The Art Assignment

Culture Series / 6 Seasons

The Art Assignment is a weekly PBS Digital Studios production hosted by curator Sarah Green. We take you around the U.S. to meet working artists and solicit assignments from them that we can all complete.

Watch Latest: S6 E32

5m 25s

Art and Empathy

S6 E10 / 16m 2s

Empathy is a term we hear a lot, but what does it mean and how does it work? Looking back through art history, we find many moments when art has allowed us to share in the feelings of others, from Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to representations of the Buddhist deity Jizō Bosatsu.

Whose Migrant Mother was this?

S6 E9 / 10m 59s

Dorothea Lange captured this iconic photo known as Migrant Mother in 1936. But who was the woman pictured? And how did she and her family feel about its existence in the world? Guest host John Green introduces you to Florence Owens Thompson, her family, and her story.

How Climate Changes Art

S6 E8 / 15m 40s

Throughout history, art has helped reveal the climate around us and highlight our fragile relationship to it. We look at navigational charts from the Marshall Islands, Katsushika Hokusai’s "Under the Wave off Kanagawa," to the cave paintings of Lascaux, and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, among others.

What Does Resistance Look Like?

S6 E6 / 14m 2s

Resistance isn't always visible, but when we can see it in art, what does it look like? Step back through global art history and look at Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace, Henry Oscar One Bull’s Custer’s War, Goya's Disasters of War, and Kara Walker's Darkytown Rebellion.

What Art tells us about Gender

S6 E4 / 14m 38s

There is a huge range of ways that gender has been understood and represented in the history of art. We look at a few examples that show us gender is a concept that has never been fixed: Hermaphroditos by the ancient Greeks, Titian's Venus of Urbino, Baule portrait masks, the photographs of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, and Maya stone carvings.

Art About Migration

S6 E2 / 16m 33s

Migration is central to human experience, and art history reflects that. Skipping through time and geography, we explore Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, Lapita pottery, the Akbarnama, and the MexicaN codex "Tira de la Peregrinación," and also discuss contemporary art about migration.

Eat Like Andy Warhol

S6 E1 / 17m 26s

From Coca-Cola, Cornflakes, and Campbell's Tomato Soup, to a single mushroom, a banana, and a giant piece of meat, we step our way through the industrially-produced foods that Andy Warhol both ate and also venerated in his art. Let's eat like Andy.

Supported by