Issues

Ways of Being: Introduction

Ways of Being: Introduction

Two members of the artist collective BFAMFAPhD discuss their book “Ways of Being,” which investigates artists’ relationships to systems of production.

The Digital Museum: A Conversation between Loic Tallon and Julia Kaganskiy (Part II)

The Digital Museum: A Conversation between Loic Tallon and Julia Kaganskiy (Part II)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s chief digital officer Loic Tallon and NEW INC director Julia Kaganskiy continue their discussion on the future of museums’ digital presence and influence.

Art 2.1: Creating on the Social Web

The Art of the Prototype: Museums and Technology

Art 2.1: Creating on the Social Web

The Art of the Prototype: Museums and Technology

The director of the Knight Foundation’s Technology Innovation program, Chris Barr, shares the details of a new collaborative initiative between its arts and technology teams.

Analia Saban: Abject Inventions

Analia Saban: Abject Inventions

Analia Saban deconstructs materials and processes, turning art historical principles upside down to create work that re-emerges as a new triumphant whole.

On View Now

Cloth is a Battleground in Stephanie Syjuco’s “CITIZENS”

On View Now

Cloth is a Battleground in Stephanie Syjuco’s “CITIZENS”

In Stephanie Syjuco’s “CITIZENS,” textiles and cloth become signifiers of the battles over patriotism and identity.

The Digital Museum: A Conversation between Loic Tallon and Julia Kaganskiy (Part I)

The Digital Museum: A Conversation between Loic Tallon and Julia Kaganskiy (Part I)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s chief digital officer Loic Tallon sits down with NEW INC director Julia Kaganskiy to discuss the future of museums’ digital presence and influence.

Dematerializing the Memorial: An Interview with Maya Lin

Dematerializing the Memorial: An Interview with Maya Lin

Almost four decades after her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial brought her work to the national stage, Maya Lin is reinventing the memorial again through her environmental activist foundation, What is Missing.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Assessment as Dialogue: Shifting Power Dynamics in the Classroom

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Assessment as Dialogue: Shifting Power Dynamics in the Classroom

Educator-in-Residence Todd Elkin explains the origins of his experimental curriculum “Assessment as Dialogue,” which upends the traditional power dynamics in a classroom and asks students and teachers to collaborate on the most effective methods of learning.

On View Now

Philadelphia Illuminated

On View Now

Philadelphia Illuminated

Philadelphia writer Heather Holmes offers her thoughts on Cai Guo-Qiang’s public art project “Fireflies,” in which 27 pedicabs lit with Chinese lanterns circle Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Strategies & Resources

Seven Strategies for the Studio Art Class

Strategies & Resources

Seven Strategies for the Studio Art Class

Art21 Senior Education Advisor Joe Fusaro offers seven tips for keeping projects and curriculum fresh in studio art classes.

New Kids on the Block

Making Paper: Hong Hong’s Performative Process

New Kids on the Block

Making Paper: Hong Hong’s Performative Process

Artist Hong Hong combines two traditional forms of papermaking—Tibetan and Japanese—to create large-scale abstract paper sculptures.

Letter from the Editor

Invention vs. Innovation

Letter from the Editor

Invention vs. Innovation

NEW INC director Julia Kaganskiy introduces the issue by drawing an important distinction between invention and innovation.

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.

Rise to Rust, Rust to Ashes, Ashes to Rise

Rise to Rust, Rust to Ashes, Ashes to Rise

Writer Sarah Rose Sharp reflects on rust’s metaphorical role as both an element of neglect and an indicator of potential within a cycle of continuous rebirth.

Strategies & Resources

Decay: Ecology of a Nurse Log

Strategies & Resources

Decay: Ecology of a Nurse Log

Educator-in-Residence Tricia Fitzpatrick uses the curiosity of a student to prompt a lesson on sustainable ecosystems.

ruminations on rust

ruminations on rust

Writer Adrienne Maree Brown offers a poetic tribute to her adopted city of Detroit.

Photographing Philly’s Streets

Photographing Philly’s Streets

Rachel Heidenry surveys the work of four Philadelphia photographers—Zoe Strauss, Emma Stern, Sahar Coston-Hardy, and William Cress—all capturing unique aspects of the city’s dynamic landscape.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rust, Decay and Decomposition: Four Artists to Teach With

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rust, Decay and Decomposition: Four Artists to Teach With

Art21 Senior Education Advisor Joe Fusaro shares four artists who use rust and decay to tell stories, illuminate histories, and prompt us to think about beauty in new ways.

Meditative Rigor: The Work of Neha Vedpathak

Meditative Rigor: The Work of Neha Vedpathak

Curator and guest editor Taylor Renee Aldridge describes the practice of Detroit-based artist Neha Vedpathak, who carefully plucks handmade paper to transform the two-dimensional into a relief.

On Rust: Roundtable Discussion #2

On Rust: Roundtable Discussion #2

Curators Laura Mott and Taylor Aldridge speak with Detroit artists Tiff Massey and Matthew Angelo Harrison about prototyping, nostalgia, industry and decay.