4320 http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428 en-us In the series' fifth season, Art21 traveled to every continent except Antarctica to film the creation of contemporary art in museums, studios and galleries in nine countries. Fourteen contemporary artists, from painters and sculptors to photographers and artists exploring the possibilities of new media, are filmed in their own environments and in their own words. The result is an opportunity for television viewers to experience firsthand the complex artistic process behind some of today's most intriguing and controversial art. © 2009 Rocky Mountain PBS http://www.rmpbs.org/resources/files/programs/100x100/11428.jpg http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428 100 100 What role do emotion, fantasy and nostalgia play in contemporary art? How do contemporary artists both further and react to traditionally romantic ideals such as sentimentality, pathos and the philosophy of art for art's sake? This episode poses questions about the value of pleasure in art and features artists whose works are extended meditations on mortality, love and make-believe: Pierre Huyghe, Judy Pfaff, Lari Pittman and Laurie Simmons. Employing adventure, folly and celebration in creating art, Pierre Huyghe's films, installations and public events range from a small-town parade to a puppet theater, from an opera staged in Central Park to an expedition to Antarctica. Balancing intense planning with improvisational decision-making, Judy Pfaff creates exuberant, sprawling sculptures and installations that weave landscape, architecture and color into a tense yet organic whole. In a manner both visually gripping and psychologically strange, Lari Pittman's hallucinatory paintings transform commercial advertising, folk art and decorative traditions into luxurious scenes fraught with complexity, difference and desire. Laurie Simmons stages photographs and films with paper dolls, finger puppets, ventriloquist dummies and costumed dancers as "living objects," animating a dollhouse world colored by an adult's memories, longings and regrets. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-401/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-401/rss Mon, 21 Dec 09 02:00:00 -0700 In the series' fifth season, Art21 traveled to every continent except Antarctica to film the creation of contemporary art in museums, studios and galleries in nine countries. Fourteen contemporary artists, from painters and sculptors to photographers and artists exploring the possibilities of new media, are filmed in their own environments and in their own words. The result is an opportunity for television viewers to experience firsthand the complex artistic process behind some of today's most intriguing and controversial art. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-501/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-501/rss Mon, 21 Dec 09 03:00:00 -0700 How does contemporary art engage politics, inequality and the many conflicts that besiege the world today? How do artists use their work to oppose misery, turmoil and injustice? This episode examines the ways in which contemporary artists picture war, express outrage and empathize with the suffering of others. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, clinically describing torture, or lamenting death and disease, Jenny Holzer's sculptural use of language provokes a critical response in the viewer. In installations, photographs, film and community-based projects, Alfredo Jaar explores the public's desensitization to images and the limitations of art to represent events such as genocides, epidemics and famines. An-My Le's photographs and films frame the transformation of landscapes into battlefields and examine the impact, consequences and representation of war. A pioneer of feminist art, Nancy Spero's works on paper are an unapologetic statement against the pervasive abuse of power, Western privilege and male dominance. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-402/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-402/rss Tue, 22 Dec 09 02:00:00 -0700 This episode presents four artists whose works or personal stories transport viewers to imaginary worlds and altered states of consciousness. With works that seem at times hallucinatory, irreverent and sublime, each of these artists pursues a vision first held in the mind's eye. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-502/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-502/rss Tue, 22 Dec 09 03:00:00 -0700 How is our understanding of the natural world deeply cultural? This episode features artists who address the submission of wilderness by civilization, the foundations of scientific knowledge, the impact of technology on biology and society, and mankind's relationship to the earth forged by working the land. Robert Adams' refined B&W photographs document scenes of the American West, revealing the impact of human activity on the last vestiges of open space. Appropriating scientific methods of collecting, ordering and exhibiting objects, Mark Dion's sculptures and public projects address commonly held assumptions about nature, knowledge and belief. Inigo Manglano-Ovalle's technologically sophisticated installations use natural forms such as clouds, icebergs and DNA as metaphors for understanding social issues such as immigration, gun violence and genetic engineering. Ursula von Rydingsvard's massive cedar sculptures mark the trace of the human hand and resemble wooden bowls,tools and walls that echo the artist's family heritage in pre-industrial Poland before World War II. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-403/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-403/rss Wed, 23 Dec 09 02:00:00 -0700 Fourteen contemporary artists, from painters and sculptors to photographers and artists exploring the possibilities of new media, are filmed in their own environments and in their own words. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-503/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-503/rss Wed, 23 Dec 09 03:00:00 -0700 How do contemporary artists address contradiction, ambiguity and truth? The artists in this episode blur the boundary between abstraction and representation, fact and fiction, order and chaos. Creating juxtapositions that are at times disorienting, playful and unexpected, these artists engage with uncertainty and plumb the relationship between mystery and meaning in art. Collaborators Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla approach visual art as a set of experiments that test whether concepts such as authorship, nationality, borders and democracy adequately describe today's increasingly global society. Mark Bradford transforms materials scavenged from the street into wall-sized collages and installations that respond to the impromptu patterns and networks that emerge within a city. Robert Ryman's work explodes the classical distinctions between art as object and art as surface, sculpture and painting, structure and ornament - emphasizing instead the role that perception and context play in creating an aesthetic experience. Catherine Sullivan's anxiety-inducing films and live performances reveal the degree to which everyday gestures and emotional states are scripted and performed, probing the border between innate and learned behavior. http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-404/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-404/rss Thu, 24 Dec 09 02:00:00 -0700 http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-504/rss http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/program/11428-504/rss Thu, 24 Dec 09 03:00:00 -0700