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"Realms of the Real"
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The four internationally acclaimed artists in “Realms of the Real” conduct extensive historical research, examine the nuances of culture and identity, and explore the boundaries of art and science to create worlds of fantasy and fiction that expand our understanding of ourselves and our world. Taking a playful approach to ambitious performance, video, and sculpture, Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson and his community of collaborators create artworks that are equally profound and absurd, searching for answers in timeless cultural forms. From her Los Angeles studio, artist Candice Lin works with materials that range from indigo and cochineal to urine and flesh-eating beetles, investigating their historical and philosophical implications through her richly sensorial installations. Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno collaborates with architects, sociologists, entomologists, arachnids, and more to create immersive works that propose ways of living in greater harmony with one another and our environment. Raised in Nigeria and based in the United States, artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby bends time and space through her intricately layered paintings, navigating the diverse geographies, cultures, and identities she inhabits to depict the complexities of diasporic experience. These four artists expand on the realities of shared history and experience to create fantastical and speculative worlds, offering new possibilities for culture, identity, and the future.
Credits
Director: Stephanie Wang-Breal. Executive Director: Tina Kukielski. Series Producer: Nick Ravich. Producer: Nan Sandle. Editor: Colin Nusbaum. Director Of Photography: James Fideler. Associate Producer: Andrea Chung. Associate Curator: Jurrell Lewis. Design & Animation: Momentist, Inc. Composer: Andrew Orkin.
Additional Cinematography: Magnús Ingvar Bjarnason, Josh Flavell, Jason Lewis, Gatherer Media, Tyler McPherron, Hákon Sverrisson.
Assistant Camera: Guðjón Hrafn, Cecelia Hubbard, Leví Baltasar Jóhannesson, Younes Labdi, Jake O’Connor, Dean Snodgrass. Gaffer & Electric: Viktor Orri Andersen, Pablo Lopez, Vincent Riediger, Bram van Woudenberg. KEY GRIP: Rishab Chandra. Location Sound: Benedikt Árnason, Agnar Friðbertsson, Moritz Monorfalvi, Sara Sandoval. Field Producer: Becky Pederson. Fixers: Andri Freyr, Bernd Gedeck, Tim Stone, Kitty Von-Sometime. Production Assistants: Evan Hamilton, Tristan Schneider. Projectionist: Michael Allen.
Additional Art21 Staff: Makda Amdetsyon, Lauren Barnett, Hannah DeGarmo, Lolita Fierro, Ian Forster, Grace LeCates, Emma Nordin, Jessica Svenson, Noor Tamari, Emilia Copeland Titus, Nora Wimmer. Interns: Candice Cirilo, Emma Kanne, Billie Lam, Asante Marie Owusu-Brafi, Aarya Silwal, Maria Syville.
Post-Production Supervisors: Amelia Garner, Jennifer Wanamaker. Video Post-Production Service: Cut + Measure. Video Post-Production Producer: Alex Laviola. Colorist: Chris Ramey: Online & Conform: David Gauff. Post-Production Coordinator: Mary Grace Duffy. Audio Post-Production Service: Post Romantic. Re-Recording Mixer & Sound Editor: Gisela Fullà-Silvestre. Assistant Sound Editor: Dan Weisselberg: Audio Description & Captions: Sasha Hecht, Andre Kelman. Quality Control: Adam Stout:
Narration: Louise Eliasof. Additional Music: Trey Toy. Additional Video Editor: Regina Spurlock. Visual Effects: Daniel de Graaf, Isaiah King. Visual Effects Artists: Logan Cuddemi, Mike Houston. Assistant Editors: Isabella Morelli Avilán, Stephanie Cen, Sarah Yi Fineman, Michelle Hanks.
Artwork Courtesy: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Ragnar Kjartansson, Candice Lin, Tomás Saraceno, David Zwirner Gallery, François Ghebaly Gallery, i8 Gallery, Luhring Augustine Gallery, Tonya Bonakdar Gallery.
Archival Material: Aerocene Foundation, Alice Studio Project, Arachnophilia, Canal Projects, Daniella Baptista, Tiffany Edwards, Ry Francis, Ian Byers Gamber, Þorvaldur Gröndal, Robert Heishman, The Here and There Collective, Jameel Arts Centre, Lamay Photo, Leeum Museum of Art, The Logan Center at the University of Chicago, Ari Magg, Awa Mally, Christopher McDonald, Mirador torre Glòries, National Museum of Korea, NOAA, Rafael Pinho, Red Brick Art Museum, The Shed, Viðar Hákon Söruson, Hördur Svenisson, Gísli Galdur Þorgeirsson, Hlynur A Vilmundarson, Walker Art Center, Pierre Ware.
Additional Music Courtesy: Belinda by Grady Harrell & Fred Wesley (ASCAP & BMI)
Legal Counsel: Donaldson Callif Perez.
Special Thanks: The Art21 Board of Trustees, Markús Þór Andrésson, Guðrún Ásmundsdóttir, Lars Behrendt, Anne Carson, Justin Crosby, Sophie Friedman-Pappas, Lilja Gunnarsdóttir, Shaun Johnson, Davíð Þór Jónsson, Andre Keichian, Sarah Kisner, Roger Lin, Sarah Mackenzie-Smith, Gene Aguilar Magaña, Charles West McNulty, Claudia Melendez, Yotam Menda-Levy, Roland Muhlethaler, Dane Nakama, Max Parnell, Roksana Pirouzmand, Mike Richards, Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir, Maristella Svampa, Gan Uyeda, Valeria Tizol Vivas.
Filming Locations Provided By: Agriculture University of Iceland; Berliner Festspiele; David Zwirner, Los Angeles; i8 Gallery; Jameel Arts Centre; The Huntington; Monash University; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sudurland College.
Series Created By: Susan Dowling and Susan Sollins.
Original Production Funding Provided By: The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Agnes Gund, Melony and Adam Lewis, National Endowment for the Arts, Teiger Foundation, Sarah Arison, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Dealer Tire, Arts, Equity, & Education Fund™, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Elyse and Lawrence B. Benenson, Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, Tim and Lauren Schrager Family Foundation.
This program is a production of Art21, Inc. which is solely responsible for its content.
©2026 Art21, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Njideka Akunyili Crosby was born in 1983 in Enugu, Nigeria, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. The artist received her BA from Swarthmore College in 2004 and her MFA from Yale University in 2011. Akunyili Crosby uses painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage to reflect the complex construction of her own identity and those around her. Layering paintings with material from her ever-growing personal archive of Nigerian magazines, album covers, traditional Igbo patterns, and personal photographs, the artist creates a visual language that celebrates the evolving cultural, social, and individual dynamics of diaspora.
Ragnar Kjartansson was born in 1976 in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he lives and works. He studied at the Iceland Academy of the Arts, Reykjavík, Iceland, from 1997 to 2001, and spent a year studying at the Royal Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2000. Through performance, music, video, drawing, painting, and sculpture, Kjartansson explores humanity’s fundamental concerns, from myth-making and national identity to love and beauty. Engaging with the history of music, television, and performance, the artist employs simple yet effective strategies, such as repetition and extended duration, to transform everyday experiences into profound works of art that resonate with the human condition.
Candice Lin was born in 1979 in Concord, Massachusetts, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. The artist received her BA from Brown University in 2001 and her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2004. In her research-based practice, Lin works with a wide variety of materials driven by a deep interest in their histories and offers alternative understandings of society and ourselves. Equally engaging historical fact and speculation, the artist gives voice to overlooked perspectives, creating visceral and sensorial experiences through sculptures, videos, texts, paintings, and installations.
Tomás Saraceno was born in 1973 in Tucuman, Argentina, and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He studied at Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires from 1992 to 1999 and received postgraduate degrees from Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de la Nación Ernesto de la Cárcova in 2000 and Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule in 2003. Uniquely inspired by the structures and behaviors of the “more-than-human” world, Saraceno proposes more just and eco-social ways of experiencing and inhabiting our environment through interactive artworks that bridge architecture, engineering, and sculpture.
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"Realms of the Real" Educator Guide
Educator Guides provide information about selected artists and themes, questions for classroom discussions, and hands-on activities that provide students with a fundamental understanding of creative and critical thinking processes.
“A lot of that, for me, is taking the real or historical aspects but then imagining what are the stories that are lost in the archives. I use the speculative or fictional aspect of the work to allow those things to come to the surface.”
Candice Lin