Season 11 of Art21’s long-running documentary series Art in the Twenty-First Century highlights some of the country’s most innovative artists as they go big and bold, responding to the challenge of our current moment with new paintings, sculptures, films, and performances that inspire and heal. 

The first episode of the season, “Everyday Icons,” premiers on PBS on Friday, April 7, 2023 (check local listings), featuring Amy Sherald, Rose B. Simpson, Alex Da Corte, and Daniel Lind-Ramos as they build new and exciting visual worlds and question the monuments and icons that came before. 

Over the course of three one-hour episodes, Season 11 offers stories of artists taking action, revealing little-known truths, creating new icons to honor, and finding new communities to serve. Working across the country from Philadelphia and Atlanta to New Mexico and Los Angeles, all the way to Puerto Rico, some of the most celebrated artists of our time share their creative processes and innermost thoughts alongside newer artists still finding their shape and power. Season Eleven features Amy Sherald and her beloved Michelle Obama portrait; acclaimed independent filmmaker, writer, and actress Miranda July staging an impromptu performance at a Los Angeles gas station; legendary art collective Guerrilla Girls guiding a mobile monument through New York City’s most august art institutions; and Hank Willis Thomas and the opening of his historical photography inspired Martin Luther King memorial on Boston Common. Produced in the series’ signature first-person storytelling style, the three episodes and twelve artists of Season 11 delight our senses with visually potent works and direct our minds towards some of the most pressing issues of our time: representation and visibility, indigeneity and heritage, technology and humanity, empathy and community.

The following two episodes of Season 11 will feature Cannupa Hanska Luger, Linda Goode Bryant, Miranda July, Christine Sun Kim, Anicka Yi, Guerrilla Girls, Tauba Auerbach, and Hank Willis Thomas.

Full episodes and segments can be streamed from Art21.org, PBS.org, and through PBS streaming platforms following each episode’s broadcast premiere.