The Art Assignment

Season 2015

[Originally released on YouTube, will follow those air dates.]

Where to Watch Season 2015

36 Episodes

  • Play a game of "Movement Telephone" | Ryan McNamara
    E1
    Play a game of "Movement Telephone" | Ryan McNamaraPerformance artist Ryan McNamara joins PBS Digital Studio's The Art Assignment to challenge you to play a game of MOVEMENT TELEPHONE.
  • Facilitate an Encounter / Encuentro | Dignicraft
    E2
    Facilitate an Encounter / Encuentro | DignicraftThe Art Assignment visits artist collective Dignicraft during their residency at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Omar Foglio, José Luis Figueroa, and Paola Rodriguez give us the assignment to facilitate an Encounter / Encuentro.
  • Notes from New Orleans
    E3
    Notes from New OrleansWe visited New Orleans for the Prospect.3 exhibition and saw some fantastic art by Carrie Mae Weems, Camille Henrot, Shigeru Ban, Kerry James Marshall, and Tavares Strachan.
  • Become Someone Else | Tameka Norris
    E4
    Become Someone Else | Tameka NorrisWe’re talking about your responses to Tameka Norris’s assignment to Become Someone Else and how both internal and external change are a constant and inevitable reality in our lives. Thanks for all the wonderful submissions!
  • Produce an Assembly Line | Bob Snead
    E5
    Produce an Assembly Line | Bob SneadThe Art Assignment furthers their exploration of New Orleans to visit artist Bob Snead. He's the Executive Director of Press Street, an organization that promotes art and literature in the community through events, publications and arts education. Snead embraces the collaborative nature of art-making and gives us the assignment to produce an ASSEMBLY LINE.
  • Use creativity to transform a discarded object. | Brandan Odums
    E6
    Use creativity to transform a discarded object. | Brandan OdumsThe Art Assignment continues its journey through New Orleans with Brandan "BMike" Odums, the mastermind behind "ExhibitBE", a collaborative street art exhibition that transformed an unoccupied apartment building and gave it new life. Now he's asking YOU to do something similar.
  • Ten Ideas That led to a Different Idea
    E7
    Ten Ideas That led to a Different IdeaThis week we try our hand at one of those top 10 lists we keep seeing on the Interwebs these days. Specifically, we're going to talk about ten ideas that led to the idea of this very show!
  • Customize a common object. | Brian McCutcheon
    E8
    Customize a common object. | Brian McCutcheonIndianapolis-based artist Brian McCutcheon asks you to Customize It!
  • Collaborate With Son Lux | Ryan Lott
    E9
    Collaborate With Son Lux | Ryan LottRyan Lott, also known as Son Lux, is a musician and composer who works in collaboration.
  • The One That Got Away - Update
    E10
    The One That Got Away - UpdateOliver Blank gives an update on some of the best responses to his challenge
  • Declare your cause. | Allison Smith
    E11
    Declare your cause. | Allison SmithToday we visit artist Allison Smith in her Oakland, California studio. Her work focuses on historical reenactment and how the past influences the present -- and now she wants to know what YOU are fighting for.
  • Art As Experience: Book Club #2
    E12
    Art As Experience: Book Club #2
  • Make a Thing | Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan
    E13
    Make a Thing | Jonn Herschend & Will RoganThis week's assignment comes from Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan, who cofounded THE THING Quarterly, a publication that distributes everyday objects conceived of by different artists. They ask you to consider the meaning of physical objects in an increasingly digital world and Make a Thing.
  • The Case For Andy Warhol
    E14
    The Case For Andy WarholWhat's the deal with Warhol, and is he worth your time and consideration?
  • Explore a physical boundary. | Zarouhie Abdalian
    E15
    Explore a physical boundary. | Zarouhie AbdalianWe come to you this week from San Francisco's Exploratorium, where we met with artist-in-residence Zarouhie Abdalian. For her assignment, she wants you to focus on boundaries and the relationships between the spaces they separate.
  • Become a Sci-Fi Character | Desirée Holman
    E16
    Become a Sci-Fi Character | Desirée HolmanThis week we sit down with artist Desirée Holman to talk about her current project, Sophont, which explores ideas of science fiction, aliens, new-age ideology, mysticism, and tech culture. Her assignment asks you to become a science fiction character by creating and wearing some kind of psionics hardware that enhances your character's abilities.
  • The Case For Mark Rothko
    E17
    The Case For Mark RothkoRectangles after rectangles after rectangles.
  • Create an embarrassing object. | Geof Oppenheimer
    E18
    Create an embarrassing object. | Geof OppenheimerThis week's assignment comes to you from Chicago based artist Geof Oppenheimer. Geof's work reflects personal experience and the social and political atmosphere they were created in, and he wants you to make an object that does the same.
  • Do a surface test. | Kim Beck
    E19
    Do a surface test. | Kim BeckYou probably made rubbings in elementary school, but Kim Beck views rubbings as field recordings. She wants you to take a snapshot of a particular place by making a rubbing of the ground you're standing on.
  • VidCon Makes a Rug
    E20
    VidCon Makes a RugSo many of you came out to make a rug with us at VidCon and we couldn't be more thrilled with how it turned out. Thanks so much to all who participated, and especially those who were kind enough to share their thoughts about the experience!
  • Connect with your neighbor through film. | Jon Rubin
    E21
    Connect with your neighbor through film. | Jon RubinThis week we meet with Jon Rubin, a Pittsburgh based artist whose practice often focuses on cultural exchange, pushing us to imagine other people and their lives more complexly. For his assignment, he asks you to do the same by bridging the gap between you and your neighbor.
  • I Could Do That
    E22
    I Could Do ThatSo you look at a work of art and think to yourself, I could have done that. And maybe you really could have, but the issue here is more complex than that -- why didn't you? Why did the artist? And why does it have an audience?
  • Create someone's Lost Childhood Object. | Lenka Clayton
    E23
    Create someone's Lost Childhood Object. | Lenka ClaytonThis week we visit Lenka Clayton, another Pittsburgh based artist whose work finds meaning in ordinary, everyday objects. For her assignment, she asks you to partner with someone and recreate a lost childhood object, using their memory of the object and the materials you have around you.
  • Can You Become Someone Else?
    E24
    Can You Become Someone Else?We’re talking about your responses to Tameka Norris’s assignment to Become Someone Else and how both internal and external change are a constant and inevitable reality in our lives.
  • Host a Scramble Scrabble Dinner. | J. Morgan Puett
    E25
    Host a Scramble Scrabble Dinner. | J. Morgan PuettThis week we’re at Mildred’s Lane, a 96-acre site in rural Pennsylvania founded by J. Morgan Puett. Mildred’s Lane is an experiment in living - it's a space where Morgan and her friends collaborate on projects, practice creative domestication, and pay closer attention to every aspect of daily life.
  • What is Mildred's Lane?
    E26
    What is Mildred's Lane?We continue our stay at Mildred's Lane and talk to it's Director and Ambassador of Entanglement J. Morgan Puett about it's origins, it's goals and how her installation art practice influences her vision for the site.
  • Create paper weavings. | Michelle Grabner
    E27
    Create paper weavings. | Michelle Grabnermultiple mediums, but much of her work centers around pattern and color. Her assignment asks you to recall an activity you may have done in kindergarten and explore it’s potential as a design project.
  • Make a fake flyer. | Nathaniel Russell
    E28
    Make a fake flyer. | Nathaniel RussellToday we meet with artist and musician Nathaniel Russell. Nat's work plays with the divide between real and imagined, making posters and flyers for events that may or may not exist. His assignment asks you to make a fake flyer and share it with the world too.
  • What is ArtPrize?
    E29
    What is ArtPrize?We spent a week in Grand Rapids absorbing everything that was ArtPrize 2015, the world’s largest art competition. Here’s a taste of what we found.
  • Make It, then Break It. | Carolina Borja and Amy Toscani
    E30
    Make It, then Break It. | Carolina Borja and Amy ToscaniWe went to ArtPrize and met up with Minneapolis based artists Carolina Borja and Amy Toscani. Their exhibit this year invited the audience to destroy the large-scale handmade piñatas that they had spent hours constructing. And now it’s your turn to make and break.
  • Fix an object you feel bad for. | Diana Shpungin
    E31
    Fix an object you feel bad for. | Diana ShpunginWe continue our exploration of ArtPrize and meet with Brooklyn-based artist Diana Shpungin. Diana's work and her assignment for you are both based on empathy -- it's a feeling we usually have for other people, but Diana wants you to direct your empathy towards objects instead.
  • Fierce Women of Art
    E32
    Fierce Women of ArtThis week we're talking about a group of supremely awesome and unapologetic artists who take risks, question art world practices, and also happen to be women. These are truly inspirational artists who make a wide range of work, and today we're going to single out and celebrate five of them.
  • Use the Present Perimeter to create art. | Jonathan Nesci
    E33
    Use the Present Perimeter to create art. | Jonathan NesciThis week we meet with artist and designer Jonathan Nesci at the First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana. Jonathan uses systems of design to experiment with new materials and processes, and his assignment for you invites you to do the same by combining a set of particular shapes into different variations.
  • Be a news photographer.
    E34
    Be a news photographer.Alec Soth is a photographer who works on large-scale projects that play with the boundaries between his roles as a fine art photographer and photojournalist. This week, he asks you to take on the role of a newspaper photographer and report on a story from a different perspective.
  • Art Trip: Twin Cities
    E35
    Art Trip: Twin CitiesIn which we explore a few of Minnesota's many fantastic art offerings. Let's take a trip through the Twin Cities!
  • Construct a landscape. | Paula McCartney
    E36
    Construct a landscape. | Paula McCartneyThis week’s assignment comes from artist Paula McCartney, whose work explores the boundaries between the natural and unnatural. Her assignment asks you to reexamine what those terms even mean by constructing an image of the so-called natural world.

 

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