| What makes video art different? From a gallery’s point of view there are many answers to this question. Video, as a medium widely accepted in exhibition practice and which plays a dominant role in big art events like Documenta or the Venice Biennial, is still considered a newcomer by the art market despite its almost 50 years of history. The Gallery Anita Beckers focused, right from the beginning, on the presentation and support of the video artworks of the foremost young video artists. The careers of artists like Yves Netzhammer (representing Switzerland at this year’s Venice Biennial) and Bjørn Melhus have been accompanied and supported by our gallery at a very early stage in their development. |  |
To be continued… – Tasja Langenbach
What makes video art different? From a gallery’s point of view there are many answers to this question. Video, as a medium widely accepted in exhibition practice and which plays a dominant role in big art events like Documenta or the Venice Biennial, is still considered a newcomer by the art market despite its almost 50 years of history. The Gallery Anita Beckers focused, right from the beginning, on the presentation and support of the video artworks of the foremost young video artists. The careers of artists like Yves Netzhammer (representing Switzerland at this year’s Venice Biennial) and Bjørn Melhus have been accompanied and supported by our gallery at a very early stage in their development.
The exhibition “To be continued…What makes video art different?” provides, on the one hand, an overview of the gallery’s video positions and, on the other hand, a highlighting of the topics that made a decisive impact on the development of video art since we are also including works by artists not represented in our gallery. Essentially, the beginnings of video art in the 60s can be understood as a response to developments within the art market of the time as well as a reaction against the general public’s reception and perception of art. This perception of contemporary art was influenced foremost by the introduction of television because of its specific aesthetic perspective. A lot of artists at that time used video as a tool for social change by critically questioning established value systems. Concurrently during this time of video art’s beginnings, the value systems of the art market were challenged; video was introduced as a democratic medium due to the fact that one can make multiple copies of the product. This element foiled the commercialisation of art, which was bound, up until then, to the principle of originality. Furthermore, performance and closed-circuit installations provoked the passiveness and exclusivity of established forms of presentation in the arts and integrated the spectator as active part of the work.
Performance and the body, by pacing out not only the borders of artistic practice but also the social conventions, formed a whole generation of performance/video artists. Even nowadays, after years of being dominated by the conceptual approaches of the 60s and the neo-expressionist currents of the 80s, an orientation back to the body can be observed among young artists. Comparable to the beginnings of video art, the body, understood as a carrier or medium for social identities, serves as a strong motive for the reflection on current social as well as political conditions. The inner and outer borders of the body are, for instance, questioned in Yves Netzhammer’s works shown in the program “Body + Identity” whereas João Leonardo reflects more on the limits imposed by gender topics. As a part of the same program, Patrycja German points out the conventions of national and gender identities by using her own body as a medium. On the other hand, Sigalit Landau involves the body to demonstrate the direction of a personal identity through national conflicts. Bjørn Melhus ironically cross-references well known mass media and film identities by demonstrating their influence on our collective memory.
Video and film further claim a new orientation regarding the perception of the media themselves. In contrast to the fine arts, video offers new possibilities, as a time-based medium, to translate narrative compositions into the moving image—e.g. by using the loop—whereas, on the other hand, established narrative structures are scrutinised and conceptualised in a new way. The program “Space + Time,” composed of works by Jenny Marketou, Clare Langan, Christine de la Garenne and Kathryn Cornelius gives an idea of contemporary approaches to the question of the presentability of time and space in moving images.
Alongside the acceptance of video art as a crucial part of the artistic practice, video’s area of influence broadened. Today, this is self-evident not only in exhibitions and festivals but also in theatre, architectural and public space projects. With its capacity to involve and unite diverse instruments and forms, it suggests the development of hybrid techniques within the context of the moving image. The works of Victor Alimpiev, for instance, reflect forms of expression derived from theatre as shown in the program “Trans-Video.” Special highlights are remarkable works by Julia Oschatz and Annette Gödde who appropriate the stylistic devices of stage design. The video work by Mikos Saito & Youngho Lee, with their overall aesthetic defined by comic and animation, is also fascinating.
“To be continued…,” uniting 28 video positions, comprehends the moving image as one language among many others in the art world. Yet, it still aims to present the medium as a language whose vocabulary embraces the entire spectrum of contemporary art—a medium that still has not been sufficiently decoded toward a full understanding of its declarations.
