MARN Screens Award-Winning Series, ART21, at Hotcakes Gallery OCT04+OCT25

MARN (Milwaukee Artist Resource Network) is a strategic partner of
ART21 & PBS, and will be pre-screening the first 2 episodes of the
4th Season of Art21 at Hotcakes (3379 N Pierce St) for FREE.

Episode 1 on October 4 from 7-8pm and
Episode 2 on October 25 from 7-8pm.

Both sessions will be followed by discussions moderated by MARN's
Executive Director, Mike Brenner.

If you aren't familiar with the first three seasons of ART21, get
familiar. It is by far the best television series ever done about
contemporary art. You can get the DVD's through NetFlix or buy them
online (http://www.pbs.org/art21).

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Season 4 of art in the twenty-first century Premieres Sundays,
October 28 and November 4, 11, and 18, 2007 at 10p.m. (ET)

episode 1: romance
Premieres Sunday, October 28, 2007 at 10 p.m. (check local listings)

The first hour of Season 4 of Art in the Twenty-First Century
features four distinctly different artists whose works pose questions
about the role of emotion, regret, fantasy and nostalgia in
contemporary art.

Laurie Simmons’s first feature film The Music of Regret provided her
with an opportunity to literally bring her photography to life.
Staging scenes with puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and dancers
costumed as everyday objects (a book, a clock, a cake), Simmons
creates a nostalgic world that explores the sentiments of love and
romance among family and neighbors. Lari Pittman draws inspiration
from a childhood that allowed him to be creative and imaginative, as
well as from an acute awareness of our country’s attitude toward the
gay community. His meticulously-layered paintings transform
decoration, pattern and signage into elaborate scenes in which
viewers get swept away by their dizzying complexity. Sculptor Judy
Pfaffdesigned an exhibition around the sadness and loss she
experienced following the death of several of her closest friends and
family members. Balancing intense planning with improvisational
decision-making on site, Pfaff creates a sprawling sculptural
installation that explores the worlds of black and white, and blends
landscape and architecture into an organic whole. Pierre Huyghe uses
various forms of expression to create new worlds and investigate the
circulation of stories. His films, installations and public projects
closely examine culture and boundaries, and use playfulness and humor
as a way to address complex social topics. From an expedition in
Antarctica to a small-town parade, Huyghe thrives on the production
and documentation of new and scripted realities.

episode 2: protestPremieres Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 10 p.m.
(check local listings)

The second installment of Season 4 examines the ways in which four
artists use their work to picture war, express outrage, and empathize
with the suffering of others.

Politics and the brutality of war underscore many of Nancy Spero’s
paintings. A pioneer of feminist art, she creates easily-read yet
complicated work that makes an unapologetic statement against, and
generates discussion about, the abuse of power, privilege and male
dominance. Landscape photographer An-My Lê's black and white images
examine the impact, representation and meaning of war, as well as the
relationship between military activity and the surrounding terrain.
Lê draws on her own childhood experience as a refugee of the Vietnam
War to capture compelling photographs reflecting our present-day
involvement in the Middle East. Basing his work on research,
reflection, and response to horrific events, Alfredo Jaar’s
installations, films and community-based projects communicate a
specific experience to his audience, capturing beauty, but also
confronting horror. Jaar identifies the gap between reality and its
representation, and his work explores the limits of art to accurately
represent tragic world events, from genocide to poverty and famine.
Jenny Holzer, well-known for her subversive use of text and poetry,
focuses on cruelty, devastation, consumerist impulses, death and
disease in order to provoke a critical response from the viewer.
Whether in an installation of declassified war documents or a large-
scale projection of text from provocative essays, Holzer presents
words in ways that are overwhelming, exacting, and illustrate the
power of language to harm or heal, expose or conceal.

episode 3: ecologyPremieres Sunday, November 11, 2007 at 10 p.m.
(check local listings)

This episode introduces viewers to four artists whose works pose
questions about the relationships between nature and culture.

Ursula von Rydingsvard works primarily with cedar to create large
scale structures. Drawing from her childhood memories of growing up
in WWII Polish refugee camps, she creates massive wooden sculptures,
which often resemble bowls, tools, and walls, and echo the raw,
wooden barracks in which her family was forced to live.Iñigo Manglano-
Ovalle’s technologically sophisticated sculptures and video
installations employ natural forms such as clouds and icebergs, as
well as objects including an umbrella and bullfight ring, as
metaphors for understanding difficult social issues from immigration
and gun violence to human cloning. For photographer Robert Adams,
inspiration comes from the American West. Through his compelling
black and white images, he documents scenes and landscapes – from a
stripped forest to a sprawling suburban neighborhood – that are
beautiful yet disturbing and strike a balance between sober
documentation and somber indignation. Mark Dion lives amongst “the
world of stuff,” collecting materials from flea markets and yard
sales for his installations and public projects, many of which
explore our ideas and assumptions about nature. Inspired and
intrigued by scientists, natural history museums and laboratory
procedures, Dion’s works include an elaborate Vivarium in Seattle for
which he constructed a greenhouse to protect and keep alive a fallen
tree and its surroundings – a tribute to and appreciation for the
complexities of our natural system.

episode 4: paradoxPremieres Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 10 p.m.
(check local listings)

Episode 4 of the series showcases five artists who, through uniquely
different styles of work, address and respond to contradiction,
conflict and ambiguity, and examine the relationship between mystery
and meaning in art.

Mark Bradford uses signage and advertisements scavenged from the
street to create wall-sized collages which respond to the impromptu
networks that emerge within a city, such as underground economies,
immigrant communities, or the use of abandoned public space. In his
films, Bradford captures and documents the cultural, political and
racial conditions of an urban environment. Catherine Sullivan’s
anxiety inducing films and live performances reveal the degree to
which everyday gestures and emotional states are scripted and
performed, questioning the border between innate and learned
behavior. Influenced by the work of artists such as Mark Rothko and
his own love of jazz and bebop, Robert Ryman is well-known for his
work with white paint on square forms, which reveals the nuances of
the surface. His paintings are characterized by their subtlety, as
they explore the distinction between art as an object or surface,
sculpture or painting, and emphasize the role that perception and
context play in creating an aesthetic experience. Collaborators
Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla draw inspiration from their
belief that art can function as a catalyst for social change, and
their works – which include sculpture, video documentation and public
installations – often solicit active participation and critical
responses from their viewers. They approach visual art as a set of
experiments that test whether concepts such as authorship,
nationality, borders, and democracy adequately describe today’s
increasingly global society.

underwriters
Major underwriting for Season Four of Art:21–Art in the Twenty-First
Century has been provided by The National Endowment for the Arts; The
Public Broadcasting Service; Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro; The
Nathan Cummings Foundation; Bloomberg; The Andy Warhol Foundation for
the Visual Arts; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; and The Bagley
Wright Fund. Lead sponsorship of Season Four education programs has
been provided by JPMorgan Chase.

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