Art21

“Art21 is an unlimited 24/7 resource of all kinds of stuff from all different people,” says Azikiwe Mohammed, who was featured in a 2022 film in the “New York Close Up” series. “There's educational resources, engaging public programs, and workshops that can help bring art into the classroom, which, very often, is a burden left on the teachers.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Tell us how Art21 has impacted you in the comments below.

“Art21, it's also a great model for documentary,” says Andrea Mancuso, Art21 Educator. “Art21 not only shares those stories, but it also creates a language or a way for those stories to be shared.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Tell us how Art21 has influenced you in the comments below.

“The archive of films of artists’ practice and the depth of research that has gone into the archive of Art21 is incredible,” says Julie Mehretu, who was first featured on Art21 in Season 5 of “Art in the Twenty-First Century.” “And that’s only going to move the whole field forward.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Tell us how Art21 has impacted you in the comments below.

“When I first watched Art21, I knew that I was encountering something special,” says Shaun Leonardo, who appeared in the “New York Close Up” series in 2021. “It felt like the first portal where I could witness the how and, maybe more importantly, why an artist was being an artist, to explore the material depth and purpose through the artist's own voice.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Tell us how Art21 has impacted you in the comments below.

On this week of giving thanks, Art21 wants to share our endless gratitude to the artists, filmmakers, educators, students, enthusiasts, and supporters who make our work possible. Your contributions, involvement, belief, and viewership are what ensure our ability to educate and expand access to contemporary art.

Thank YOU for being a part of the Art21 community!

“For the first time, Art21 is embarking on capacity building efforts to grow its operations and increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production,” says Tina Kukielski, Susan Sollins Executive Director and Chief Curator. “Your support will help
make this growth possible, and will ensure that future generations continue to have free access to the artists who shape our culture.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Tell us how Art21 has impacted you in the comments below.

At Linda Goode Bryant’s Just Above Midtown (JAM) gallery, money was not the objective. Instead, the goal was that artists would make new and extraordinary work.

“I never had money, and, you know, you can live without money,” says the artist in our Season 11 finale episode, “Friends & Strangers.” “I discovered, when I started JAM, that one of the resources I could generate and use was debt.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/GoodeBryantStrangers

In 1972, artist Linda Goode Bryant moved to New York City and began working at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she spoke to Black artists who continually expressed feeling shut out of the art world. In response, the Just Above Midtown (JAM) gallery emerged.

“They [the art market] wouldn't let artists that were African American or other artists of color be exhibited,” says the artist in our Season 11 finale episode, “Friends & Strangers.” “So, my response to that was, you know, "f*** it. Let's just do it ourselves."

Watch → https://a21.tv/GoodeBryantStrangers

“Art21 gave me a chance to share the glimpse of live performance as well as my process,” says Aki Sasamoto, who has appeared in multiple “New York Close Up” series films. “I get emails from all over the world, teachers and students, saying these videos revealed otherwise inaccessible venues or work.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

In our Season 11 finale episode, artist Linda Goode Bryant recounts a story about earning money from her art practice at age seven.

“Life is not dictated by how much money you have if you realize how many other resources that are much more valuable than that,” says the artist in our “Friends & Strangers” episode, “like our imaginations and creativity.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/GoodeBryantStrangers

“[Art21] is a really powerful tool and experience to have as an educator to help students to make art relevant to who they are, to their lives,” says Alex Mendez, Art21 Educator. “You have a lot of support, that's going to enable you or allow you to do that.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference, thank you!

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

In 2016, Cannupa Hanska Luger designed mirrored shields and brought them to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota as an artwork, where they could be used to reflect the dehumanizing gear of the police back at them.

"You are an extension of the land, you belong to the land,” says the artist in our newly released “Friends & Strangers” episode. “Could I imagine a future where we all understood that collectively?”

Watch → https://a21.tv/LugerStrangers

In the Season 11 Finale of “Art in the Twenty-First Century,” Cannupa Hanska Luger discusses place, belonging, and process.

“What I'm trying to do is remove the idea of art as an object, and think of art as a process,” says the artist in our newly released episode, “Friends & Strangers.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/LugerStrangers

“Art21 is life, and art right now,” says Amy Jackson, Art21 Educator. “It's teaching students who they are today.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference, thank you!

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Cannupa Hanska Luger engages science fiction’s aesthetics and imaginative possibilities to project Indigenous culture and identity into the distant future in his ongoing series “Future Ancestral Technologies.”

“If it's hard to express what it means to be Indigenous today,” says the artist in our newest episode, “what does it look like if I bypass today and consider what it means to be in a distant future?”

Watch → https://a21.tv/LugerStrangers

“Art21 allows artists and our own voices to talk about our ideas and ideals,” says Oliver Herring, Season 3 featured artist and Art21 Board member. “That connection… It's so straightforward and relatable.”

Join the "Art21 for Everyone" movement to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Donate today and help Art21 increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production. Your support makes a difference, thank you!

Learn more→ art21.org/art21-for-everyone

Christine Sun Kim’s mural at the Queens Museum, Time Owes Me Rest Again (2022), reflects the exhausting activity of demanding access and rights as a Deaf person and the exhaustion of being a resident of Corona, Queens, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I looked at a bunch of different signs that come into contact with the body, and I came up with a one-line poem to fit the current climate and what was happening in this area. "Time owes me rest again."”

Watch → https://a21.tv/KimStrangers

“I'm thinking of a way to re-signify that public space that is used to commemorate colonial history,” says Joiri Minaya in Art21’s “New York Close Up” series. “And instead trying to
commemorate the people who resisted colonialism who don't have a statue.”

Art21 x Burnaway: In celebration of Burnaway’s 15th Anniversary, the website will host a series of Art21 films that feature contemporary artists with Southern ties. 🎥 ⁠

📖Read & 📺Watch→ https://bit.ly/45XOjin

In our Season 11 finale episode, Christine Sun Kim thinks back on early experiences with art, access, and moving to New York City.

“I'm always a little bit jealous of artists who have the privilege to be misunderstood. For me, I automatically feel like I need to explain what things mean. And I think that stems from a
place of how misunderstandings can affect my rights.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/KimStrangers

Art21 is embarking on its first-ever capacity-building campaign with the goal of bringing more art to more audiences worldwide. 📣 https://art21.org/art21-for-everyone/

The "Art21 for Everyone" campaign is raising funds to realize new initiatives that will increase digital access, boost educational impact, and expand film production.

With artists at the core of all Art21 does, we will be sharing some artist testimonials illustrating the impact Art21 has had on their lives over the next several weeks. Most recently, artist Christine Sun Kim told us:

"When Art21 reached out asking me if I'd be interested in making a film about my work I was shocked, but ultimately honored because I have been following Art21 since the beginning. I remember moving to New York in 2002 and being able to watch a lot of Art21 films because so many of them were captioned. It was accessible to me, and because of this I've been able to see most of the films they've produced over the years."

Maintaining this level of accessibility across Art21 films and content is paramount to our work. We need your help so future generations can continue to benefit from the endless inspiration, creativity, and ideas of artists of our time. Thank you.

Hovering above a table full of pastels and charcoal sticks, artist Christine Sun Kim organizes her studio space and dusts off her hands, ready to work.

“I've just been noticing that my life is just one big echo,” Christine Sun Kim muses in our newly released “Friends & Strangers” episode. “Or, rather, maybe just small echoes that become one big echo, and that's something that's been a part of my life since I was born.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/KimStrangers

After the success of her film “Me and You and Everyone We Knew,” Miranda July found new ways to bring risk and vulnerability to her performances by asking her audiences to participate.

“I remember, after that movie came out, performing and realizing, ‘They just want to see the girl from that movie.’ That actually was a bit of a crisis at first,” says the artist in our newly released “Friends & Strangers episode. “And that was actually the point when I started… making pieces that asked a lot of the audience.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/JulyFriendsStrangers

In 2020, Miranda July met Jay Benedicto, a telemarketer from Dulag, Philippines, and the two embarked on a collaborative project.

“The best feeling is when you throw down a challenge, and then the person comes back with something much bolder,” says the artist in our newly released “Friends & Strangers episode. “That happened so regularly with Jay.”

Watch → https://a21.tv/JulyFriendsStrangers