Ellen Gallagher
“I’m collecting advertisements and stories and characters,” she says. “And I see them as conscripts in the sense that they come into my lexicon without me asking them permission.” Using an intricate printmaking process to engrave an image of Isaac Hayes, Gallagher comments “I think there is a nostalgia in my gathering of this material…yet in that gesture you’re continually moving forward and continually seeing the world.”
Link to Art 21 video: https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s3/ellen-gallagher-in-play-segment/
Nancy Spero
Spero further explains how the politically-inspired work of her late husband, Leon Golub, not only stimulated, but also posed a challenge for her own work. “It was pretty damned difficult contending with someone who was so…brilliant,” she says. Viewers observe Spero as she creates a new work for the Venice Biennale.
Here is the link to the ART 21 video: https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s4/nancy-spero-in-protest-segment/