London, Beijing, and United States-Mexico border
September 18–October 2, 2020
Three new episodes offer a creative respite, charting artmaking across London, Beijing, and the United States-Mexico border.
Art21 is pleased to announce details of the new season of its Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated television series, “Art in the Twenty-First Century.” Twelve artists and one collective are presented across three episodes, charting artmaking in London, Beijing, and regions around the United States-Mexico border. The landmark tenth season of the longest-running television series on contemporary art premieres Friday, September 18 at 10pm on PBS in the United States, and online at Art21.org.
Now entering its third decade on television, the globally-revered “Art in the Twenty-First Century” series provides unprecedented access to the leading creative minds of our time.
For the first time in the show’s history, the filmmakers chronicle artists’ responses to an entire bi-national region, the US-Mexico border, where artists create platforms for an assembly of voices to speak. In London and Beijing, artists contemplate disruptions caused by the rapidly changing political and architectural landscapes of their cities.
Episodes:
“London”. September 18, 10pm. Featuring John Akomfrah, Phyllida Barlow, Anish Kapoor, and Christian Marclay.
“Beijing”. September 25, 10pm. Featuring Guan Xiao, Liu Xiaodong, Song Dong & Yin Xiuzhen, and Xu Bing.
“Borderlands”. October 2, 10pm. Featuring Tanya Aguiñiga, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Postcommodity, and Richard Misrach.
“When we listen to artists, we gain insight into the state of our world,” says Art21 executive director and chief curator, Tina Kukielski. “Artists are documentarians, activists, problem solvers, innovators, and foremost respondents to the issues of our times.” Adds Kukielski, “The events of 2020 have only amplified the observations of artists in creative hotspots around the world.”
“PBS is proud of our longstanding partnership with Art21,” says Paula Kerger, president and chief executive officer of PBS. “Ten seasons is a remarkable achievement, and this milestone affirms that public television is an important and powerful platform for the arts.”
Throughout the new season, artists pointedly examine the structures of our political, societal, and cultural systems, while challenging themselves and audiences to embrace a more empathetic worldview.
At once intimately personal and universally relatable, the artists featured in the new season share the thoughts, inspirations, and processes behind some of the most extraordinary artistic practices of the twenty-first century.
Alongside the national broadcast, full segments from each of the three new episodes will enter the Art21 film library on Art21.org. At over 60 hours and growing, the Art21 film library is the most comprehensive documentary film collection on today’s greatest artists—always on and always free.
Major support for Season 10 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is provided by National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, Lambent Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis, Henri Lambert, and Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman.
