Early Video Art
Early Video Art is a collection of over 200 titles that are central to an understanding of the historical development of video art. This collection includes, but is not limited to, many titles from the original Castelli-Sonnabend collection, the first and most prominent collection of video art assembled in the United States. All of the work in this collection was produced between 1968 and 1980. These works represent important examples of the first experiments in video art, and include conceptual and feminist performances recorded on video, experiments with the video signal, and "guerilla" documentaries representing a counter-cultural view of the historical events of the 1960s and 70s. Many of these tapes represent a desire for a radically redefined television experience that is centered on the innovative, the personal, the political and the non-commercial.
  In this angry answer to the expectations advertsing culture places on women and their bodies, Tanaka deftly edits commercial images and sound-bite slogans to underscore the message such images carry: that women exist to please men, as wives,...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: feminism, gender, television, video history |
"Between the Lines is an exploration of what Muntadas terms the 'informational limits' of television—the selections, programs, decisions, edits, time schedules, image fabrications and so on—specifically addressing the means by which '...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: media analysis, video history |
The male/female, subject/object investigation in A Bit of Matter and a Little Bit More has no titillating introduction; the appetite is not whetted beforehand. Hardcore, the opening shot, shows the crotch areas of a male and female body...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: sexuality, video history |
Black and White Tapes derive from a series of performances Paul McCarthy undertook in his Los Angeles studio from 1970 to 1975. Conceived for the camera and performed alone or with only a few people present, these short performances use...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: performance, video history |
This is a tape which analyzes its own discourse and processes as it is being formulated. The language of Boomerang, and the relation between the description and what is being described, is not arbitrary. Language and image are being...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: language, sound, video history |
Nauman is seen standing and leaning back in a corner of his studio. Just as he bounces back to a standing position, his body falls again, momentarily collapsing, only to spring forward once more. This action places his body in an intermittent...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: body, performance, video history |
Repeating the same activity as featured in Bouncing in the Corner, No. 1—leaning back and bouncing forward from the corner—this time the camera is positioned just above Nauman’s head. This gives his body the sense of constantly rising...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: body, performance, video history |
In this video the artist states that a public work demonstrates what qualifies as art within his conception. Like Beached, it was also shot in a marshy area near the sea and in sequences separated by dissolves. One sees five different...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: conceptual art, landscape, performance, video history |
A great example of early 1970s counter-cultural activity and the influence of Buckminster Fuller. The video, shot in Woodstock, NY in November 1971, includes footage of a communal meal being eaten in the woods, and of children playing in the mud...
Collection: Videofreex Archive, Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: architecture, culture jamming, documentation, history |
