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How does contemporary art address the idea of consumption? How do artists question commonly held assumptions about commerce, mass media, and consumer society? The Art:21 documentary "Consumption" explores these questions through the work of the artists Barabra Kruger, Michael Ray Charles, Matthew Barney, Andrea Zittel, and Mel Chin.

How do artists use irony, goofiness, satire, and sarcasm in their work? Can an artwork be funny and critical at the same time? Do contemporary artists always take themselves seriously? The Art:21 documentary "Humor" explores these questions through the work of Charles Atlas, Eleanor Antin, Raymond Pettibon, Elizabeth Murray, and Walton Ford.

How does contemporary art address the idea of identity? How do artists working today reveal and question commonly held assumptions about stereotypes, self-awareness, portaiture, and what it means to be an artist? The Art:21 documentary "Identity" explores these questions through the work of the artists William Wegman, Bruce Nauman, Kerry James Marshall, Maya Lin, and Louise Bourgeois.

How do contemporary artworks embody emotion? How do artists express longing, love, and human experience in their work? The Art:21 documentary "Loss & Desire" explores these questions through the work of Charles Atlas, Collier Schorr, Gabriel Orozco, and Janine Antoni.

How does memory function? What is history? How do contemporary artists frame the past in their work? The Art:21 documentary "Memory" explores these questions through the work of the artists Susan Rothenberg, Mike Kelley, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Josiah McElheny, and concludes with an original video artwork by Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.

How does contemporary art address the idea of place? How do artists working today reveal and question commonly held assumptions about land, home, and national identity? The Art:21 documentary "Place" explores these questions through the work of Laurie Anderson, Richard Serra, Sally Mann, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, and Pep?n Osorio.

Spontaneous and joyful, subversive or amusing, play can take many forms in daily life as well as in contemporary art. The Art:21 documentary "Play" explores the work of the artists Oliver Herring, Arturo Herrera, Jessica Stockholder, and Ellen Gallagher, and concludes with an original video artwork by Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.

From politics to mass media, the theme of power pervades daily life and is reflected in the ideas and concerns of contemporary artists. The Art:21 documentary "Power" explores the work of the artists Cai Guo-Qiang, Laylah Ali, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Ida Applebroog, and concludes with an original video artwork by Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.

How does contemporary art address the idea of spirituality? How do artists working today reveal and question commonly held assumptions about faith, belief, meditation, and religious symbols? The Art:21 documentary "Spirituality" explores these questions through the work of the artists Beryl Korot, Ann Hamilton, John Feodorov, Shahzia Sikander, and James Turrell.

How do artists tell stories in their work? How does contemporary art reflect and reveal narrative traditions? How does the art of today record and describe the world around us? The Art:21 documentary "Stories" explores these questions through the work of Charles Atlas, Kara Walker, Kiki Smith, Do-Ho Suh, and Trenton Doyle Hancock.

How do we organize life? What are the ways in which we capture knowledge and attempt greater understanding? The Art:21 documentary "Structures" explores these questions in the work of the artists Roni Horn, Matthew Ritchie, Fred Wilson, and Richard Tuttle, and concludes with an original video artwork by Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.

How do artists evoke and transform time in their work? Can a work of contemporary art be timeless? How does contemporary art relate to art of the ancient past, to nature, and to the rhythms of the life? The Art:21 documentary "Time" explores these questions through the work of Charles Atlas, Martin Puryear, Paul Pfeiffer, Vija Celmins, and Tim Hawkinson.

What role do intuition, emotion, fantasy, and escapism play in contemporary art? The Art:21 documentary "Romance" explores these questions in the work of the artists Pierre Huyghe, Judy Pfaff, Lari Pittman, and Laurie Simmons.

How is our understanding of the natural world deeply cultural? The Art:21 documentary "Ecology" explores these questions in the work of the artists Robert Adams, Mark Dion, I?igo Manglano-Ovalle, and Ursula von Rydingsvard.

How do contemporary artists engage politics, inequality, and the many conflicts that besiege the world today? How do artists use their work to discuss or oppose misery, turmoil, and injustice? The Art:21 documentary "Protest" explores these questions in the work of the artists Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, An-My L?, and Nancy Spero.

How do contemporary artists address contradiction, ambiguity, and truth? The Art:21 documentary "Paradox" explores these questions in the work of the artists Allora & Calzadilla, Mark Bradford, Robert Ryman, and Catherine Sullivan.

In one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the world, four internationally celebrated visual artists - including the sculptor Anish Kapoor - imagine works as beautiful, complex, and historic as the city they call home. Also featuring the artists John Akomfrah, Phyllida Barlow and Christian Marclay.

Set in the region between the United States and Mexico--long a site of political conflict, social struggle and intense creative fermen--four artists respond to one of the most divisive moments in the history of this area. Featuring artists Tanya Aguiniga, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Richard Misrach and Postcommodity.

This episode features artists whose works explore conscience and the possibility of understanding and reconciling past and present, while exposing injustice and expressing tolerance for others.

This episode presents artists whose works defy convention and transport us to unreal worlds and altered states of consciousness.

This episode features artists who realize complex projects, whether through acts of appropriation, accumulation, or creating projects so vast in scope as to elude comprehension.

Whether observing and satirizing society or reinventing icons of literature, art history, and popular culture, these artists inhabit the characters they create and capture the sensibilities of our age.

Artists Ai Weiwei, El Anatsui and Catherine Opie bear witness, through their work, to transformation -- cultural, material and aesthetic -- and actively engage communities as collaborators and subjects.

The artists in this episode, David Altmejd, Tabaimo and Lynda Benglis, synthesize disparate aesthetic traditions, present taboo subject matter, discover innovative uses of media and explore the shape-shifting potential of the human figure.