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.
  Torn over the pressure to perform for his audience, Acconci fantasizes about "a dancing bear" who takes his place, performing in the spotlight, doing what others want, "what I always had to do." The viewer is placed in the position of an...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: mental landscape, performance, sexuality, video history |
In this video, the unseen narrator describes her inability to communicate to the camera what she wants to say and to whom she wants to say it. The curtain is the central metaphor for the piece, representing how Latham hides behind the video...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: feminism, performance, video history |
Footage from the May Day 1971 events in Washington DC. Davidson, a Videofreex member, gets arrested, and what follows is rarely seen footage of the inside of the detainment bus and the jail cell, videotaped by an arrestee. The scene on the bus...
Collection: Videofreex Archive, Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: activism, documentation, history |
This structurally simple video, shot through Benglis's apartment window, contains a, "distinct disjuncture between the visual and aural components of the work. The viewer, initially presented with a contemplative view of nature, is frequently...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: performance, video history |
Jonas uses reflections on a lake as a mirror to displace reality, creating a disruption and the illusion of presence. “Disturbances begins with a Symbolist-like image of two women, dressed in white, seen only as reflections in water.…...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: feminism, performance, video history |
Utilizing a four-way split screen, Divided Alto documents Landry’s improvised flute performance—focusing on the harmonics of the instrument as he plays double and triple chords. The camera centers on the elements that make the music—the...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: music, video history |
The performers are seated around a pink octagonal table on pink, violet, and silver cinder blocks. One performer (Robert Stearns) stands up, recites the credits for the piece, and then says, “Do you believe in water? Robert Stearns.” He claps and...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: performance, video history |
With Benglis standing in front of a photograph of herself, which is then affixed to a monitor bearing her image, the notion of "original" is complicated—making the viewer acutely aware of the layers of self-images and layers of "self" that are...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: performance, video history |
Rosler calls Domination and the Everyday, with its fragmented sounds, images, and crawling text, an artist-mother's "This Is Your Life." Throughout this work, we hear--but do not see--a mother and small child at dinner and bedtime while...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: media analysis, performance, politics, video history |
