A Contemporary Artist From The Art 21 PBS Web Site Assignment

A Contemporary Artist From The Art 21 PBS Web Site - Assignment Example The essay "A Contemporary Artist From The Art 21 PBS Web Site" discovers the Contemporary Artist in Art 21. The episodes produced in each season have different types of theme like spirituality, identity, power, and humor among others. Some of the contemporary artists featured include Sally Mann, Kerry James, and Mel Chin among others. The first season of Art21 was premiered in 2001 its seasons being produced in every two years and has been able to spread in more than fifty countries. In this context we will cover season six which is the current one in 2012 in which Ai Weiwei was interviewed. He is known to be an outspoken activist of human rights and in this episode he was featured in the theme of change. His art included photographs, sculptures and also public artworks which were about politics. . Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist born on 18th May 1957 in Beijing, China. He is one of the founders of Avant-garde art in 1978 to which the group disbanded in 1983 (Ai, 2011). He lived in United States, New York from 1981 to 1993 and studied at Parsons School of Design and also at the Art Student League of New York. He later returned to China and published three books on the new generation of artists. Ai Weiwei received a doctorate from the University of Ghent, Belgium from the faculty of Politics and Social science in 2010.He was arrested in 2011 and detained for three months without any official charges filed against him. He has received many awards which include Skowhegan medal in 2011.