Screening Guide

SEASON TEN Screening Guide

Screening Society Art21: Art in the Twenty-First Century

Art21’s Screening Society is a free global screening program, The first and only nationally broadcast public television series in support of the award-winning television series, Art in the to focus exclusively on contemporary visual art and artists Twenty-First Century. With each new season, Art21 invites in the United States and around the world, Art21: Art in the a wide variety of partners—schools, universities, libraries, Twenty-First Century introduces audiences to a diverse group museums, nonprofit organizations, galleries, arts and cultural of established and emerging artists working today and to the art spaces, community centers, and more—to screen one of the they are producing now. season’s episodes. Through in-depth profiles and interviews, the series reveals In response to the global pandemic, Screening Society for Season the inspiration, vision, and techniques behind the creative 10 has been reimagined as a digital experience. This guide offers works of some of today’s most accomplished contemporary hosts and participants information about the episodes and the artists. Art21 travels across the country and abroad to film featured artists as well as suggestions for further engagement contemporary artists—from painters and photographers through discussion questions and activities. to installation artists, video artists, and sound artists—in their own spaces and in their own words. The result is a For more information, resources, and educational opportunities, unique opportunity to experience first-hand the complexity please visit art21.org. of the artistic processes—from inception to finished product—behind today’s most thought-provoking art.

About Art21 Ten seasons have been produced for PBS (2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020). Art21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought- provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art—a preeminent resource for learning first-hand from the Credit Line artists of our time. Art21’s mission is to inspire a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists. When hosting an Art21 screening, please use the following credit line in publications associated with your event: A nonprofit organization, Art21 provides unparalleled access to artists’ voices, using the power of digital media to introduce This event is presented in collaboration with Art21, diverse audiences around the world to contemporary art and a nonprofit global leader in art education, producing artists. For more than two decades, Art21 has changed the preeminent films about today’s leading visual artists and paradigm for teaching and learning about the creative process. education programs that inspire creativity worldwide.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 2 Screening Guide London

A centuries-old city transformed by skyscrapers, innovations, and a diverse citizenry, London has long been home to groundbreaking artists, from Romantic-era trailblazers like J.M.W. Turner to pioneering modernists like Francis Bacon. Buoyed by this history of artistic excellence, the artists featured in this film draw inspiration from decades of British art while contending with the repercussions of colonialism EPISODE SYNOPSIS EPISODE and xenophobia, brought to light at a time of massive political upheaval in the country. This esteemed group takes on fundamental artistic principles of form and content to create sculpture, installation, video, and performance works that rethink history and subvert tradition, all while drawing upon the architectural and technological innovations of the twenty-first century. As collisions of old and new, their works are as layered, diverse, and dynamic as the city in which they live.

Production stills from the Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 10 episode, “London.” © Art21, Inc. 2020.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 3 Screening Guide ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

London

As artists, we conduct our educations in public. You can never know whether it’s going to be a success in terms of what the work is after. One just has to risk it. —Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor World-renowned for his perception- challenge viewers’ ideas about physical Born 1954, Mumbai, India defying sculptures and large-scale space. Kapoor’s sublime use of concave public installations, Anish Kapoor forms, reflective surfaces, intense works with industrial materials like colors, and monumental scale invites mirror, steel, stone, and vinyl to create viewers to experience both collective forms that evoke the metaphysical and awe and private contemplation.

The essence of all experiments, be it in politics or aesthetics or narrative, is that there has to be a way in which the past, present, and the future can be brought into some sort of whole. —John Akomfrah

John Akomfrah A pioneering filmmaker, John Akomfrah across time, history, and themes, Born 1957, Accra, Ghana creates multichannel video installations poetically weaving together topics such that critically examine the legacy of as the cruelty of the whaling industry colonialism, the Black diaspora, and and the Atlantic slave trade (Vertigo Sea, environmental degradation. Akomfrah 2015); the effects of climate change on weaves together original footage with humans and our ecological landscapes archival material to create stirring, (Purple, 2017); and the wave of recent layered narratives that juxtapose refugees from Africa, declining elephant personal and historical memory, past and populations, and Ghana’s layered present, and environmental and human political history (Four Nocturnes, 2019). crises. His epic films draw connections

Art in the Twenty-First Century 4 Screening Guide ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

London

It’s you and the work and the place. It’s a very particular relationship, where there’s nothing else coming between you and that intention. —Phyllida Barlow

Phyllida Barlow Inspired by the urban environment, experiences of physical space, stretching Born 1944, Newcastle upon Tyne, England Phyllida Barlow’s sculptures marry the limits of mass, volume, and height as unconventional materials such as they tower, block, and interrupt space. cardboard, plywood, plaster, and cement Yet these works remain distinctly anti- with vibrantly colored paint and fabrics. monumental; the artist leaves exposed, Her invented forms are created through unfinished seams, revealing the means of layered processes of accumulation, the works’ making and playing with the removal, and juxtaposition—gestures tensions between hardness and softness, that Barlow describes as “more the imperious and the comic, and the functional than artistic.” The resulting painterly and the sculptural. massive works challenge viewers’

I think it’s important to make discoveries through the knowledge of other people. That’s what I’ve enjoyed about music, all my life: it is a collaborative effort.—Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay Marclay began his career in New York and performers during this time. The Born 1955, San Rafael, California City’s East Village, where he was an early transformation of sound and musical experimental DJ and musician, creating a objects into visuals and visuals back into series of works by destroying, collaging, audio experiences has been an important and scratching vinyl records. Influenced and ongoing part of the artist’s practice. by musique concrète, punk rock, and the Collectively, his works tap into and work of John Cage, Marclay collaborated comment on the subliminal power of with a variety of artists, musicians, mass visual and audio culture.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 5 Screening Guide 6 Art in the Twenty-First Century

Further Engagement

After viewing the episode, use the following suggestions to elicit TECHNOLOGY TIP: When your audience conversation and connection. Whether virtually or in person, is gathered online and before the episode begins, request that participants remain participants can engage with the film in a variety of ways using in the meeting session after the episode a broad range of platforms. Please choose the questions and concludes, to engage in discussions and suggestions that best connect with your community. activities related to the film.

Discuss the episode Discuss the artists Go Further

How do artists in the London episode How does Anish Kapoor create a sense Prior to screening the episode, ask collaborate? Describe qualities that of awe? What strategies or approaches participants to have a sheet of paper these artists share. Now reflect on your does he use? How does this compare to or notebook handy. Encourage them to community: how is it collaborative? moments when you have been in awe? draw while viewing. They can make visual notes, sketch the artwork, or record What do these artists transform? How Phyllida Barlow discusses her memories insightful quotes. Ask participants to does each artist ask us to contemplate several times during the segment. How compare sketches and notes after the different ideas and questions, through is memory a theme in her work? What is episode concludes, and discuss the kinds the idea of transformation? Discuss the relationship between the objects she of themes, ideas, and questions shared by some of the ideas you find compelling. creates and the memories associated the group. with them? Compare her work to that of Consider your prior knowledge of one or more artists who use memory as Set up an open playlist on any music London. Did the episode reinforce or a theme. platform that you favor. Ask participants challenge your preconceived notions? to add songs to the playlist in response to Discuss this with other participants and John Akomfrah refers to multiple points of their experience of watching the episode. then share with the group. Are there view on several historical events, including How might music respond to the work common threads among your thoughts? Brexit, global warming, immigration, and insights of these artists? Why might that be? Ghanaian independence, British colonization, and transatlantic slavery. How does Ask participants to consider the idea How do the artists define their role(s) in he confront these topics differently than of transforming something in their the process of artmaking? What parts do a historian would? How do you think his homes. What kind of object or collec- they play? Which artist has a role that’s work, compared to the work of a journal- tion of objects can be manipulated similar to one that you play, in your life? ist or academic, helps viewers to see and or rearranged in some way to send a consider unfamiliar historical events? different message or tell a different story? Ask participants to photograph In what ways does Christian Marclay their creations and share them with visually represent sound? When do you others through the use of Padlet, Google find yourself experiencing sound in a Slideshow, or another platform. visual way? And when has something visual suggested a sound?

Art in the Twenty-First Century 6 Screening Guide Beijing

A city with a history of more than two thousand years, Beijing has recently become the center of shifting politics, rapid urbanization, and an economic boom, making it fertile ground for art and artists. Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing into the 1990s, a new generation of artists emerged in the city, marking the birth of contemporary art in China. Amid Beijing’s dizzying economic, urban, and EPISODE SYNOPSIS EPISODE cultural transformation, artists have responded to its relentless evolution with urgency and ambition, all the while contending with many centuries of Chinese cultural traditions. This film witnesses the maturing of a unique contemporary-art hub and follows a multigenerational group of artists who grapple with memory, modernization, their roles in the global art world, and art’s place in their own ever-changing society.

Production stills from the Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 10 episode, “Beijing.” © Art21, Inc. 2020.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 7 Screening Guide ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Beijing

I like using the tactic of diversion in my art: It looks like I’m addressing one issue with utmost seriousness, but what I’m really trying to say is somewhere underneath. —Xu Bing

Xu Bing especially those shaped by language, cades. Playing with systems of language Born 1955, Chongqing, China fundamentally color our worldviews. and disrupting viewers’ expectations and Near the end of the Cultural Revolution perceptions has remained a throughline Fascinated with visual and written lan- in the 1970s, Xu was sent to work in the in Xu’s works. Created with materials as guages, Xu builds mixed-media instal- countryside for two years as part of Mao varied as tobacco, construction debris, lations that simultaneously evoke and Zedong’s “re-education” policy; he later and surveillance-camera footage, Xu subvert centuries-old Chinese cultural returned to Beijing to study printmaking Bing’s installations remain elegant and traditions, such as calligraphy, wood- and drawing. Due to increasing artistic re- poignant, at once revering and question- block printing, and landscape paint- strictions following the 1989 Tiananmen ing cultural traditions and challenging ing scrolls. The artist asks viewers to Square protests, Xu moved to New York viewers’ preconceived assumptions. consider how our cultural backgrounds, City, where he lived for almost two de-

Once these objects are turned into something new, we can meet people of the past. They’ve left a trace in history, allowing us today to receive the future and connect to the past. —Song Dong

Yin Xiuzhen Cultural Revolution and prioritized more Song Dong had studied painting, but he Born 1963, Beijing, China experimental and conceptual art practices. soon began working in video and perfor- Song Dong Yin has also collaborated with her husband, mance, inciting his early investigations Born 1966, Beijing, China the artist Song Dong, on the series, The into impermanence. His most-well- Way of the Chopsticks (2001–ongoing). known installation, Waste Not (2005), Working in site-specific installation and Working with humble, readily acces- posthumously catalogued more than sculpture, Yin Xiuzhen uses second-hand sible materials, such as household objects, 10,000 items from his mother’s Beijing or recycled items like clothing and domes- wooden window and door frames, and home, creating at once a time capsule tic objects to create works that preserve even food, Song Dong creates sculptures, of a half-century of Chinese culture and personal memories in a rapidly globaliz- installations, videos, and performance consumption and a psychological process ing and homogenizing world. Originally works that explore personal and collective for coping with personal grief. Both deeply trained in oil painting, Yin Xiuzhen was memory, impermanence, and the tran- personal and universally relatable, Song influenced by the New Wave movement sience of human endeavor. Dong’s works are poetic meditations on in China in the 1980s, which refused the On the forefront of conceptual art the fleeting nature of life. social-realism aesthetic of the 1960s–70s in China in the late 1980s and early 1990s,

Art in the Twenty-First Century 8 Screening Guide ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Beijing

I prefer to paint places that can’t be easily judged by a single value system. —Liu Xiaodong

Liu Xiaodong Considered a part of the New Wave or Liu Xiaodong draws upon his upbringing Born 1963, Liaoning, China New Generation artists who emerged in rural China in his approach to his following the end of the Cultural subjects, who he describes as “ordinary, A leading figure among the Chinese Revolution and the death of Mao Zedong, everyday folks.” Painting en plein air, the Neo-Realist painters, Liu Xiaodong Liu Xiaodong’s work is influenced by artist carefully composes his tableaux; depicts everyday people in his enormous figurative realism, a key artistic legacy in the studio, Liu combines recreations oil-and-acrylic paintings, foregrounding still thriving in contemporary Chinese of photographs with imagined elements. the human dimension of global issues like art. Imbued with rawness, his paintings The resulting paintings are tender economic hardship, environmental crisis, are composed of loose brushstrokes and reminders of our humanity, where and migration. The artist often works rich colors, suggestive of the sometimes viewers can see themselves in the joys on site, painting his subjects en plein air. rough, improvised lives of his subjects. and struggles of the artist’s subjects.

During periods of change, there’s opportunity to do interesting things. —Guan Xiao

Guan Xiao In her sculpture and video work, Guan objects, Guan Xiao epitomizes the next Born 1983, Chongqing Municipality, China Xiao juxtaposes discordant images, generation of artists from China, rooted diverse cultural artifacts, and modern in transnational culture and immersed technology to create objects that are in our technology-fueled present. Her futuristic, referential, unsettling, and video works mirror viewers’ experiences humorous. Working with traditional of the Internet and personal memories, Chinese sculpted tree roots, 3D where seemingly unrelated images find fabrications, and readymade industrial inexplicable yet resonant connection.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 9 Screening Guide 10 Art in the Twenty-First Century

Further Engagement

Discuss the episode Discuss the artists Go Further

Which traditions do these artists engage What is surveillance? How does Xu In response to Guan Xiao’s use of with and confront, and what do they Bing comment on surveillance? In your traditional and nontraditional objects have to say about these traditions? What life, when are you aware of surveillance as materials, challenge participants to kinds of traditions are in your family or happening? create an artwork with readily available community? How do they relate to those materials. Specify an amount of time discussed in this episode? How do Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen during which participants can create an describe the changes they have experi- artwork. At the conclusion of this period, How does each artist engage with the enced in Beijing? Describe their feelings ask participants to share what they cre- history and future of Beijing? How does about home. How do you define the word ated, and discuss how juxtaposition plays the real and a reimagined city influence home? If your home has changed, how did a role in how we see the objects separate- their work in different ways? Consider you experience that transition? ly and collectively. your neighborhood, community, or city. How has it changed during the time In Guan Xiao’s artworks, how does the use Ask participants to reflect on how you’ve lived there? of materials allow viewers to see these their communities look different today materials differently and to engage with than they did ten, twenty, perhaps fifty What glimpses of family are shown in the “chewy” quality of her sculptures? years ago. Ask them to find a local spot this episode? How might they influence How does her work relate to collage, in that has changed in some way, through the artists’ work? Does your family influ- which many different elements can come some Internet research, and to create a ence your work? together to form something new? hashtag or website to share “before” and “after” photographs. Ask participants Each artist in the Beijing episode works How and why does Liu Xiadong de- who post to include details about what with observation in different ways. pict “ordinary, everyday folks” in his they remember or have recently learned How does each artist approach the idea paintings? What about his paintings is about the place. or process of observation? How does extraordinary? How does Liu allow us to observation fuel their work? With fellow see these people in ways we may have participants, discuss how the act of ob- not noticed otherwise? servation plays a role in your lives.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 10 Screening Guide Borderlands

A vast geography encompassing open deserts and densely populated metropolises, the borderland between the United States and Mexico has long been a site of not only political conflict and social struggle but also intense creative ferment. Taking a new curatorial and filmmaking approach, Art21 connects and juxtaposes a group of acclaimed artists as they work along the U.S.-Mexico border, EPISODE SYNOPSIS EPISODE interweaving their stories to chronicle the creative responses to one of the most divisive moments in the history of this area. From an epic interactive searchlight installation along the El Paso–Juárez divide to a deeply personal performance at the Tijuana border wall, these artists consider the border as an open wound, a theatrical stage, a political podium, a studio, and a contradictory landscape that features both ugliness and beauty. This episode explores how contemporary art can reveal the new and unexpected, asking viewers to question their preconceived notions of a place seemingly made familiar by mass media. Ultimately, the artists featured in this hour challenge themselves and audiences to embrace a more empathetic view of one of the most contested areas in North America.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 11 Screening Guide ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Borderlands

I love it, when one has a pre-established notion of what one is going to see and it’s wrong. —Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer installed in public places as a means of the artist then transforms into a dynamic, Born 1967, Mexico City, Mexico transforming these sites into forums for collective landscape and representation civic engagement. From an education in of both anonymity and community. For his An artist working at the intersection of chemistry, Lozano-Hemmer’s early career interventions in public spaces, Loza- architecture and performance art, Rafael in a molecular-recognition lab influenced no-Hemmer transforms facades, plazas, Lozano-Hemmer creates participatory his conceptual and practical approach parks, and skylines by adding audiovisual artworks that utilize technology like to creating art. As early as the 1990s, elements that viewers can control. The robotics, heart-rate sensors, and com- Lozano-Hemmer worked with custom artist refers to this as “relational architec- puterized surveillance tools in order to software and surveillance technologies to ture,” a practice that re-contextualizes facilitate human connection. Technologi- create interactive artwork. His work often viewers’ understandings of public spaces cally sophisticated yet deceptively simple invites viewers to provide a biometric and received narratives about them. in their execution, Lozano-Hemmer’s “snapshot” of themselves—whether their spectacular, immersive works are often fingerprint, heartbeat, or portrait—that

One of the things I’ve learned from this series is that until you go see this place for yourself, you have no idea what’s really going on there. —Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach contrast the natural and man-made Nevada, and Arizona. His ongoing series, Born 1949, Los Angeles, California tragedies found there: floods, fires, Desert Cantos, consists of groups of nuclear-test sites, the U.S.-Mexico border photographs that depict the ecological A leading photographer of his wall, and the traces of migrants who effects of human intervention in the generation, Richard Misrach explores the make the perilous journey north. Misrach desert landscape. A more recent chapter, collision of nature and culture through began his career in Berkeley, California, Border Cantos, captures the pathos of his large-format color photographs. in the early 1970s, photographing the the 2000-mile border between the U.S. Fascinated by the political and anti-war protests happening throughout and Mexico, including the border wall environmental transformation of the the city. Misrach realized that his early and the artifacts of migration—clothing, deserts of the American southwest, work failed to meet his social-activist water barrels, ladders—left behind. Misrach creates hauntingly beautiful ambitions and instead turned his camera photographs of arid landscapes that to the deserts of southern California,

Art in the Twenty-First Century 12 Screening Guide ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Borderlands

When I look at the Borderlands, I see a clear demarcation of colonization. We’ve got to start including indigenous worldview in relation to the border. —Kade L. Twist

Postcommodity Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary reimagine sites of conflict as places of arts collective composed of curiosity that foreground Indigenous Cristóbal Martínez, New Mexico Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist. culture. Postcommodity was founded and Kade L. Twist, California Postcommodity creates site-specific in 2007 by Twist, Steve Yazzie, and installations, interventions, videos, and Nathan Young and acknowledges the sound works, utilizing the members’ important contributions of its previous shared Indigenous lens to reveal the collaborators, including Yazzie (2007– incongruent histories embedded in 2010), Young (2007–2015), and Raven our modern-day institutions, systems, Chacon (2009–2018). The collective and beliefs. The group often works focuses on centering Indigenous closely with local communities to perspectives and working in response to create poetic installations that the land where their projects take place.

A lot of my work is about visibility and more representation: allowing more people to see themselves or their struggles mirrored by the work. —Tanya Aguiniga

Tanya Aguiñiga Aguiñiga’s work speaks of the artist’s arts initiatives to injustices that the Born 1978, San Diego, California experience of her divided identity and local community faced. Aguiñiga has aspires to tell the larger and often maintained this spirit of activism and An artist, designer, and craftsperson, invisible stories of the transnational community collaboration throughout Tanya Aguiñiga works with traditional community. Aguiñiga began her career her career, going on to create many craft materials like natural fibers by creating collaborative installations performances and installations that and collaborates with other artists with the Border Art Workshop/Taller involve the participation of other artists, and activists to create sculptures, de Arte Fronterizo, an artist collective activists, and community members. In installations, performances, and that addressed political and human her installations, furniture, and wearable community-based art projects. Drawing rights issues at the U.S.-Mexico border. designs, Aguiñiga often works with on her upbringing as a binational The artist co-built and for six years cotton, wool, and other textiles, drawing citizen, who daily crossed the border ran a community center in Tijuana, upon Mesoamerican weaving and from Tijuana to San Diego for school, aimed at bringing attention through traditional forms.

Art in the Twenty-First Century 13 Screening Guide 14 Art in the Twenty-First Century

Further Engagement

Discuss the episode Discuss the artists Go Further

What materials do these artists use to Describe the major forms of communi- Ask participants to choose a location in engage the public in conversation and cation that you employ in your daily life. their neighborhood that has a contest- reflection related to the U.S.-Mexico What makes Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s ed history, to post images of the place border? Which material stood out to Border Tuner a form of communication (found online or in a local library) to a you? Why? and interaction, one that is different from chosen social-media platform or website. the examples you described? If images are not already available, or if Describe what each artist in this episode participants feel inspired, they can take hopes to achieve through their art. How Richard Misrach remarks, “Until you go new photographs of the place. Ask every- does their work compare to that of other see this place for yourself, you have no one to write a brief description of their artists, with whom you may be more idea what’s really going on there.” Have chosen location and to comment on what familiar? you had a similar experience with a par- each person has shared. ticular place? If so, describe it. Collaboration is a common practice Think about communication and place, for these artists. Describe the qualities How does Tanya Aguiñiga encourage together. How might one communicate that make these four artists similar to interaction and collaboration utilizing the idea or the feeling of a certain place each other and how they differ, in their the border wall? Describe the physical without using words? What might it approaches to collaboration. borders that you engage with each day. sound like or smell like? Ask participants How do these borders affect your move- to recreate their sense of place and share ments, actions, and feelings? it with one or more others. How do their reactions compare to the creator’s mem- Postcommodity often focuses on a ory of this place? particular place and the people who call it home. In your community, what cultural groups would be represented in a similar type of artwork? What symbols, materials, or music might be used to identify those groups?

Art in the Twenty-First Century 14 Screening Guide