Art City 2: Simplicty (2002)

Travelling around the country, Art City: Simplicity takes viewers on a revealing trip into the studios and lives of a group of singular artists. On a desert mesa outside Santa Fe, Richard Tuttle invents his mysterious and marvellously humble forms, made of wire, cardboard, wood. In Taos, Agnes Martin rhythmically repeats extremely simplified images. Near the Santa Monica surf, John Baldessari, aims for successful juxtapositions of photographs and text. In his North Hollywood living room, Robert Williams revels in surreal cartoon imagery. At a cabin in Woodstock, Joan Snyder refines her sensuous art amid a lush forest. Mike Bidlo salutes Duchamp in a SoHo Gallery, while on Sunset Boulevard, Amy Adler reclaims personal history through self-portraits. Through this group of memorable iconoclasts, the creative "act" is there to see and study. Along with writer Dave Hickey, and others, Simplicity addresses artists' relations with the press, feelings about showing one's work, distilling concepts into an essence, and what it means to succeed in the art world. Music by Beck, Tom Waits, Charles Mingus, Count Basie, Ted Greene, Antonio Carlos Jobim.