please send inquiries to Art21 at: phers to installation and video artists, in their own Home Video (DVD) [email protected] spaces and in their own words. The result is a This DVD includes Season Six (2012)—thirteen segments in four one-hour long episodes: Balance, Boundaries, Change, Cover, clockwise from top left: Sarah Sze, Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat), 2011. Stainless steel and wood, 9 x 22 x 21 feet overall. & History. Commissioned by the High Line. © Sarah Sze, courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Catherine Opie, Oliver in a Tutu, from In and Around Home, detail, 2004. C-print, 24 x 20 inches. Edition of 5, 2 AP. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles, © Catherine Opie; Marina Abramovic´, $24.99 | www.shoppbs.org The Hero, detail, 2001. Video, 14 min 19 sec. Courtesy Marina Abramovic´ Archives and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, © Marina Abramovic´; assume vivid astro focus, anatato vuivui atoteki fukusayo, 2007–08. Space for Your Future: Recombining the DNA of Art and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT), Tokyo. Courtesy MOT Museum, Tokyo, and Hiromi Yoshii Gallery, Tokyo, © assume vivid astro focus. Photo: Keizo Kioku © Art21 2012. All Rights Reserved. www.pbs.org/art21 | www.art21.org balance EPISODE SYNOPSIS Rackstraw Downes born 1939, Kent, England Robert Mangold born 1937, North Tonawanda, New York Sarah Sze born 1969, Boston, Massachusetts In what ways can art convey equilibrium or disequilibrium? What is reality? How do artists perceive and express it? This episode features artists whose works explore the distinctions between balance and imbalance, and demonstrate that the smallest change in a line, a formal element, or a structure can be a radical proposition. Often described as a realist, Rackstraw Downes prefers not to use that term. He views the act of seeing and the art of representation as culturally taught, with different cultures accepting different delineations of the world as realistic. As a painter of his surroundings (he does not think of himself as a landscape painter), he attends to the perils and pleasures of perception, the dialogue between abstraction and figuration, and the dissonance between an ideal of nature and what we do to it. With minimal means and classical restraint, 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. While his focus on formal considerations may seem paramount, he delights in thwarting those considerations—setting up problems for the viewer. Sarah Sze builds her installations and intricate sculptures from the minutiae of everyday life, imbuing mundane materials, marks, and processes with surprising significance. On the edge between life and art, her work is alive with a mutable quality—as if anything could happen, or not. © Art21 2012. All Rights Reserved. www.pbs.org/art21 | www.art21.org balance ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Rackstraw Downes canvases whose physicality relates to the scale of the Rackstraw Downes was born in Kent, England in human body, Mangold has also worked in stained 1939. Often described as a realist painter, Downes glass for architectural projects. Robert Mangold prefers not to use that term. He views the act of received a BFA and MFA from Yale University (1963). seeing and the art of representation as culturally He has been inducted into the National Academy taught, with different cultures accepting different (2005) and American Academy of Arts and Letters delineations of the world as realistic. He does not (2001), and has received many awards including the think of himself as a landscape painter, but as a Jawlensky-Preis der Stadt Wiesbaden Award (1998); painter of his surroundings—his environment. Often the Skowhegan Medal for Painting (1993); and a painted in a panoramic format, Downes’s images National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1967). His evince careful attention to details as well as to broad work has appeared in major exhibitions at Documenta expanses of their surroundings. Created plein air in (1972, 1977, 1982); the Whitney Biennial (1979, 1983, locations as diverse as metropolitan New York, rural 1985, 2004); and the Venice Biennale (1993). His Maine, and coastal and inland Texas, and without works are in the public collections of the Art Institute resorting to the use of photography, his composi- of Chicago; J. Paul Getty Trust; Solomon R. Guggen- tions feature horizons that bend according to the heim Museum; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture way the eye naturally perceives. Downes often works Garden; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; in series, examining single scenes from multiple Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery angles, over time, and in the process reveals of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Whitney Museum of changing qualities of light and shadow as well as American Art, among many others. Robert Mangold changes in his own point of view. Rackstraw Downes lives and works in Washingtonville, New York. earned a BA from Cambridge University (1961) and a BFA and MFA from Yale University (1964). He has Sarah Sze received numerous awards, including a John D. and Sarah Sze was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1969. Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2009); Sze builds her installations and intricate sculptures John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1988); from the minutiae of everyday life, imbuing mundane and National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1980). materials, marks, and processes with surprising He was inducted into the American Academy and significance. Combining domestic detritus and office Institute of Arts and Letters (1999). His works are in supplies into fantastical miniatures, she builds her the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of works, fractal-like, on an architectural scale. Often Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney incorporating electric lights and fans, water systems, Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Art, and houseplants, Sze’s installations balance whimsy Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; with ecological themes of interconnectivity and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Art Institute sustainability.