Art21
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Art21 *
Sound recording for Art21
(short nonfiction)
aka: location sound; sound mixing; sound for picture; recordist; sound recordist; soundie; audio recordist; sound engineer, audio engineer.
“Art21 produces award-winning documentary films about the world’s most groundbreaking contemporary artists.”
See below for selections from Fivel’s experience as a sound recordist for short documentaries produced by Art21.
Charles Gaines:
Systems & Structures
Location sound mixer
“Investigating the production of knowledge and culture, artist Charles Gaines uses rule-based systems to create paintings, drawings, musical compositions, and sculptures. Culminating in the completion of Moving Chains (2022), a 100-foot-long public sculpture, this film traces the connections Gaines makes between our lived experiences and the systems that shape them.”
Directed by Ian Forster and Sue Ding
Editor: Alexandra Brown
Camera: Sean Hanley, Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, Doug Potts
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2022
Hyeree Ro’s
Precise Ambiguity
Location sound mixer
“Pursuing the “precisely ambiguous,” Ro abstracts everyday objects, like paper packing trays or a dining table, from their original context and function to call attention to both their formal qualities as well as the emotional weight they can hold. This documentary short follows artist Hyeree Ro as she mines memories of road trips with her father and processes his recent passing through a new work, "Niro" (2024).
Director & Producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Editor: Yeon Park. Cinematography: Jane Macedo Yang
Sound: Pasquin Mariani, Fivel Rothberg
Series Producer: Nick Ravich
Art21 “New York Close Up,” 2025
Howardena Pindell:
Inner Circle
Location sound mixer
“For nearly six decades, artist Howardena Pindell has explored and expanded the language of abstraction while struggling against a racist and misogynistic culture. Pindell reflects on formative childhood memories, her confrontations with systemic prejudice, and the joy in being an artist.“
Director & producer: César Martínez Barba
Executive producer: Tina Kukielski
Series producer: Ian Forster
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2024
Drake Carr’s
Favorite Thing
Location sound mixer
“Amidst the disco balls of a queer dive bar or on the white walls of a commercial art gallery, artist Drake Carr exhibits his glamorous and heartfelt portraits of friends, peers, and fictional characters inspired by a deep affection for ‘80s fashion illustration and the D.I.Y. aesthetics of queer erotica. This documentary short captures the artist as he celebrates his final days as a bartender at Happyfun Hideaway and transitions to becoming a full-time artist.“
Director: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Editor: Faisal Azam.
Cinematography: Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers
Sound: Ana Fernández, Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “New York Close Up,” 2024
Hannah Levy's Adaptive Structures
Location sound mixer
“Steel and glass populate artist Hannah Levy’s 2023 exhibition Crutch at Casey Kaplan Gallery in New York City, taking familiar materials, forms, and structures and making them strange, even threatening. Levy’s work contemplates the human body, our anxieties about its fleshy materiality, how it interacts with the world around us, and its vulnerability.”
Director & producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Series Producer: Nick Ravich
Editor & Animator: Kira Dane
Cinematography: César Martínez Barba, Jane Macedo Yang
Sound: Ana Fernández, Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “New York Close Up,” 2024
Sarah Sze:
Emotional Time
Location sound mixer
“Bleeding into the museum walls, Sarah Sze’s River of Images (2023) is one of many site-specific works that call attention to the Guggenheim Museum’s unique design in Sze’s 2023 exhibition, Timelapse. Throughout the exhibition, the artist emphasizes how both art and architecture impact one’s experience of the world.”
Director & series producer: Ian Forster
Editor: Thomas Niles
Camera: Jarred Alterman, Sean Hanley, Rafael Salazar Moreno.
Sound: Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “Extended Play” 2024
Shahzia Sikander:
Melting Boundaries
Location sound mixer
“Sikander’s new sculptures build on the powerful depictions of the feminine in her previous work while incorporating new elements specific to the particular site and context of the public works. Witness symbolically bursts through the stained glass ceiling of the courthouse, the glass mosaic detailing of her hoop skirt depicting the shattered glass, while the jabot worn prominently by both figures calls to Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s feminization of the traditional black robes worn by justices of the United States Supreme Court”
Director & Producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Series Producer: Ian Forster
Editor: Jiale Hu
Camera: Sean Hanley, Jane Macedo Yang, Doug Potts
Sound: Jan Midelfort, Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “Extended Play” 2023
Richard Mosse:
What the Camera Cannot See
Location sound mixer
“This film follows Mosse and his collaborators Ben Frost and Trevor Tweeten as they travel across the world to film under-reported world events in zones of conflict, repurposing surveillance technologies and scientific tools to capture stories and scenes that evoke deeper understanding and motivate audiences to act.”
Director and series producer: Ian Forster
Editor: Riley Hooper
Camera: Sean Hanley, Andrew Kemp, Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2022
Abigail DeVille:
Light of Freedom
Location sound mixer
“Sculptor and installation artist Abigail DeVille reveals the ideas and inspirations behind the making of her public art commission, Light of Freedom (2020). The large sculpture of a scaffolded torch, with flames composed of dozens of blue mannequin arms, was motivated by the Black Lives Matter marches of summer 2020.”
Produced by Ian Forster
Editor: Stephanie Andreou
Camera: Sean Hanley
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2021
