From the very beginning of video art, artists were choosing various objects to describe, examine, or interact with, both in front of and by using the camera. Sometimes the focus is the relationship between subject and object, sometimes it’s the relationship between art and everyday objects. For example, John Baldessari said of Folding Hat, a video work he produced in 1970–71 for cameraman and gallery owner Gerry Schum’s now legendary Düsseldorf video gallery: “I was thinking of transience, changeability, fashion, and of the fact that the distinction between a commodity and an art object is a question of intention.” In any case, many artists were attracted by the technical possibilities of measuring and capturing objects in their temporal space, but also of changing them and linking them with other things and thoughts. This is how the video art pioneers invented the videographic readymade.
Artists of the exhibition: John Baldessari, Klaus vom Bruch, Nancy Graves, Terry Fox, and Jacques Louis Nyst.
Curated by Holger Otten
Narrating Video Archives
Video art from NRW—Collections introduce themselves
Since the late 1960s, North Rhine-Westphalia has been one of the most vibrant regions of the artistic avant-garde, especially video art, which is still young. Important collections were created here early on―with a special focus on the contemporary regional video art scene―that still exist today. They provide a unique insight into the history of early video art in Germany.
The screening program and the series of events Narrating Video Archives present some of the institutions with the most significant video art collections: the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the imai Foundation in Dusseldorf, and the Videonale Bonn. Each collection has its own focus. The video programs specially compiled for the program series each present a chosen topic, and the screenings are accompanied by introductions and lectures.
Narrating Video Archives is a Videonale Bonn initiative in cooperation with the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, and the imai Foundation in Düsseldorf
Program
“Narrating Video Archives”
Screening-Program at the Ludwig Forum
26.06. – 28.07.2019
technik visionen with works by Freya Hattenberger, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Bernd Kracke, Julie Kuzminska, Stefan Panhans, and Mateusz Sadowski, curated by Tasja Langenbach, Videonale – Festival für Video und zeitbasierte Kunstformen, Bonn
30.07. – 01.09.2019
Selbstwahrnehmung/Fremdwahrnehmung – Körperlichkeit in der frühen Videokunst with works by Denis Beaubois, Dieter Froese, Astrid Heibach, Branda Miller, Dennis Oppenheim, and Friederike Pezold, curated by Max Rauschenberg, Kunstmuseum Bonn
03.09. – 29.09.2019
When love is wrong I don‘t want to be right with works by Gerd Belz, Kain Karawahn, Franziska Megert, Klaus Osterwald, and VA Wölfl, curated by Dr Anna Fricke, Museum Folkwang, Essen
