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structures & contemporary
art
How do we organize life? What are the ways in which we capture
knowledge and attempt greater understanding? The Art:21
documentary
“Structures” explores these questions
in the work of the artists Roni Horn,
Matthew Ritchie,
Fred Wilson, and Richard Tuttle,
and concludes with an original video artwork by Teresa
Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.
special features
See a slideshow of artworks showcased in the “Structures” episode,
watch a video preview of the show, or explore a slideshow of artists
from multiple seasons of Art:21 discussing the theme of structures
in their work.
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episode synopsis: “structures”
The artists in “Structures” create systems,
shift contexts, and engage with perception, utilizing unconventional
devices such as exhibitions within exhibitions and dramatic shifts
in scale between microcosm and macrocosm. Introduced by actor
Sam
Waterston, “Structures” is shot on location in Akureyri,
Iceland; London, England; New York, New York; Houston, Texas;
North
Adams, Massachussetts; São Paolo, Brazil; Newark, New Jersey;
Göteborg, Sweden; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Austin, Texas. |
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VIDEO:
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Introduction by
Sam Waterston |
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| “All anyone is trying
to do is try out some new ideas,” says Mathew
Ritchie in describing the project of modern art. Ambitious
certainly describes Ritchie's work, which seeks to picture the
known
universe. In “The Universal Cell,” Ritchie uses computers
and metal cutting equipment to transform drawings into sculpture.
“If the universe is a prison, this is your cell...and you
drag it with you everywhere you go.” In another show, “Proposition
Player,” Ritchie creates a series of games to explore the
continuum of risk, possibility, and universal connection. Ritchie
reflects on how humans filter out information in order to go about
their lives. “Can we turn the volume up just a little
bit more?” he asks. |
| VIDEO:
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"Proposition Player" Game |
| VIDEO:
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"The Universal Cell" |
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| Fred
Wilson blurs the line between art and curating
by designing a museum exhibition space in Sweden that
reorients archeological pieces to create new contextual meanings. “I
would like to think that objects have memories, and that we have
memories
about certain
objects,” he says. “A lot of what I do is eliciting
memory from an object.” Mounting tear-shaped black
glass drips on a white wall, and later creating prints of black
spots, Wilson reflects on how he was “shunned” as
a black child in an all-white school. “A lot of my project
is trying to understand the visual world around me,” he says. “What
is me, and what is something that the rest of the world has said
I am?” |
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| “A painting or a
sculpture really exists somewhere between what it is and what it
is not,” says Richard Tuttle.
Tuttle uses humble materials such as paper, wire, and string
to create art “that accounts for the invisible.” Tuttle
sees his current work as “a conjoining of architecture and
calligraphy.” In an exhibition at The Drawing Center in
New York, Tuttle creates “villages” in which sculptures
invite viewers
into a contemplative relationship with the artist’s diminutive
drawings. “The emotion of an art response does to me feel
like motion,” he observes. “We use that word moved. ‘I
am moved.’ And yet we know we’re standing right there
and we have this experience of being stationary and moved at the
same time.” |
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| “I almost feel like
I rediscover water again and again and again,” says Roni
Horn. "Some Thames," Horn’s permanent installation
at the University of Akureyri in Iceland, disperses 80 photographs
of water throughout
the school’s public spaces, echoing the ebb and flow of students
and learning. While
in Iceland, Horn also made "You Are the Weather," a series
of some 100 close-up images of one woman. “I was curious
to see if I could elicit a place from her face, almost like a landscape,” she
explains. Horn’s
installations bridge dimensions to “compose space” through
images and text. “My relationship to my work is extremely
verbal, extremely language-based,” she comments. |
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| Each episode for Season
Three concludes with an original work of video art by the artists
Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.
Known for their haunting video projections, Hubbard and Birchler’s
work alters temporal, cinematic and architectural expectations of
the viewer through the use of looping narratives. For Art:21, their
first commission for television, they have created a series of beautiful
and enigmatic short films. Each film uses the same setting—the
interior of a police car at night—and begins when one officer
brings a cup of coffee for another. Using recurring and non-recurring
characters, interrelated dialogue, and ambient sound, the suite
of films evoke not only the Seaon Three themes of Power, Memory,
Structures and Play, but also sleep, dreams and longing. |
| VIDEO:
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"Night Shift: Loop" (Commissioned
for: “Structures”) |
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