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“All of these artists reference the other kinds of images we are familiar with,” writes Katy Siegel in her essay for the Art in the Twenty-First Century Companion Book. “We spend our whole lives training to understand movies and television and video games and clothes and beds and houses. And so contemporary art often invokes these experiences and objects; art often looks like a commodity, because in a consumer culture, nothing could be more essential.”
More information and creditsCredits
Created by: Susan Sollins & Susan Dowling. Executive Producer & Curator: Susan Sollins. Executive Producer: Susan Dowling. Series Producer: Eve-Laure Moros Ortega. Associate Producer: Migs Wright. Production Coordinator: Laura Recht. Researcher: Quinn Latimer & Wesley Miller. Director: Deborah Shaffer. Editor: Amanda Zinoman. Director of Photography: Ken Kobland & Joel Shapiro. Additional Photography: Adam Larsen, Laura Recht, & Deborah Shaffer. Assistant Camera: Jarred Alterman, Steve Carrillo, Brian Hwang, Alan Pierce, Beth Puorro, & Kipjaz Savoie. Sound: Rick Albright, Stuart Deutsch, Andrew Garrison, Steven Robinson, Gary Silver, & Bill Wander. Gaffer/Grip: Ned Hallick, John Roche, & Wilson Waggoner. Production Assistant: Steve Carrillo, Courtney Harrell, & Kevin Tierney. Animation Stand Photographer: Marcos Levy & City Lights. Assistant Avid Editor: Matt Prinzig & Kate Schmitz.
Introductory Segment | Artwork: Barbara Kruger. Cast: John McEnroe.
Mel Chin Houston Segment | Director: James Harithas. Producer: Manuel Pellicer & Kathleen Pellicer. Director of Photography/Sound/Producer: Wes Sandel.
Devil’s Night Commercial | Director: Helen Nagge. Cast: Bubba Crutchfield. Director of Photography: Adam Larsen. Sound Recordist/Producer: Mikael Manoukian. Location Manager: Bob Sargent. Package Design: Erick Robel. Driver/Special Effects: Bob Bass.
Creative Consultant: Ed Sherin. Art Design and Direction: Open, New York. Animation, Visual Effects & Compositing: Spontaneous Combustion. On-Line Editor: Don Wyllie & Frame:Runner NYC. Composer: Peter Foley. Music Supervisor: John Yaffé. Sound Editing: Margaret Crimmins, Greg Smith, & Dog Bark Sound. Sound Mix: Tony Volante & Soundtrack, New York. Post-Production Supervisor: Michael Weingrad & Keir Randall.
Artworks courtesy of: Matthew Barney; Michael Ray Charles; Mel Chin; Andrea Zittel; Andrea Rosen Gallery; Frederieke Taylor Gallery; Barbara Gladstone; & Tony Shafrazi Gallery.
Special Thanks: Fareed Armaly; Art Car Museum; Anne C. Baker; Alison Beall; Jamie Bennett; William Bush; Dr. Rufus L. Chaney; Cincinatti Art Museum; City Lights; Susan Delson; David Ebner; Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum; Thomas G. Grace; Guggenheim Museum; Russell Hassell; John McEnroe Gallery; KNOWMAD Confederacy; Spike Lee; Bruce Mac Corkindale; Steve Malmberg, Queens Museum; Cara Mertes; Tom Miller; Margarita Moreno; Carter Mull; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Chris Pullman; Project Row House; Nick Robinson; Chelsea Romersa; Matt D. Ryle; Tamberelli Video; TenniSport; University of Texas, Austin; & Darin Webb.
Interns: Maytal Ahrony, Joyce Alcantara, Christina Darcy, Leslie Fritz, Johanna Goldfeld, Susannah Gust, Sage Lehman, Kelly McCoy, Genevieve Mercatante, Jeff Seelbach, & Stacy Wu.
Public Relations: Kelly & Salerno Communications. Legal Counsel: Albert Gottesman.
Major underwriting for Season 1 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is provided by Robert Lehman Foundation, PBS, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Allen Foundation for the Arts, The Broad Art Foundation, The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation, Bagley Wright Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and The Foundation-to-Life.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
Through the Art21 Translation Project, multilingual audiences from around the globe can contribute translations, making Art21 films more accessible worldwide.
Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.
Andrea Zittel was born in 1965 in Escondido, California, and currently lives and works in Joshua Tree, CA. She received a BFA in painting and sculpture in 1988 from San Diego State University and an MFA in sculpture in 1990 from the Rhode Island School of Design. Zittel works at the intersections of design, art, and architecture to create a body of work that questions human nature and our construction of meaning, values, and social norms. Through textiles, furniture, and installation, the artist places self-imposed systems, rules, and restrictions in order to imagine alternative ways of living.
Barbara Kruger was born in 1945 in Newark, New Jersey, and currently lives in New York and Los Angeles. She attended Syracuse University’s School of Visual Arts in 1964 and studied art and design at Parsons School of Design in New York in 1965. Kruger began her career as a graphic designer and picture editor at Conde Nast Publications, an experience that greatly impacted her artistic practice. Using the visual tropes, language, and design aesthetics of commercial advertising and magazines, the artist creates images and installations that reflect and critique the ways in which mass-media culture influences our beliefs at a societal and individual level.
Matthew Barney was born in 1967 in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Boise, Idaho. He now lives and works in New York. Barney received his BA from Yale University in 1989, attending the university on a football scholarship. Influenced by his experiences as an athlete, the artist often looks to his physical body and human biology as the vessels through which he communicates his ideas. Through film, installation, and sculpture, Barney documents real actions and builds immersive universes that explore themes of masculinity, athleticism, and mythology.
Mel Chin was born in 1951 in Houston, Texas, and currently lives and works in North Carolina. He received a BA from Peabody College in 1975. Chin uses technology, collage, sculpture, and large-scale installations to create a body of work centered around environmental, political, and social issues. Working as a conceptual artist, he inserts art into unlikely places and forms, including video games, destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and popular television.
Michael Ray Charles was born in 1967 in Lafayette, Louisiana, and currently lives and works between Austin, Texas, and Ghent, Belgium. He received his BA from McNeese State University in 1989 and his MFA from the University of Houston in 1993. In his work, Charles creates detailed paintings investigating racial stereotypes that are drawn from a history of American advertising, such as product packaging, billboards, radio jingles, and television commercials. Whether appropriating figures from American visual culture like Aunt Jemima or replicating visual tropes associated with minstrelsy, the artist draws connections between racist elements of American history and popular portrayals of American culture today, exposing the underlying racism present in contemporary society.
“We’re obsessed with perfection, we’re obsessed with innovation and moving forwards. But what we really want is the hope of some sort of a new and improved or better tomorrow.”
Andrea Zittel
