Inside PBS Blog
Insights into PBS programming and personalities
Ask Art:21
When you go behind the scenes at Art:21, a PBS series that explores contemporary visual art in the United States, you’ll find associate curator Wesley Miller and series producer Eve Moros Ortega supporting Executive Producer and Curator, Susan Sollins at the helm.
Producing each season “feels a lot like creating a work,” says Moros Ortega. She blogged about the experience earlier this year. Art:21 just wrapped its fifth season on PBS, in which 14 internationally recognized artists were filmed creating new art in their own workspaces.
From Doris Salcedo’s emotionally charged sculptures to Cindy Sherman’s transformative photographs, this season took viewers around the world to see how individuals are changing the world through their art. Before the Art:21 team begins working on a new season we have both Eve Moros Ortega and Wesley Miller here this week to answer your questions.
You can watch the Season 5 episodes now on PBS Video. After that, leave your questions below and we’ll post answers next week.
Related Link: Executive Producer and Curator, Susan Sollins on the NewsHour Art Beat blog from early last month.
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Episode Themes
How do you choose which artists to feature? Do you come up with the episode themes first, then find artists or round up artists for an entire season and then decide who goes together?
Background music on PBS Commercial: "This Belongs to You".
What's the title and who wrote the background music for the PBS commercial " This Belongs to you " ?
background music for PBS "This belong to you"
who wrote the background music for the PBS Commercial "This belong to you"
Background music on PBS Commercial "This Belongs to You
OK. So what is the answer? Where can I find this beautiful music?
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I love to hear the music, This Belongs To You. Where can I find the piano arrangement to this beautiful piece of music? Thank you. Koni Hembree
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Art:21 the best yet
I loved the segment on Cindy Sherman and the pre-history leading up to the seminal "untitled film stills". Is it difficult to get the artists to talk through the pre-cursors and influences that lead up to their most famous works?
Childhood
Artist Jeff Koons mentioned that he was pretty self-reliant as a kid and alluded to absentee parents. Many other artists claim to come from troubled backgrounds - do you think this is a determining factor in an artist's aesthetic? Or do you think the artistic ability is more nature than nurture?
Jeff Koons
At what point does an artist become more of a manager than an actual artist? Jeff Koons employs over 100 people in his factory to produce copies of everyday objects - I love the pieces, don't get me wrong - but where do you, as the curators of a program about artists, draw the line?
subjects
How do you choose the themes for each season? Do try to find themes that go together or themes that purposefully counteract each other?
Difficult Artists
Have you ever found an artist who you wanted to feature, but didn't want to participate? Is it difficult to get artists to open up and expose their processes to you the way season 5 did?