Actor Claire Danes, who won America’s heart in TV’s “My So-Called Life” in the 1990s and went on to star in the post-9/11 drama “Homeland,” will now take a new kind of star turn, hosting this fall’s installment of PBS’s Peabody Award–winning documentary series “ART21.”
During its eighth season, the show will visit artists in four cities with lively art scenes—Chicago, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Vancouver—stopping in with artists Theaster Gates, Damián Ortega, Tala Madani, and Stan Douglas, respectively, among others.
MInerva Cuevas, Del Montte, 2003. Photo Gabriel Batiz, courtesy the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City.
“Growing up in a family where art was a part of everyday life, my parents taught me to question the world around me,” said the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor in PBS’s announcement. “Artists today influence how we see the world, how we express ourselves, and how art can transform society.”
The roster of artists also includes Nick Cave, Barbara Kasten, and Chris Ware in Chicago; Natalia Almada, Minerva Cuevas, and Pedro Reyes in Mexico City; Edgar Arceneaux, Liz Larner, and Diana Thater in LA; and Brian Jungen, Liz Magor, and Jeff Wall in Vancouver.
Tala Madani, Finding Zebra, 2008. Courtesy the artist and Pilar Corrias, London.
The show will consider these artists in terms of their relationship to their respective cities.
“Art is increasingly being defined and described in relationship to a sense of place,” said ART21 executive director Tina Kukielski. “In our time of hyper-interconnectivity, where you choose to live and work matters like never before.”