PBS premiered one of four episodes from their “Art in the Twenty-first Century” series in the Art Building last night.

Scott Sherer, assistant professor for the School of Art, collaborated with Kevin Concannon, who is a professor at the Meyers School of Art at the University of Akron. The two worked with Art21, a non-profit modern art organization that produces the series for PBS. 

The group showed “Power” at the University of Akron at Wednesday and “Play” last night in the auditorium of the Art Building.

“The collaboration with the University of Akron is geared to bring together the arts community in the Northeast Ohio region,” Sherer said.

This is the third season of the Art:21 series. PBS worked with 16 artists “as they traveled the globe to capture the intimate spaces where the artists flourished,” according to a press release for the event.

“Play,” the episode which premiered at the university, was hosted by basketball player Grant Hill. He works to find the forms that play can take — subversive, spontaneous or funny, Sherer said. Artists Jessica Stockholder, Ellen Gallagher, Arturo Herrera and Oliver Herring use color, pattern and movement while improvising games.

There are four episodes of the Art:21 series, “Power,” which premieres Sept. 16, “Memory,” which premieres on Sept. 23, “Structures,” which premieres on Sept. 30 and “Play,” which premieres on Oct. 7, according to the PBS Web site www.pbs.org/art21.

-Jackie Mantey