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(poignant music)

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(awe-inspiring organ music)

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(awe-inspiring organ music continues)

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- I've spent my entire
life making pictures,

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so I don't hold any delusions

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about the transformative
power of artworks.

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Not enough people ever see
them to interrupt the dynamism

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and the challenges we face
living from day to day.

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But what they can do, however,

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is to invite us to imagine
oneself as a subject

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and an author of a never-ending story

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that is still yet to be told.

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Now, this is what I've tried to do

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and tried to accomplish
with words, images,

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and colored glass

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for right here and for right now.

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(gentle upbeat music)
(birds chirping)

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(stirrer clinking)
I came to the cathedral

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to have a discussion about the project,

20
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which was to change out the Robert E. Lee

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and Stonewall Jackson windows.

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I understood it was gonna
take a lot of thinking,

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especially in relationship

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to the transformation the
cathedral was trying to enact.

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This is a big kind of
monumental undertaking,

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and you have to figure out
whether you're gonna be able

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to meet the moment.

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(gentle haunting music)

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In the founding documents
of the United States,

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there's a clause that
provides for the population

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to seek some redress for
the grievance that you have.

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That's built into the
structure of the country,

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which means that over time,
you're engaged in a process

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of revision that requires
struggle that's ongoing.

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It's always ongoing.

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(crowd applauds and cheers)
When Harold Washington

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became the first Black
mayor elected in Chicago,

38
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he said something that
struck me at the time,

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and he said...

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- No one, no matter where they live

41
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or how they live is free

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from the fairness of our administration.

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- This is how I came to this idea.

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It's that "we want
fairness, not no foul play."

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That seemed to me to be
a conceptual relationship

46
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that I thought could do the work

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that I want these windows to do.

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(gentle haunting music continues)

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This is where humidity is gonna
give you some fits. (laughs)

50
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- [Fabricator] Is it running?

51
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- No, but the red wasn't completely dry.

52
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- [Fabricator] Oh, it wasn't?

53
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- I'm just curious to see if it...

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There's a heating element
in that ceramic coil.

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- [Kerry] But there the problem
is you gotta stand there

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with that.

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- I can get a chair.
(Kerry and fabricator laugh)

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- [Kerry] See, that's just as bad.

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- It might be hard to see,

60
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but the original concept was
done with a colored pencil.

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The colors we selected from
that palette translated well

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into kind of what becomes
a living piece of art

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that changes every day with
the sun and the clouds.

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So trying to translate all
these different variables

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was the most challenging part for me

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but also the most gratifying.

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(gentle music)

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- I chose to use a group

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of anonymous individuals

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because I think we tend to make
celebrities the focal point

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of any kind of achievement,
when for the most part,

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almost all the achievements we experience

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are the work of vast numbers

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of anonymous and unidentified people

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who put in the work on a day-to-day basis.

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(pensive music)
(traffic honking)

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I was born in 1955.

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I was alive to experience
the assassination

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of the president of the United States,

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which, for an eight-year-old,

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was a shocking occurrence.

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Two years after that,

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we were in the middle of the Watts riots.

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By 1968,

85
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I was a witness to the shootouts

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between the LA Police Department

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and the Black Panther Party.
(chopper blades humming)

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The Vietnam War was raging.

89
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Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.

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Malcolm X was killed.

91
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So you talk about volatility,

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I'm conditioned by that
kind of volatility,

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and that's just the political volatility.

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That's not to mention the kind
of neighborhood challenges

95
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that you have to negotiate

96
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in order to make it from
one day to the next.

97
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All those things
contribute to a perception

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of how you move through the world,

99
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survive in the world, and
what your expectations can be.

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(slow solemn music)

101
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That's the backdrop against
which I as an artist

102
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have to conceptualize the
imagery I'm gonna produce

103
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and the value I think it
will have for the culture.

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(slow solemn music continues)
They read beautifully.

105
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- It is cool when you walk up
the aisle, and you watch it,

106
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and it's a different light coming out

107
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of this bay than all the others.

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- Yeah, well, they're different.

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I mean, if you...

110
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I mean they're not
anywhere near as fragmented

111
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as most of the other images
in all the other windows.

112
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They present themselves with a clarity.

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It does what I wanted it to do. (laughs)

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Formally, the movement from the bottom

115
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to the top is really important

116
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because it's like down here
on the ground in the crucible

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where all of these sort of needs

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and desires are fought for

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is where the heat is always generated.

120
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And as we achieve more of the kinds

121
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of ideal conditions we look for,

122
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it requires less of that
kind of energy and agitation.

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Although in the upper part,

124
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there's a kind of oscillating
back-and-forth dynamic

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between the colors and the whiteness

126
00:08:01,320 --> 00:08:03,200
of some of the glass shapes

127
00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,480
so that even in that upper part

128
00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:10,120
that seems chromatically more tranquil,

129
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there's still an
incredible amount of energy

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and back and forth going on.

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I wanted that too,

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that achievement doesn't
necessarily mean complacency.

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(gentle haunting music)
If you look at history,

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the success that the United
States enjoys is accompanied

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by a legacy of brutality,

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not just here in the United
States, but all over the place.

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Out of the crucible of
all of that violence,

138
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all the warfare, all the
colonial impositions,

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out of the crucible of all of that,

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we got a chance to live.

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And the chance to live that
we got makes us obligated

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to do whatever we can to
guarantee that those processes

143
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that were played out before we arrived

144
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are not repeated in the same way

145
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from the moment we are here on.

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That's what the replacement
of those windows means.

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(solemn music)

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(solemn music continues)
(solemn music fading)

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Hi, my name is Julie Mehretu.

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And I was really blessed to be
featured by Art21 in 2009.

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Susan Sollins was directing at the time,

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and I was really fortunate enough to have met her.

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What an incredible person to 
have started such a project.

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And the archive of films of 
artists' practice in the depth of

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research that has gone into the 
archive of Art21 is incredible.

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It's an immense resource for any young artist

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and any practicing artist who wants to look into

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all these various practices and forms of making.

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I grew up in the Midwest,

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and I know more than,

161
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as does anyone coming from cities
that are not either New York or Los Angeles

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that are not these primal coastal art centers,

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the value of the smaller museums and collections.

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And when I grew up,
you didn't have the MCA in Chicago,

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you didn't have MOCAD in Detroit,
you didn't have an art center in Grand Rapids.

166
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There really was nothing outside of the
DIA and the Art Institute.

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And these were encyclopedic type of museums.

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00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:02,560
And now, yes, you have many more of these
contemporary art museums all over this country,

169
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but many students still don't have access to
the form of education and the form of practice

170
00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:09,640
that this archive offers.

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00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:13,360
And that's what I think is one of the
richest aspects of this,

172
00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:20,040
is the kind of depth of education and access
you can have into these various practices.

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00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:22,520
And that's only going to 
move the whole field forward.

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So thank you, Art21.

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00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:30,000
Thank you Susan Sollins for an incredible vision
in having commenced this incredible project,

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00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:33,840
and I hope that you'll consider to support
this immense project.

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00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:36,612
Thank you so much.