Video by Art21. Where does a painter find her subject matter? With a process that takes her from the streets of Harlem to her studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn, artist Jordan Casteel paints vibrant large scale portraits, making visible the often unrepresented humanity of Black men. At first struggling to find subject matter that could speak to the political realities of police violence and implicit bias, Casteel drew inspiration from her twin brother. "People follow me like I’m a threat," the artist remembers her brother saying, "but they don’t know anything about me." Together Casteel's paintings illustrate the multiplicity of Black male experience; she began with nudes in domestic interiors before expanding to men on the sidewalk, the color and compositions celebrating the visual texture of her Harlem neighborhood. Casteel's work is probing in its tender depiction of Black men who, although often strangers to the artist, gaze directly and intimately out at the viewer. Jordan Casteel (b. in 1989, Denver, Colorado) lives and works in New York. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/jordan-casteel/

Video by Art21. Episode #252: Shown working on two site-specific paintings for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Julie Mehretu recontextualizes the history of American landscape painting by merging its sublime imagery with the harsh realities not depicted. "What does it mean to paint a landscape and be an artist in this political moment?" she asks from the decommissioned Harlem church used as her studio for the project. Referencing the ways that landscapes have been politicized through historical events—from the violent expansion of the American West, colonialism, war, and abolition, through to more recent race riots and social protests—Mehretu began by combining photographs from these events with nineteenth-century landscape paintings. Abstracting and digitizing the blended forms, she printed the resulting images on two monumental canvases, each spanning more than eight hundred square feet. Over these underpaintings, Mehretu adds gestural, calligraphic brush strokes before screen printing an additional, complicating layer of pixelated images. Collaborator Jason Moran, a composer and jazz pianist, joins Mehretu in the studio to create a musical arrangement inspired by her improvisational process of markings and erasure. Through their respective practices, the two artists create new visual and auditory languages in the hopes of processing the complex history that brought us to our present moment. As Mehretu explains, the paintings become "visual neologisms," that combine the work and inventions of past artists, "to address when language isn't enough."

Video by Art21. This episode provides an in-depth look at the creation of Kara Walker's monumental public project, "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" (2014), at the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, NY. Seated in her Manhattan studio, Walker explains how the molasses-covered space, along with her extensive research into the history of sugar, inspired her to create a colossal sugar-coated sphinx, as well as a series of life-sized, sugar and resin boy figurines. A team of artists and fabricators are shown constructing and coating the sphinx, which, as Walker says, gains its power by "upsetting expectations, one after the other." Commissioned by Creative Time, "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" is the first large-scale public project by Walker who is best known for her cut paper silhouette installations, drawings, and watercolors. "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby" was on view until July 6, 2014. Thereafter, the factory is scheduled to be demolished to make way for condominiums.

Video by Art21. Luchita Hurtado reflects on her eight-decade-long career and the relationship between the human body and the natural world that is embedded in her work. In her Santa Monica studio, Hurtado works on a new painting from her "Birthing" series, discussing how her experience of motherhood and her commitment to environmental activism merge in this most recent body of work. Born in Venezuela, Hurtado describes her childhood growing up in New York City, her first art classes, and the challenges of starting a family while maintaining an artistic practice. "It takes a great deal of energy, having the life of a parent and having the life of an artist," recounts Hurtado. "My real painting, I could do at night after everyone was asleep." Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/luchita-hurtado/

Video by Art21. How does a painter translate the real into the abstract? From her Brooklyn studio, artist Maryam Hoseini explores the spaces in between painting and drawing, figuration and abstraction, and the personal experiences embedded in her work and the multiple interpretations viewers can bring to it. As she flips through her pencil drawings and resumes work on an acrylic painting, the artist recounts her early interest in drawing classes and the strong, female art teacher in her native Iran that inspired her. Hoseini's current work depicts fragmented—often female—bodies floating in abstract, flattened architectural spaces, in suggestive, but open-ended narratives. Maryam Hoseini (b. 1988, Tehran, Iran) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/maryam-hoseini

By art21. Artist Mickalene Thomas discusses her use of craft materials, her artistic influences, and the importance of seeing oneself represented in museums. Created by Smarthistory.

Video by Art21. Minerva Cuevas looks back on "Crossing of the Rio Bravo" (2010), a work in which she painted a bridge across a riverbed that divides Mexico and the United States. On her visit to where the Rio Bravo / Rio Grande snakes through the Chihuahuan Desert, Cuevas found the media’s depiction of the border is inaccurate. "Violence is a very strong element in this perception of what's the border," says the artist. "Not witnessing anything connected to that kind of mediatic violence, it's the first liberation. You realize that what is intimidating is the desert itself." Minerva Cuevas is a conceptual and socially-engaged artist who creates sculptural installations and paintings in response to politically-charged events, such as the tension between world starvation and capitalistic excess. Cuevas documents community protests in a cartography of resistance while also creating mini-sabotages—altering grocery store bar codes and manufacturing student identity cards—as part of her non-profit Mejor Vida Corp / Better Life Corporation. Cuevas addresses the negative impact that humans have on animals and the environment through sculptures coated in tar and tender paintings of animal rights activists, imagining a society that values all living beings. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/minerva-cuevas/

By Art21. Artist Nick Cave discusses the experiences that force him to confront his identity as a black man—including being racially profiled by police—and how they fuel his impulse to create. Cave explains that in these moments he gets quiet and avoids lashing out in rage. “And if I do, lashing out for me is creating this,” he says in reference to his intricately constructed Soundsuits. “The Soundsuits hide gender, race, class and they force you to look at the work without judgment.” The exhibition “Here Hear,” which included a large-scale community performance, was installed at Detroit’s Cranbrook Art Museum in 2015. The museum is associated with the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Nick Cave attended graduate school in the 1980s and was the only minority student at the time. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/nick-cave/

Video by Art21. The interdisciplinary collective Postcommodity creates site-specific installations and interventions that critically examine our modern-day institutions and systems through the history and perspectives of Indigenous people. Influenced by growing up in the southwestern United States, the artists Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist revisit their 2015 public installation, "Repellent Fence," produced with previous Postcommodity artist, Raven Chacon. A two-mile-long line of enormous balloons across the Arizona-Sonora border, "Repellent Fence" symbolically sutured together cultures and lands that had been unified long before borders were drawn. Shown installing ambitious architectural interventions at the Art Institute of Chicago and LAXART in Los Angeles, Martínez and Twist consider how American cities have been supported by and will continue to be transformed by the migration of Indigenous peoples from Mexico and Central and South America. To examine our cultural institutions and their demographic future, the pair thinks of the coming decades, when the U.S. Census Bureau predicts a non-White majority. “Our job is to allow a new public memory to be born,” says Martínez. “Here’s our lens; take a look at the world through it, and tell us what you think.” Other featured projects include "Do You Remember When?" (2009), produced in collaboration with previous Postcommodity artist Raven Chacon (2009–2018), co-founder Steven Yazzie (2007–2010), and co-founder Nathan Young (2007–2015). Learn more about the artists at: https://art21.org/artist/postcommodity/

Art21 proudly presents this special extended segment as a complement to the "Borderlands" episode from the tenth season of the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" series. Edited to focus on a singular artist narrative, this film contains original material not included in the television broadcast. "Borderlands" premiered in October 2020 on PBS. Known for his large-scale, interactive installations, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer uses contemporary technologies like computerized surveillance, heart-rate sensors, and robotics to create participatory experiences and platforms for public participation and connection. The artist frequently works in and transforms public spaces, creating awe-inspiring, poetic, and critical installations, like "Voz Alta": a massive megaphone system erected in a Mexico City plaza to commemorate the infamous Tlatelolco student massacre in 1968. Spurred by his Mexican heritage and the growing nationalism in the United States, Lozano-Hemmer embarks on his most ambitious project to date: "Border Tuner," an enormous intercom system at the border between El Paso and Juárez that allows participants from both sides to speak and listen to each other via radio-enabled searchlights. At his studio in Montreal, the artist works with a team of scientists, engineers, programmers, architects, and designers to develop the project; at the El Paso–Juárez border, he invites local artists and performers and members of the public to use "Border Tuner" to listen to, share, and visualize their voices and stories. Highlighting the intimate, personal relations in a public space that is otherwise systematically dehumanizing, Lozano-Hemmer explains, “The most important role that art can play is that of making complexity visible. The usage of technology is inevitable; it’s up to the artist to use those technologies to create experiences that are intimate, connected, and critical.” Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/rafael-lozano-hemmer/

Video by Art21. What does it mean to be an American artist today? From his basement studio in Ridgewood, Queens, artist Raúl de Nieves creates an epic stained glass mural for the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Born in Mexico, de Nieves immigrated to San Diego at the age of nine and has been living in New York since 2008. "Growing up in Mexico was really magical because I got to see a lot of forms of celebration," says the artist. "I got to experience death as a really young child. That's what my work is about: it's like seeing the facets of happiness and sadness all in one place." His commission from the Whitney Museum of American Art gave de Nieves the opportunity to experiment with the tradition of stained glass, and combine this new light-infused installation with existing figurative sculptures. With gaffers tape, paper, and color gels, de Nieves created a narrative that begins with personal struggle and self-doubt, but ends with "a celebration of life." In reflecting upon his father's early death and his mother’s courageous decision to move their family to the United States, de Nieves sees the installation as a form of remembrance. "The mural talks about this experience—this journey," says the artist, "I feel really happy that I could put so much emphasis on this idea of 'a better tomorrow' in my artwork."

Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) lives and works in New York. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/raul-de-nieves/

Video by Art21. A pioneer of large-format color photography, Richard Misrach has photographed the American desert for decades, examining the impact of human activity on the natural landscape. From his Berkeley studio, the artist recounts his early work, "Telegraph 3 AM," in which he depicted the homeless population of 1970s Berkeley. Disillusioned with the commercial success of his photographs that he hoped would instigate social change, Misrach turned to the deserts of southern California, Nevada, and Arizona. Creating otherworldly images of cacti and rock formations and unsettling pictures of military bombing ranges, nuclear test sites, and man-made fires, for his ongoing "Desert Cantos" series, Misrach explains how “our culture stands out in very clear relief in the desert.” The artist recounts the origins of his "Border Cantos" series, which focuses on the U.S.-Mexico border wall and the artifacts left behind by migrant crossings. This segment follows the artist as he travels to remote parts of the desert, photographing the visual contradiction of the ominous wall against beautiful landscapes and collaborating with the composer Guillermo Galindo to create installations and musical performances that utilize the items found in the desert. Collectively, Misrach’s work chronicles the places where nature and culture collide, highlighting where beauty and ugliness exist side-by-side. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/richard-misrach/

Video by Art21. At work in her Berkeley studio, Stephanie Syjuco navigates the deeply embedded visual tropes of American history applied in her practice. Describing the shift in priorities associated with progressing in a career as an artist, Syjuco notes a correlation in time spent between project management and art making. "My reality is," she says, "it's a lot more paperwork than I wish it were." To center herself, Syjuco spends time in her garden, harvesting vegetables and "empire crops"—such as tobacco, corn, cotton, and indigo—as part of her research into colonialism and the writing of American history. Stephanie Syjuco was born in Manila, Philippines, in 1974. Syjuco works in photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing. Her work explores the tension between the authentic and the counterfeit, challenging deep-seated assumptions about history, race, and labor. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/stephanie-syjuco/

Video by Art21. The binational artist Tanya Aguiñiga pushes the power of art to transform the United States-Mexico border from a site of trauma to a creative space for personal healing and collective expression. Reflecting the cultural hybridity and community of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, the artist discusses her upbringing in Tijuana, her training as a furniture and craft designer, and her artistic beginnings with the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo collective. From her studio, the artist and her team produce objects like jewelry and housewares to fund their social-justice-based projects, workshops, and performances. Aguiñiga returns to the site of one of these projects, titled "Border Quipu," where she and her team recorded the stories of daily commuters from Tijuana to San Diego. This segment also follows Aguiñiga as she prepares for "Metabolizing the Border," a performance and personal reckoning with the pain caused by the border wall. The work is a demanding physical feat: the artist walks along the border wall in a glass suit that is designed to break, in order to express the effects of the wall as wounds on her body and to symbolize the struggle of the migrant experience. Aguiñiga demonstrates how art can be both a personal “physical and emotional outlet” and a vehicle to help others “empathize and think about how we’re all connected to each other.” Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/tanya-aguiniga/

Video by Art21. Alfredo Jaar in his installation "Infinite Cell" (2004) in Santiago, Chile, and various works. Through installations, photographs, and community-based projects, Alfredo Jaar explores the public's desensitization to images and the limitations of art to represent events such as genocides, epidemics, and famines. Jaar's work bears witness to military conflicts, political corruption, and imbalances of power between industrialized and developing nations, often taking the form of an extended meditation or elegy.