Fresh from the four-film run of our spring programming season, we are thrilled to launch into our summer season with yet another batch of new films across our Extended Play and New York Close Up series.
Stream the first release of the new season today!
This season features four artists—Phyllida Barlow, Guadalupe Maravilla, Adam Milner, and Wangechi Mutu—whose practices investigate the complex interconnectedness between artistic materials and personal experiences.
Tune in for a new premiere every Wednesday in July at 12:00 p.m. ET here at Art21.org and over on our YouTube channel.
And be sure to catch up with the previous eight releases from our winter and spring seasons.
Summer 2021 Film Guide
Tune in: Wednesdays (July 7, 14, 21, and 28) at 12:00 p.m. ET
Phyllida Barlow
From the Extended Play series; Premiered July 7
From her home studio in London, Barlow recalls her childhood, where she witnessed her mother’s ad-hoc way of making clothing and toys for her children. Her mother treated the materials of everyday domestic life as resources with endless potential, an attitude that has affected Barlow’s artmaking. Shown at a 2021 exhibition at Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany, Barlow’s anti-monumental, yet enormous tilting and teetering sculptures are composed of nontraditional materials like cardboard, plywood, and colorful fabric.
Adam Milner
From the New York Close Up series; Premiered July 14
Fascinated by our complicated relationships to objects, Adam Milner’s practice involves collecting, arranging, combining, and releasing various mementos and detritus from domestic life. Touring some of Milner’s most potent sites of inspiration—from neighborhood bodegas and thrift stores in Brooklyn, to the august Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan—the film reflects the artist’s own interest in blurring boundaries between high and low culture. Among the works featured are sculptures placed at thirteen different locations around New York City, which collectively comprise Milner’s 2021 exhibition for the nomadic museum, Black Cube.
Wangechi Mutu
From the Extended Play series; Premiered July 21
In her collages, drawings, sculptures, and films, Wangechi Mutu centers the female body to create powerful and self-possessed figures that are a hybrid of human, plant, animal, and machine forms. Shown at work from her Nairobi, Kenya studio, the artist samples from a diverse array of sources—from natural materials to fashion magazines, medical diagrams, and traditional African arts—to create otherworldly realms that examine cultural identity, the feminine, colonial history, and global consumption. Included in the film are works currently on view at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, California.
Guadalupe Maravilla
From the New York Close Up series; Premiered July 28
Evoking traumas from experiences of migration and cancer survival, Guadalupe Maravilla generates sound-draped sculptural environments to promote self healing and community empowerment. Shown at work in the artist’s Brooklyn studio, Maravilla embarks on creating their first outdoor sculpture for an exhibition at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York. The resulting installation, the latest in the artist’s “Disease Throwers” series, is activated by Maravilla through a series of participatory sound bath events, which will continue at the park throughout 2021.
In addition to Art21’s channels, the film featuring Maravilla will also be available through Socrates Sculpture Park’s digital guide on the free Bloomberg Connects app.
