Trevor Paglen in "Secrets"

In this preview from the Art21 Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 7 episode, Secrets, artist Trevor Paglen describes the inspiration that he has drawn from early NASA spacecraft.

Shown at work on Prototype for a Nonfunctional Satellite (Design 4; Build 4) (2013) from a San Antonio, Texas hanger in 2013, the artist reflects upon the aesthetic and functional properties of spacecraft from the 1950s and 1960s.

“A lot of artists at that time were looking at them as aesthetic objects,” says Paglen, referring to the early spacecraft. “Maybe there was a different direction. In that moment is something that I’m very much trying to understand.”