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Video Beginnings
- PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
- The MIT Press
- PAJ 84 (Volume 28, Number 3), September 2006
- pp. 39-47
- Review
- Additional Information
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 28.3 (2006) 39-47
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Video Beginnings
Deborah Garwood
Click for larger view | Figure Richard Landry, One, Two, Three, Four, video still (1970). Photo: Courtesy Tracy Adler, Gallery Director, Hunter College. |
The Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College provided an academic setting for The Early Show, a well-considered historical examination of video's emergence in the late 1960s as an art form in New York's SoHo district. Constance De Jong, curator of the exhibition and a prominent video artist herself, has revisited the spirit of interdisciplinary experimentation that characterized this moment. Accordingly, the group of 24 artists De Jong selected included performers and visual artists, several of whom are now recognized as pioneers who were working in the field of video.
From the beginnings of video as an art form, artists such as Joan Jonas, Trisha Brown, Keith Sonnier, Vito Acconci, and several others were adept at finding a perfect fit between what they already did well (dance, sculpture, performance) and the special properties of video. Carolee Schneemann annexed video as yet another vehicle for her multifaceted explorations of gender and sexuality in the public sphere. Beryl Korot, Mary Lucier, and Peter Campus were just discovering the medium they would develop into video installation. Dara Birnbaum, Nancy Holt, Ron Clark, Dan Graham, and Keith Sonnier were intrigued by the medium itself, and developed video projects that explored a wide range of theoretical issues. Richard Landry, a musician who helped found the Philip Glass Ensemble, worked briefly but memorably in video. The Early Show thus offered a variety of tapes that reflected the era's eclecticism and its frequent exuberance.
As presented within the gallery, the videos could be viewed in three ways: as a medley of three-minute clips projected in a darkened room with seats for viewers; continuously, on either of two television monitors fitted with individual headphones; and selectively, via interactive access on a computer. Vintage ephemera of the period, including many flyers and newsprint broadsides, were displayed in viewing cases and directly on the gallery walls. [End Page 40]
Click for larger view | Figure 1 Installation shot of The Early Show. Photo: Courtesy Tracy Adler, Gallery Director, Hunter College. |
An exhibition catalogue that accompanies the show, entitled The Early Show: Video from 1969–1979, contains recent interviews with many of the artists. De Jong and Carlotta Schoolman, an independent video producer, commented on behalf of artists who were not available or who are deceased, such as Hannah Wilke and Gordon Matta-Clark. Tony Oursler mentions that, having grown up watching black and white television, he was struck by being able to create what he was actually seeing—in real time—on his own television monitor: "I was a TV generation kid . . . the idea that you could plug into that equipment and put on your own stuff was amazing." It is this artist-producer model that seems particularly resonant today, different as the technological landscape has become. Single-channel video's instantaneity had an air of stealth or magic about it. Here was the portal to a previously inaccessible, one-way realm where artists could become the active agents. Those who felt a sense of shared power and intrigue with the medium were often inspired to create improvisations dealing with emotional intimacy or alienation (Acconci, Wegman for example). Artists such as Rosler, Birnbaum, Sonnier, Serra, and Graham were more analytical about video's link to mass culture and the military-industrial complex's scientific and political spectrum. Birnbaum notes, "It was my generation . . . which had grown up with TV . . . we would have to confront the idea that video is a media-based technology with a history that comes very strongly with it."
The catalogue also features individual commentaries by Schoolman; Lori Zippay, Director of Electronic Arts Intermix; and Liza Bear, who...
