Art 21: Art in the Twenty-First Century - Season 4

The second installment 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 current American 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.

This program 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.

The final episode 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. Collaborators Jennifer Allora and 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. 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, characterized by their subtlety, emphasize the role that perception and context play in creating an aesthetic experience. Mark Bradford uses signage and advertisements scavenged from the street to create wall-sized collages that respond to the impromptu networks, such as underground economies, immigrant communities or abandoned public spaces, that emerge within a city. 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.