July / August 2017 Issue
“Inspired by a True Story”

On View Now

Climate Change & Data Drawings: An Interview with Maya Lin

On View Now

Climate Change & Data Drawings: An Interview with Maya Lin

Maya Lin discusses hurricanes and climate change in relation to the work in her new show, “Ebb and Flow,” opening today at Pace Gallery.

Artist Introspectives

Objective Truth vs. Subjective Perception

Artist Introspectives

Objective Truth vs. Subjective Perception

Filmmaker Natalia Almada considers the subjectivity involved in the creation of both her documentary and fiction projects.

Recreating What’s Lost: Pamela Mason Wagner on Shooting Reenactments

Recreating What’s Lost: Pamela Mason Wagner on Shooting Reenactments

Producer and director Pamela Mason Wagner describes how she utilizes reenactments to fill in the missing details of historical documentaries.

A Fickle Trickster Screen

A Fickle Trickster Screen

Although Joan Jonas might not work in the same public, ad-hoc settings, her recent work connects live performance, drawing, and live-feed video in a circular fashion to carve out new depths.

Artist Introspectives

A Safe Place

Artist Introspectives

A Safe Place

Artist and Stanford professor Jonathan Calm reflects on the vastly different experiences conveyed in two photographs he took of the Lorraine Motel—one in black-and-white and the other in color.

Artist Introspectives

Why Wishes Matter

Artist Introspectives

Why Wishes Matter

Amanda Long shares the motivation behind her public artwork, “Wishing Well,” which gives people a space in which to dream.

Rachel Rose: The Artist as Researcher

Rachel Rose: The Artist as Researcher

Artist Rachel Rose spends months researching materials and methods before constructing compelling narratives for her ten-minute video pieces.

New Kids on the Block

Highway to the Sun: Truth and Fiction in Maureen Drennan’s Photography

New Kids on the Block

Highway to the Sun: Truth and Fiction in Maureen Drennan’s Photography

Although documentary in nature, Maureen Drennan’s photographs take artistic license in order to convey the essence of specific people and places.

On View Now

Tomáš Rafa: New Nationalisms at MoMA PS1

On View Now

Tomáš Rafa: New Nationalisms at MoMA PS1

Slovakian artist Tomáš Rafa’s latest film documents scenes of protests throughout the Balkans and Central Europe, capturing complexities regardless of politics.

Tommy Hartung’s Heart of Darkness: Mutant Artists, Fake News & Insta Filmmaking

Tommy Hartung’s Heart of Darkness: Mutant Artists, Fake News & Insta Filmmaking

Art21’s director of production Nick Ravich sits down with “New York Close Up” artist Tommy Hartung in Forest Park, Queens for a spontaneous, unmediated interview.

Automating the Pain of Others: Susan Sontag and Facebook

Automating the Pain of Others: Susan Sontag and Facebook

Writer and artist Morgan Green offers a poignant critique of Facebook’s algorithmic display of violent images.

Deep Focus: Inside Art21 Films

Six Tips for Shooting Underwater Video

Deep Focus: Inside Art21 Films

Six Tips for Shooting Underwater Video

Art21’s Director of Production offers helpful tips for shooting video underwater after filming Caroline Woolard’s sculptures on a Rockaway beach for a “New York Close Up” film.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Inside, Outside, Online: Dissecting social media, escape and identity

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Inside, Outside, Online: Dissecting social media, escape and identity

Educator-in-Residence Stacey Abramson relates the experience of art-making to that of constructing an identity online—both are a means of self-presentation and escape.

Now Playing

Time-Traveling Through Music: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll

Now Playing

Time-Traveling Through Music: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll

John Pirozzi’s documentary “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten” resurrects Cambodia’s lost popular-music scene of 1950s and ’60s, whose history was wiped out in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came to power.

An inner truth

An inner truth

Curator Lee Plested and Anishnabe Ojibwa artist Charlene Vickers uncover the complexities of displaying indigenous work.

Machine Drawing: Shantell Martin and the Algorist

Machine Drawing: Shantell Martin and the Algorist

Artist Shantell Martin and PhD Candidate Sarah Schwettmann built an algorithm that could complete Martin’s drawings, addressing the space between an artist’s truth and a machine’s simulation.

Letter from the Editor

Using Lies to Tell the Truth

Letter from the Editor

Using Lies to Tell the Truth

Co-guest editors and Art21 producers introduce the film-focused issue of Art21 Magazine, “Inspired by a True Story,” uncovering the line between truth and fiction.