In a new film from our New York Close Up digital series, Kevin Beasley juxtaposes sound, silence, and sculpture to examine the legacy of cotton in the American South. Set to the beat of his improvised drumming, the film shows Beasley at work in his Queens studio finishing his multipart exhibition, “A view of a landscape,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art—his most ambitious work to date.

This is the first in the series of five new Art21 films premiering throughout Winter 2019.