"Realms of the Real" Trailer
Trailer for the “Realms of the Real” episode from Season 12 of Art in the Twenty-First Century, featuring artists Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Ragnar Kjartansson, Candice Lin, and Tomás Saraceno.
The 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.
Directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal.
Premiered Wednesday, February 11, 2026, on Art21.org and PBS Digital Platforms.
-
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.