Issues

Booked

Still Reading by the Fire

by Jayna Swartzman-Brosky | Dec 14, 2015

Booked

Still Reading by the Fire

by Jayna Swartzman-Brosky | Dec 14, 2015

Most of this past year’s proposed radical agendas contain nothing that’s actually revolutionary or visionary. Politicians, theocrats, and profiteers campaign on platforms of retroactive change: ideological preservation, religious orthodoxy. ‘A …

“The Revolution Will Be Painted” Revisited

by Anne Sherwood Pundyk | Dec 7, 2015

“The Revolution Will Be Painted” Revisited

by Anne Sherwood Pundyk | Dec 7, 2015

Last year, as part of ART21 Magazine’s “Revolution” issue, feminist new genre painter Anne Sherwood Pundyk rewrote the lyrics to Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” to create …

Dismantling History: An Interview with Titus Kaphar

by Lindsey Davis | Dec 2, 2015

Dismantling History: An Interview with Titus Kaphar

by Lindsey Davis | Dec 2, 2015

A canvas curtain slips from its place of prestige, revealing another that’s hidden beneath. The folds of a Thomas Jefferson portrait gracefully fall, and behind it we see an African …

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor: Unending Revolution

by Lindsey Davis | Nov 24, 2015

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor: Unending Revolution

by Lindsey Davis | Nov 24, 2015

“All art is in revolution of tyranny.” —Atticus Our recent revolutionary movements feel… deflated. We tell ourselves “things aren’t that bad right?” and the fight we need to make change …

Flashback

Ten (More) Artists on Radicalism and Resistance

by Art21 | Nov 18, 2015

Flashback

Ten (More) Artists on Radicalism and Resistance

by Art21 | Nov 18, 2015

In last year’s November/December issue we investigated ideas of unrest and revolution, and the ways art can and has innovated in the name of change. The months that followed saw huge …

Art21 Extended Play

Politics and Dignity in Graciela Iturbide’s Photographs

by Ian Forster | Nov 6, 2015

Art21 Extended Play

Politics and Dignity in Graciela Iturbide’s Photographs

by Ian Forster | Nov 6, 2015

“Politics are already implied when I’m working in Mexico. I don’t have to say ‘Look, what injustice!’ because it would be sensationalized.” — Graciela Iturbide Artist Graciela Iturbide discusses her personal and …

Pupsie Cola and One Hundred Thousand Glowing Beacons

by Erik Benjamins | Oct 27, 2015

Pupsie Cola and One Hundred Thousand Glowing Beacons

by Erik Benjamins | Oct 27, 2015

  The Girard Wing at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe is louder than a New Mexican Rodeo. Two months ago, I was drawn into this place …

Saya Woolfalk’s Happy People

by Jacquelyn Gleisner | Oct 20, 2015

Saya Woolfalk’s Happy People

by Jacquelyn Gleisner | Oct 20, 2015

In July 2015, when I encountered the installation by the New York–based artist Saya Woolfalk in the Disguise: Masks and Global African Art exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, I felt like …

Long Live Catharsis

by Alex Huntsberger | Oct 13, 2015

Long Live Catharsis

by Alex Huntsberger | Oct 13, 2015

I haven’t cried since the summer before I went to college and broke up with my high-school girlfriend. And by cried, I mean like when your face starts uncontrollably heaving …

Elena Ferrante’s Bad Feelings

by Svetlana Kitto | Oct 6, 2015

Elena Ferrante’s Bad Feelings

by Svetlana Kitto | Oct 6, 2015

Recently, I was Tinder messaging with a manarchist type (white, bespectacled, etc.) whose profile read: “Looking for the wisdom of Alice Munro in the body of Joan Didion.” A reference …

Taking Care

by Alexis Avedisian | Sep 29, 2015

Taking Care

by Alexis Avedisian | Sep 29, 2015

During a particularly unpleasant heat wave this past summer, I had a fever dream in the middle of the day. A conversation was unfolding over my text messages with someone …

How to be Happy: An Art Guide

by Corinna Kirsch | Sep 22, 2015

How to be Happy: An Art Guide

by Corinna Kirsch | Sep 22, 2015

Guess who’s happy all the time? Not many artists. While on the happiness scale artists may rank somewhere between a dog without a bone and an emo kid’s Livejournal, don’t …

Pursuit of Distraction: Internet Cats as Anti-FOMO

by Faith Holland | Sep 15, 2015

Pursuit of Distraction: Internet Cats as Anti-FOMO

by Faith Holland | Sep 15, 2015

Cats comprise some of the most popular content on the Internet. This is a well-documented phenomenon, but its precise reason has remained elusive. Cat culture came into its own in …

Godflesh

by Rob Horning | Sep 8, 2015

Godflesh

by Rob Horning | Sep 8, 2015

Tinder presupposes that one can find happiness in not having to commit to anything because one is willing to commit to everything. Becoming meat, from this perspective, is not degradation so much as liberation from some of the ordinary constraints of the real world, the “meatspace.”

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor: Alicia Eler

by Alicia Eler | Sep 8, 2015

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor: Alicia Eler

by Alicia Eler | Sep 8, 2015

When I was twelve years old, I remember seeing it: my first smiley face. It was gigantic and bright yellow, hanging on the exterior brick wall of a car dealership, …

The Happy Artist

by Eve Peyser | Sep 8, 2015

The Happy Artist

by Eve Peyser | Sep 8, 2015

If you’re constantly suffering, how can you make art that thoughtfully reflects on suffering? To make art that is personal, good, and potentially curative, you, my dear artist, need to …

May Waver and the Sound of Sincerity

by Sam Wisneski | Aug 24, 2015

May Waver and the Sound of Sincerity

by Sam Wisneski | Aug 24, 2015

I first discovered May Waver’s work on Twitter, which makes sense. She’s an online persona, IRL online avatar, and interdisciplinary artist. Her work earnestly explores the consumption and practice of …

Still Points in Erin Wiersma’s Drawings

by Jacquelyn Gleisner | Aug 17, 2015

Still Points in Erin Wiersma’s Drawings

by Jacquelyn Gleisner | Aug 17, 2015

In June, I visited the studio of Erin Wiersma at the Two Coats of Paint Residency in the neighborhood of Downtown Brooklyn. Sharon Butler—artist, writer, and founder of the Two Coats …

Dogma (9 to 5)

by Keith J. Varadi | Aug 10, 2015

Dogma (9 to 5)

by Keith J. Varadi | Aug 10, 2015

Sincerity is almost always associated with goodness. A sincere person is understood to be earnest, honest, and straightforward. It is assumed he or she will not lie, cheat, or steal; …

Sincerity’s Checkered Past

by Inka Essenhigh | Aug 3, 2015

Sincerity’s Checkered Past

by Inka Essenhigh | Aug 3, 2015

I’m thinking about sincerity and the fact that it has had such a checkered past in Western culture, going in and out of vogue. At times, sincerity has been lauded …

By Invitation Only

by Jayna Swartzman-Brosky | Jul 27, 2015

By Invitation Only

by Jayna Swartzman-Brosky | Jul 27, 2015

In 2009, Theaster Gates purchased the first of several vacant properties that would become the site for Dorchester Projects, on the South Side of Chicago. It was both an act …

Passing Through

by Summer Wheat | Jul 20, 2015

Passing Through

by Summer Wheat | Jul 20, 2015

In my early twenties, I took Greyhound buses across the country, outfitted with my cassette tapes and philosophy books, in search of meaning.  Traveling through North Dakota, I sat next …

The Sincerest Form of #BlackJoy May Be Art, but Who Can Say for Sure?

by Damali Abrams | Jul 13, 2015

The Sincerest Form of #BlackJoy May Be Art, but Who Can Say for Sure?

by Damali Abrams | Jul 13, 2015

The artist talk is a peculiar form of presentation, a sincere attempt to communicate something beyond the work of art. For most artists, the artwork itself is the language. Artists …

Irony, Sincerity…Is There a Third Pill?

by Angela DuFresne | Jul 6, 2015

Irony, Sincerity…Is There a Third Pill?

by Angela DuFresne | Jul 6, 2015

I will begin with a quote from Eric Fischl: “There’s nothing insincere about irony.” I couldn’t agree more. And I can’t bear the presumed opposition any longer. Can’t sincerity and …

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor, Jacquelyn Gleisner

by Jacquelyn Gleisner | Jul 6, 2015

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor, Jacquelyn Gleisner

by Jacquelyn Gleisner | Jul 6, 2015

I want to tell you about the most sincere guy I’ve ever known. In 2004, when I was an art student at Boston University, I responded to a part-time job …

Makeup and Birdcalls

by Dushko Petrovich | Jul 6, 2015

Makeup and Birdcalls

by Dushko Petrovich | Jul 6, 2015

Makeup Back in the 1950s—though it could have happened yesterday—the artist Marisol was invited to be on a panel with four older and more-established male artists. The first brilliant thing …
Artist Jamian Juliano-Villani in her Bedford-Stuyvesant studio, Brooklyn, NY, 2015. Production still from the ART21 "New York Close Up" film "Jamian Juliano-Villani's Painting Compulsion". © ART21, Inc. 2015.

Art21 New York Close Up

Jamian Juliano-Villani’s Painting Compulsion

by Nick Ravich | Jul 1, 2015

Art21 New York Close Up

Jamian Juliano-Villani’s Painting Compulsion

by Nick Ravich | Jul 1, 2015

Filmed in her Bedford-Stuyvesant studio, artist Jamian Juliano-Villani uses a digital projector to create surreal paintings and discusses the graphic source material that inspires her.

The Chosen Ones

by Alicia Eler | Jun 17, 2015

The Chosen Ones

by Alicia Eler | Jun 17, 2015

We are born with family, and we find our chosen family. Often whom we select overshadows our biology. Not always, but sometimes. It’s a balance. Peregrine Honig and Arrington de Dionyso …

Lise Haller Baggesen: On the Mother-Shaped Hole in Contemporary Art

by Julie Niemi | Jun 10, 2015

Lise Haller Baggesen: On the Mother-Shaped Hole in Contemporary Art

by Julie Niemi | Jun 10, 2015

I recently visited my former home, Chicago, to cohost a public program that I organize with fellow founding editors of Los Angeles–based print magazine VIA Publication. “I Like Your Work” …

Itinerant Domestic

by Danny Orendorff | Jun 3, 2015

Itinerant Domestic

by Danny Orendorff | Jun 3, 2015

I first encountered the engrossing work of the multimedia artist Rashawn Griffin (b. 1980) in a 2014 group exhibition, The Center is a Moving Target, at Kemper at the Crossroads, …

On Returning Home and Works in Progress: A Conversation with Bukola Koiki

by Brannon Rockwell-Charland | May 27, 2015

On Returning Home and Works in Progress: A Conversation with Bukola Koiki

by Brannon Rockwell-Charland | May 27, 2015

I first learned about Bukola Koiki’s art through Facebook. She posted an essay about her work in the group named “BCC: BrownHall Community,” a networking forum for Black artists in …

Behind Voids and Dissonance: Experimental Music of Fluxus and the Source Family

by Casey Winkleman | May 20, 2015

Behind Voids and Dissonance: Experimental Music of Fluxus and the Source Family

by Casey Winkleman | May 20, 2015

“Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, ‘intellectual,’ professional and commercialized culture; Purge the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art—PURGE THE WORLD OF ‘EUROPANISM!’” [1]. Written with …

Personal Digital Networks

by Sara Schnadt & Kristy Baltezore | May 13, 2015

Personal Digital Networks

by Sara Schnadt & Kristy Baltezore | May 13, 2015

Sara Schnadt and Kristy Baltezore met three years ago at the kitchen table of their mutual friend and fellow new-media artist Rob Ray, who is like a chosen family member. …

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor, Alicia Eler

by Alicia Eler | May 6, 2015

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor, Alicia Eler

by Alicia Eler | May 6, 2015

One’s experience of family can be joyous, painful, bizarre, revelatory, and intimate. To describe it with any single word wouldn’t do it justice. Like a parade, it’s a cacophony of …

Subverting Mass Media: The Collection of the Girls of the Internet Museum Accentuates Sincerity

by Alexis Avedisian | May 6, 2015

Subverting Mass Media: The Collection of the Girls of the Internet Museum Accentuates Sincerity

by Alexis Avedisian | May 6, 2015

Gaby Cepeda, an independent curator based in Lima, Peru, founded the Girls of the Internet Museum as a way to archive Internet works made by an international group of women. Controlled …

Mom in the Mirror

by Roni Ginach | May 6, 2015

Mom in the Mirror

by Roni Ginach | May 6, 2015

In December 2013, I received a master’s degree in psychoanalysis at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies in New York, the same institute where my mother trained, starting in the …