Two artists take on Philadelphia in this season of PBS’s ‘Art21′

Art21′s PBS flagship art documentary series, Art in the Twenty-First Century lets viewers observe a wide range of artists in their day-to-day, following them in and outside of their studios.

The 11th season premiered April 7. In the kickoff episode, mixed-media artist Rose B. Simpson contemplates her ancestral landscape, the Santa Clara Pueblo mountains. “My people were living here — between these mountain ranges, along this river — for thousands of years,” she says in the episode.

Simpson’s work is currently on display in Philadelphia. A recent residency at the Fabric Workshop and Museum culminated in the exhibition “Dream House,” on view until May 7. This latest solo show takes into account Philadelphia’s history. “There’s a really deep sense that this place makes change,” Simpson said to The Inquirer. “It’s a strong, influential point in the world.”

Over the course of the hour-long episode, she scales cliffs, rips down a scenic road in her renovated lowrider, and sculpts clay busts in her home studio.

The PBS-produced biennial program has been highlighting contemporary artists since 2001. In the program roster, fresh talent mingles with household names; two of this year’s artists are close to home.

Multimedia artist Alex Da Corte has roots in the city, having graduated from the University of the Arts in 2004. In one Art21 sequence, Da Corte roams the Philadelphia Museum of Art, taking in the austere Brancusi galleries.

» READ MORE: Alex Da Corte’s ‘The Street’ is a love letter to Philadelphia written in Pop Art

In the next shot, we see his riff on a famous Brancusi sculpture, The Kiss: Da Corte has set the figure in motion in a playful, candy-hued animation. The artist has taken the original, stiff marble and made it sparkle. The same irreverence can be seen throughout his work. In the final sequence, Da Corte blows another raspberry, this time at the legendary Alexander Calder. In an enormous outdoor mobile, Da Corte summons this artistic titan — only to undercut the homage by perching an electric blue Big Bird on the sculpture’s edge.

“I am very interested in destabilizing monuments or, to go even further, reevaluating the notion of standards and legacies,” Da Corte told The Inquirer, but this strategy is meant to soothe viewers, not scorn them. As the documentary tells us, Da Corte envisions a “gentler, more tender way of understanding what it means to be human.” Doing so means drawing on familiar themes of community and heritage.

The same can be said of Simpson — hence the rationale for pairing the two artists. As episode director Ian Forster said to The Inquirer, “they both explore ideas of hybridity and personal evolution through art, and they both have a deep appreciation for the handmade and craft lineages.”

Rose B. Simpson’s “Dream House” is on view at the Fabric Workshop through May 7. On May 3, the FWM will host a free screening of Art21 and a guided tour. All episodes can be streamed on the Art21 website.