Season premiere this Friday: “London”
Tune in or stream starting at 10:00 p.m. ET
Put the kettle on and tidy the sitting room: Art21 is coming to your home this Friday evening with a new season of Art in the Twenty-First Century.
“London,” the season premiere episode, airs this Friday at 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).
Full segments and episodes can be streamed from the PBS Video app and our very own Art21.org. Tell your mates!
Buoyed by London’s history of artistic excellence, the four artists in the “London” episode draw inspiration from decades of British art while contending with the repercussions of colonialism and xenophobia during a time of massive political upheaval in the country.
“London” features artists John Akomfrah, Phyllida Barlow, Anish Kapoor, and Christian Marclay.
New episodes will premiere over the next three Fridays. See the episode guide for details on the new season.
Deepen your connection to Art21
Four films to watch ahead of “London”
Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA): “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle”
Ten years ago, Yinka Shonibare CBE was commissioned to produce a public sculpture to be installed on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. The resulting work, “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle” (2010), referenced the complex heritage of British colonialism and its multicultural present.
“My work is a way of somehow thinking about ‘why,'” said Shonibare. “Why are the people of African origin in Europe and America…why do they have such a raw deal?”
Katharina Grosse: Painting with Color
By uniting a fluid perception of landscape with the ordered hierarchy of painting, Katharina Grosse treats both architecture and the natural world as an armature for expressive compositions of dreamy abandon, humorous juxtaposition, and futuristic flair.
“I like this anarchic potential of color,” said Grosse. “I see it very clearly that color is actually taking away the boundary of the object—so there is no subject-object relationship anymore.”
Paul Pfeiffer‘s groundbreaking work in video, sculpture, and photography uses recent computer technologies to dissect the role that mass media plays in shaping consciousness. “Who’s using who?” asked Pfeiffer. “Is the image making us or do we make images?”
Liz Larner: Distorting Form with Color
As daring as her investigation into new forms can be, Liz Larner‘s sculptures are approachable in their human scale and idiosyncratic vision that favors personal narrative over minimal austerity.
“There’s a lot of pleasure to be had, looking at minimalism,” said Larner. “There doesn’t have to be an equivalency between volume, mass, and density, and that seemed to be something really exciting to try to work with.”
Screen the new season with your community
Screening Society is an international free screening initiative created to increase knowledge of contemporary art, spark dialogue, and inspire creative thinking for a global audience.
For the 2020 edition—reimagined as a digital-first experience—Art21 invites a wide variety of partners such as schools, universities, libraries, museums, nonprofit organizations, galleries, arts and cultural spaces, community centers, and more to host screenings from the latest season that are free and open to the public.
Visit Screening Society to learn how to host or attend a screening.
Screening and conversation with Phyllida Barlow
Join Art21 for the first in a series of free digital programs presented in conjunction with the upcoming new season of Art in the Twenty-First Century.
The program will begin with a screening of artist Phyllida Barlow‘s segment from the Season 10 “London” episode. Following the screening, the artist will be joined by Daniel Baumann, Director of Kunsthalle Zürich, for a conversation and Q&A.
The event takes place on Monday, September 21, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Admission is free, but advance registration is required. Details will be sent with registration.
Thank you for supporting our work
More than ever, online access to the lives and stories of artists is crucial, and Art21 is proud to share them with welcome an ever-growing number of visitors including students, teachers, parents, and art enthusiasts alike from around the globe. If you are able at this time, please consider supporting the work of Art21. Every dollar makes a difference.
