|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
stories & contemporary
art
How do artists tell stories in their work? How does contemporary
art reflect and reveal narrative traditions? How does the art of
today record and describe the world around us? The Art:21 documentary
“Stories” explores these questions through the work of Charles
Atlas, Kara Walker, Kiki
Smith, Do-Ho Suh, and Trenton
Doyle Hancock.
special features
See a slideshow of artworks showcased in the “Stories” episodes,
watch a video preview of the show, or explore a slideshow of artists
from multiple seasons of Art:21 discussing the theme of stories
in their work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
episode synopsis: “stories”
The artists profiled in “Stories” tell tales—autobiographical,
fictional, satirical, or fantastical—through architecture, literature, mythology,
fairytales, and history. These
artists provoke us to think about our own stories, the characters and caricatures,
the morals and messages that define our real
and imagined lives. Filmed on location in São Paolo, Brazil; New York,
New York; Saratoga Springs, New York; [foundry], New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Seoul,
South
Korea;
Seattle Washington; Houston, Texas; and Dallas, Texas.
Created by Charles Atlas, the opening
for Stories is a gloss on the classic “Masterpiece Theater” host introduction.
Filmmaker John Waters greets the audience dressed
for
the part in a checkered smoking jacket and surrounded by his extensive collection
of art books in his Baltimore home. “Good art provokes and inspires,” declares
Waters. For Waters, “a strong reaction” is an important measure of
success. “Not
everyone likes the stories I tell,” Waters modestly remarks. |
|
VIDEO: |
Opening segment by Charles
Atlas with John Waters |
|
|
|
|
|
| "The illusion is
that most of my work is simply about past events, a point in history
and nothing else," says
Kara Walker about her subversive use of the traditional
silhouette technique. The segment traces the evolution of Walker's
work,
from time spent in the studio to the artist's recent installations
of projected light. "A lot of what I was wanting to do in
my work and what I have been doing has been about the unexpected...that
unexpected situation of wanting to be the heroine and yet wanting
to kill the heroine at the same time." Projecting fiction
into fact, Walker's art upsets the conventions of history and
storytelling. |
|
|
|
|
| "Basically, I think
art is just a way to think," remarks Kiki
Smith, "it’s like standing in the wind and letting
it pull you in whatever direction it wants to go." Adept in
bronze, wax, textiles, and printmaking, the
segment follows Smith on a journey through a diversity of narrative
subjects including witches, saints, death, animals, family members,
domestic objects, and dolls. Smith explains her relationship to
meaning in her work: "I’d rather make something that’s
very open-ended that can have a meaning to me, but then it also
can have a meaning to somebody else who can fill it up with their
meaning." |
|
|
|
|
| Do-Ho
Suh is filmed painting outside his childhood home. "Once
my fortune teller told me that I have five horses and that means
that I travel a lot," says Suh, illuminating the concept behind
the artist's transportable fabric sculpture "Seoul Home/L.A.
Home..." Themes of homesickness, public and private space,
military conflict, conformity and difference, and art's relationship
to architecture are touched on by Suh as he installs an exhibition
at the Seattle Art Museum and travels
between his life and studio in New York and a life full
of memory and family ties in Seoul, South Korea. |
|
|
|
|
| "In my work I feel
I’m finally being able to bring together the worlds of comic
book narratives and the history of abstraction," comments
Trenton Doyle Hancock. Hancock's
drawings, installations, paintings tell the epic story of a group
of mythical creatures called Mounds. While developing
the most recent installment of his story, Hancock explains that
his newest series of allegorical paintings are "colorful blasts
of energy or communication from Mounds, these visions of hope.
So in a way it's like God’s promise with the rainbow after
the flood." |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
