Ted Geisel loved to doodle from the time he was a kid. He had an offbeat, fun-loving personality. He often threw dinner parties where guests wore outrageous hats! And he donned quirky hats when thinking up ideas for books like his classic The Cat in the Hat. This biography, with black-and-white illustrations throughout, brings an amazingly gifted author/illustrator to life.

The compelling paintings and posters of Tara McPherson are a tour de force of creative tension, at once heartfelt and heartbreaking. Creating art about people and their odd ways, recalling many issues from childhood and adult life experience, McPherson creates images that are thought-provoking and seductive. Tara's array of work includes numerous gig posters for rock bands, including Green Day, Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie, and advertising...

A deeply personal meditation on the haunting power of American photos and films of the 1940s Wartime Kiss is a personal meditation on the haunting power of American photographs and films from World War II and the later 1940s. Starting with a stunning reinterpretation of one of the most famous photos of all time, Alfred Eisenstaedt's image of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day, Alexander Nemerov goes on to examine an array of mostly...

In 1948, an Austrian-Hungarian Jewish 22-year-old from New York began his new career. Determined to be famous, he bought a one-way ticket to Paris, France. His assignment: cover nightclubs, sidewalk cafes, and weddings for the legendary Paris Herald Tribune. For the next 14 years, he developed a life and career by socializing and reporting on the folkways and foibles of some of the most powerful and famous people in the world. In I' ...

Naomi Wallace, an American playwright based in Britain, is one of the more original and provocative voices in contemporary theatre. Her poetic, erotically-charged, and politically engaged plays have been seen in London's West End, off-Broadway, at the Comédie-Française, in regional and provincial theaters, and on college campuses around the world. Known for their intimate, sensual encounters examining the relationship between identity and power,...

"Time" is always present in our interaction with works of art, whether we sit to contemplate a painting, stroll past a sculpture, or watch a video piece for its entire duration or cycle. Some works of art are time-based in that the viewer must experience them through the passage of time, as with music, while others refer to time through links or references to art history, our collective human history, or the timelessness of nature. Filmed on location...

The four artists profiled in “Humor” have been influenced by the history of humor and comedy, including vaudeville, cartoons, and comic books. The artists in this hour reveal how humor and satire can stimulate laughter as well as serve as a vehicle to explore serious subjects, such as feminism, the natural environment, the excesses of consumer culture, social injustice, and war.

With an introduction by John McEnroe in a video created by Barbara Kruger, the second half of this program turns its eye on the influences a consumerist society and pop culture exert on contemporary art and vice-versa. Featured are the experimental home, "furniture" designs, clothing and artificial island of Andrea Zittel. The paintings of Michael Ray Charles analyze the historical relationship between advertising images and cultural stereotypes....

With an introduction and video art by Laurie Anderson, this program considers the influence of place -- physical, conceptual or psychological; regional, national or transnational -- on such artists as Richard Serra, whose massive rolled-steel plates carve private moments out of public spaces; Sally Mann, whose photographs record the historical scars and romanticism latent in the landscape of the South; Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen, two San Francisco-based...

Drawing on primary source material from World War II-era Black newspapers and magazines, this powerful book profiles the Black artists who drew--mostly covertly behind the scenes--superhero, horror, and romance comics in the early years of the industry.