Art:21 - Art in the 21st Century

Buoyed by London’s history of artistic excellence, the artists featured in this hour draw inspiration from decades of British art while contending with the repercussions of colonialism and xenophobia, brought to light at a time of massive political upheaval in the country. The “London” episode features John Akomfrah, Phyllida Barlow, Anish Kapoor, and Christian Marclay.

Amid Beijing’s dizzying economic, urban, and cultural transformation, artists have responded to its relentless evolution with urgency and ambition, all the while contending with many centuries of Chinese cultural traditions. This hour witnesses the maturing of a unique contemporary-art hub and follows a multigenerational group of artists who grapple with memory, modernization, and their roles in the global art world. The “Beijing” episode features Guan Xiao, Liu Xiaodong, Song Dong, Xu Bing, and Yin Xiuzhen.

A vast geography encompassing open deserts and densely populated metropolises, the region between the United States and Mexico has long been a site of not only political conflict and social struggle but also intense creative ferment. Employing a fresh curatorial and filmmaking approach, the filmmakers connect and juxtapose a group of acclaimed artists—Tanya Aguiñiga, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Richard Misrach, and Postcommodity—as they work along the U.S.-Mexico border, interweaving their stories to chronicle the creative responses to one of the most divisive moments in the history of this area.