Mark Dion was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1961. He received a BFA (1986) and an honorary doctorate (2003) from the University of Hartford, School of Art, Connecticut. Dion’s work examines ...

Artist Martin Puryear discusses his work’s connection to the history of abstraction and the inspiration for his 1996 installation piece, “Ladder for Booker T. Washington.” ART21: Your work is often ...

Use themes and big ideas driven by essential questions to frame your investigation. Integrating contemporary art and themes into teaching requires a shift from predominantly technique-driven ...

LaToya Ruby Frazier was born in 1982 in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and currently lives and works in Chicago. An artist and activist, LaToya Ruby Frazier uses photography, video, and performance to ...

Art21’s education initiatives engage audiences in a dialogue about contemporary art and the artists featured in Art21 films. Programs are based on the organization’s belief that the art and ideas of ...

Margaret Kilgallen was born in 1967 in Washington, D.C., and received her BA in printmaking from Colorado College in 1989. Shortly afterward, the artist moved to San Francisco, where she took up ...

Leonardo Drew was born in Tallahassee, Florida in 1961, and grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Although often mistaken for accumulations of found objects, his sculptures are instead made of “brand ...

Liz Larner was born in Sacramento, California in 1960. She experiments with abstract sculptural forms in a dizzying array of materials, including polychromatic ceramics that evoke the tectonic ...

Tala Madani was born in Tehran, Iran in 1981. She skewers stereotypes in her sharply satirical paintings that evoke clashes of culture: men and women, the rational and the absurd, Western and ...

Kalup Linzy was born in 1977 in Clermont, Florida, formerly worked in New York, and currently lives and works in Tampa, Florida. Linzy’s theatrical works challenge ideas of gender while embracing a ...

Paul McCarthy was born in 1945 in Salt Lake City. He studied at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City (1968–69); earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (1969) and an MFA from the ...

Josiah McElheny was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1966, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and apprenticed with master ...