1 00:00:01,466 --> 00:00:04,233 JUDY WOODRUFF: Next: an artistic response to a divided society. 2 00:00:04,233 --> 00:00:08,733 Jeffrey Brown returns and takes us to New York for a look at a recent day-long project 3 00:00:08,733 --> 00:00:11,000 titled The Shape of Things. 4 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:16,000 JEFFREY BROWN: There was music and movement, a full day and night of art and talk. 5 00:00:19,633 --> 00:00:24,633 MAN: Always question democracy. 6 00:00:26,633 --> 00:00:29,766 The public event, titled The Shape of Things, featured more than 50 artists and thinkers 7 00:00:30,900 --> 00:00:35,333 who engage social issues in their work. 8 00:00:37,433 --> 00:00:40,400 There were well-established figures such as jazz pianist Jason Moran and newer voices 9 00:00:41,166 --> 00:00:44,800 like Kimberly Drew. 10 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:49,800 It was held at the historic Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, built in 1880 to showcase and 11 00:00:51,866 --> 00:00:56,133 honor military might, but now an exhibition space for visual and performing arts. 12 00:00:57,600 --> 00:00:59,766 CARRIE MAE WEEMS, Artist: How are artists responding? 13 00:00:59,766 --> 00:01:03,833 How are artists maintaining a level of dignity and hope and progress and work in the face 14 00:01:04,700 --> 00:01:05,900 of this devastating violence? 15 00:01:05,900 --> 00:01:08,033 I want to know what that looks like. 16 00:01:08,033 --> 00:01:12,266 JEFFREY BROWN: It was the brainchild of artist Carrie Mae Weems, who called this a convening. 17 00:01:12,266 --> 00:01:16,066 CARRIE MAE WEEMS: This brings together, I think, an extraordinary group of people who 18 00:01:16,066 --> 00:01:21,066 are thinking deeply about the moments in which we live and are as concerned as I am about 19 00:01:24,833 --> 00:01:26,900 addressing it. 20 00:01:26,900 --> 00:01:30,833 And each of us has to figure out how in our own lives and in our own work. 21 00:01:30,833 --> 00:01:35,833 JEFFREY BROWN: The 64 year-old Weems is best known for her photography and, through it, 22 00:01:37,166 --> 00:01:39,733 her exploration of history, race, and power. 23 00:01:39,733 --> 00:01:44,733 We first spoke in 2014, when she became the first African-American woman given a solo 24 00:01:46,033 --> 00:01:48,966 exhibition at the prestigious Guggenheim Museum. 25 00:01:48,966 --> 00:01:53,966 Among the works on display, the 1995 series From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 26 00:01:55,966 --> 00:02:00,966 where Weems altered 19th century photographs of slaves, and the 1990 Kitchen Table series, 27 00:02:02,866 --> 00:02:07,800 in which Weems herself is a character in a set of carefully constructed scenes from a 28 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:11,933 woman's life. 29 00:02:11,933 --> 00:02:16,466 In recent years, she's taken the aspect of performance further, to a theater piece she 30 00:02:16,466 --> 00:02:21,466 created called Grace Notes, a response to the 2015 murder of nine members of a black 31 00:02:23,033 --> 00:02:26,066 church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white supremacist. 32 00:02:26,066 --> 00:02:29,200 CARRIE MAE WEEMS: What is violence? 33 00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:31,266 How would you characterize it? 34 00:02:31,266 --> 00:02:34,900 JEFFREY BROWN: For the armory event, Weems set a theme for the day, what she called the 35 00:02:34,900 --> 00:02:36,933 history of violence. 36 00:02:36,933 --> 00:02:41,400 CARRIE MAE WEEMS: How violence disrupts and dislocates, displaces, fragments not only 37 00:02:44,566 --> 00:02:47,600 the self, the person, but also the society. 38 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:52,000 JEFFREY BROWN: The participants picked up on that in a variety of ways. 39 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,266 ADAM FOSS, Former Prosecutor: Today, there are 2.3 million people are in jail and prison. 40 00:02:55,266 --> 00:03:00,333 JEFFREY BROWN: Adam Foss, a former prosecutor in Boston, spoke on mass incarceration and 41 00:03:01,433 --> 00:03:03,533 the need for criminal justice reform. 42 00:03:03,533 --> 00:03:05,900 ADAM FOSS: One in three black men born today will spend some time in prison. 43 00:03:05,900 --> 00:03:10,900 JEFFREY BROWN: Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari, who've developed leading video games, showed 44 00:03:12,966 --> 00:03:16,366 a new virtual reality experience to put people in violent settings to see how they'd respond. 45 00:03:18,333 --> 00:03:22,566 And poet Aja Monet read her poem called "The First Time" about an interaction she witnessed 46 00:03:27,766 --> 00:03:30,300 between her teenaged brother and a police officer. 47 00:03:30,300 --> 00:03:35,300 AJA MONET, Poet: I couldn't undo all the hate that builds watching the men you love cower, 48 00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:40,300 watching the men you love cower, bend, kneel to the scows of overseers, all the bright 49 00:03:41,933 --> 00:03:46,566 and magic that dims the light, lowers the bright and magic dims. 50 00:03:46,566 --> 00:03:51,566 This police officer stopped us and felt really entitled to question us, interrogate us. 51 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:57,466 And I noticed the demeanor in my brother change, and I noticed how that made him feel and how 52 00:03:59,566 --> 00:04:01,633 it made me feel to watch. 53 00:04:01,633 --> 00:04:05,133 JEFFREY BROWN: The 30-year-old Monet lives in Southern Florida and has worked with Carrie 54 00:04:05,133 --> 00:04:06,600 Mae Weems before. 55 00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:08,833 AJA MONET: If Carrie asks you, you don't say no. 56 00:04:08,833 --> 00:04:11,133 You just say yes. 57 00:04:11,133 --> 00:04:16,133 JEFFREY BROWN: Another young artist saying yes was John Edmonds, who showed a series 58 00:04:18,700 --> 00:04:21,100 of photographs of young black men. 59 00:04:21,100 --> 00:04:25,533 JOHN EDMONDS, Photographer: There is a different way of entering and thinking about political 60 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:30,533 art, art that's not blatantly about sort of sending an overt message, but more so inviting 61 00:04:32,166 --> 00:04:36,066 the viewer to kind of contemplate on their own sort of mind-set. 62 00:04:36,066 --> 00:04:41,066 JEFFREY BROWN: Do you think that an artist has a responsibility today to address political 63 00:04:41,666 --> 00:04:43,766 issues overtly? 64 00:04:43,766 --> 00:04:46,700 JOHN EDMONDS: It's an artist's responsibility to be mindful of the political climate that 65 00:04:46,700 --> 00:04:51,700 they're in, because art and photographs and images, they have a great amount of power. 66 00:04:53,933 --> 00:04:58,933 JEFFREY BROWN: That climate for the people here meant a response to growing divisions 67 00:05:00,233 --> 00:05:02,200 within the country. 68 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:06,166 CARRIE MAE WEEMS: For me, Donald Trump has really brought something so forward to bear 69 00:05:07,133 --> 00:05:08,233 on us all. 70 00:05:08,233 --> 00:05:10,200 Right? 71 00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:14,233 He's brought forward very clear ideas about what America should and shouldn't be. 72 00:05:16,933 --> 00:05:21,933 And it's for that reason I think that he's been -- his election has been absolutely remarkable 73 00:05:23,933 --> 00:05:27,200 and necessary, because it lays bare the clarity of the moment, right, and how splintered the 74 00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:32,066 country is and what people are really fighting around. 75 00:05:32,066 --> 00:05:37,066 JEFFREY BROWN: One thing I'm wondering, though, today, here, who is this for? 76 00:05:38,933 --> 00:05:41,866 Are you worried that this is more like preaching to the choir here? 77 00:05:41,866 --> 00:05:46,866 CARRIE MAE WEEMS: No, no, because even when we're grappling with the same ideas, we don't 78 00:05:47,733 --> 00:05:48,933 all think the same things. 79 00:05:48,933 --> 00:05:51,366 We don't all believe the same things. 80 00:05:51,366 --> 00:05:56,366 For even the -- quote -- "liberal," the sort of progressive side, they're grappling with 81 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:02,100 who they are in relationship to this moment as well. 82 00:06:02,100 --> 00:06:07,100 JEFFREY BROWN: But do you feel -- has anything changed in terms of your sense of you as an 83 00:06:08,300 --> 00:06:09,533 artist, your responsibility? 84 00:06:09,533 --> 00:06:12,100 CARRIE MAE WEEMS: No, it's only deepened. 85 00:06:12,100 --> 00:06:14,133 It's only deepened. 86 00:06:14,133 --> 00:06:18,233 I do think that as I mature and I age, I think more of creating these spaces, of widening 87 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:27,000 the path, and being clear about that, so that others can do their work more easily in the 88 00:06:29,166 --> 00:06:31,266 future. 89 00:06:31,266 --> 00:06:34,233 JEFFREY BROWN: Weems says she wants to build on the Shape of Things project, in her own 90 00:06:34,233 --> 00:06:39,233 work, and through future collaborations with other artists and presenters who took part. 91 00:06:44,833 --> 00:06:49,000 For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. 92 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:49,266 JUDY WOODRUFF: Amazing.