It's never been harder to define "art" than it is today, but one thing is certain — artists are always having a conversation with the time they live in.
videos + essays
Over the next two years, Seeing America will grow to include 100 videos, 18 essays, quizzes, discussion questions and lesson plans.
Superman, World War II, and Japanese-American experience
Superman makes an appearance in what looks (at first sight) like a Japanese print.
What’s in a map? Reading the United “States” in Jaune Quick-To-See Smith’s State Names
Native American artist Jaune Quick-To-See Smith suggests that thinking about our history in a different way helps us rethink our present.
The American Revolution as a world war: Kenseth Armstead’s Surrender Yorktown 1781
How can we begin to correct the lies of history? Artist Kenseth Armstead suggests a poetic solution.
Turning Uncle Tom’s Cabin upside down, Alison Saar’s Topsy
A Greek myth and the American anti-Slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin combine to upend our own contemporary myths
An unflinching memorial to Civil Rights martyrs, Thornton Dial’s Blood and Meat
An unflinching memorial to civil rights martyrs by the contemporary artist Thorton Dial
The landscape remade, Thiebaud’s Ponds and Streams
Can the commonplace working farmland of California's Sacramento River Valley be a place of of breathtaking beauty?
American Kabuki
Teraoka draws on Japan's brilliant history of art and kabuki theatre to create beauty from heartrending tragedy
Light, time, and transcendence in James Turrell’s Skyscape
A viewing station for sunrise and sunset, Turrell’s work manipulates light, time, and perception.
The Culture Wars and Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc
Who should be the arbiter of taste—the person on the street, the artist, the courts?
“That’s the deal you gave us,” trade myths and native land
Smith created this in 1992, responding to the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in North America.
Television nation—Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway
The “father of video art” argued that electronic communication, not transportation, unites the modern world.