Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos

Paul Kos

01:07:00

Collection: Box Sets, Single Artist Compilations

Tags: Art History, Humor, Landscape, Minimalism, Performance, Video History, Visual Art

Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos

Video Data Bank is proud to present the poetic work of West Coast conceptual artist Paul Kos. This two-disc box set features 25 video works that reveal how Kos mines humble materials for their physical properties and metaphorical possibilities. Included is a 50-page monograph containing specially commissioned essays that expand upon Kos’ five-decade long practice by art scholar Constance Lewallen and SFMOMA’s Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling. 

“I try to work under some of the following self-imposed precepts: reveal slowly; prove metaphor is more; heed site or be shortsighted; respect simple humble materials; prefer art that is, to art that is about; strive for equilibrium in message and messenger; and finally, opt for, but never expect, “partly cloudy, becoming mostly sunny.”
— Paul Kos in conversation with Jarrett Earnest, Brooklyn Rail, 2012

"[Paul Kos’] work is conceptual to a degree, but it takes a real, generally sculptural, form. Add to that a strong vein of Dada absurdity and an ultra-dry wit, and it adds up to one of the Bay Area’s most entertaining, influential and important living artists.”
— Charles Desmarais, San Francisco Chronicle, 2016

 

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Included Titles
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Paul Kos

Hand Trap

1970| 00:00:22

The artist swings a live-set small game trap near his extended other hand. The trap swings ominously: will it snap his fingers? The end comes quickly!This title is also available on Sympathetic…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Performance

The artist uses wire to suspend a block of ice in a pit-like industrial space. He swings the ice block, which is lit by a similarly swinging light bulb on a separate pendulum.Kos places small game…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Performance

Paul Kos

Warlock(ing)

1971| 00:07:30

In this early black and white, reel-to-reel video, small game traps are set to catch the rain.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos.

Collections: Early Video Art, Single Titles
Tags: Conceptual Art, Environment

Paul Kos

A Trophy/Atrophy

1972| 00:03:13

A two-headed calf died when one head atrophied. It became a trophy that the artist used as a source for this 16mm film transferred to video.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The…

Collections: Early Video Art, Single Titles
Tags: Animals, Conceptual Art, Experimental Film

"A major influence for generating ideas for me was not what I could contrive on my desktop, but being open and receptive to “accident”. For instance, one evening in 1972 while typing a syllabus for…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Humor, Language, Performance, War

Produced in 1974, and restaged in 2002, near Pilot Butte in southwestern Wyoming.The artist makes a pilot light using ice, which he has fashioned into a magnifying lens to start a small fire.This…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Conceptual Art, Environment, Performance

Paul Kos

Ice Makes Fire

1974| 00:02:53

Ice is fashioned into a magnifying lens and it is used to start a fire. Created in 1974 and restaged 2004. This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos.

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Performance

Paul Kos

Riley, Roily, River

1975| 00:01:30

The seemingly groundless debate as to whether a river is "riley" or "roily" can be interpreted as an example of language's descriptive failure. A shouting match over how to describe the river has no…

Collections: Early Video Art, Single Titles
Tags: Environment, Language, Video History

Paul Kos + 1 other

Lightning

1976| 00:01:23

When I look for the lightning, it never strikes. When I look away, it does. Filmed inside a car, this tape focuses on observation of natural phenomena, presenting the obverse of the, "If a tree falls…

Collections: Early Video Art, Single Titles
Tags: Environment, Video History

Paul Kos + 1 other

Sirens

1977| 00:06:47

Taking its title from the sea nymphs in Homer’s Odyssey—the treacherous spirits whose sweet voices lured sailors to their death upon the rocks—Sirens presents four hallucinatory scenes, visual puns…

Collections: Early Video Art, Single Titles
Tags: Literature, Photography, Video History, Myth, Mental Landscape

Paul Kos

Ramp

1980| 00:02:07

On a gradually inclined plane, attempts are made to scale the rise, and rubber shoe marks leave evidence of the point where all of humanity fails.This title is also available on Sympathetic …

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Performance, Sculpture, Conceptual Art

Paul Kos

Gargoyle V

1985| 00:01:10

A Yosemite gargoyle climbs two gothic arches.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos.

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Architecture, Environment, Performance

Paul Kos

Gargoyle VIII

1985| 00:02:45

A Yosemite gargoyle climbs two gothic arches.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos. 

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Body, Landscape, Performance

Twelve church bells are rung daily for 30 days in a sculptural setting at the Capp Street Project in San Francisco. Ringers progress from practice sessions on beer bottles to a full-scale ring.This…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Performance, Sculpture, Sound, Conceptual Art, City

Paul Kos

Brieftauben

1987| 00:03:02

After a failed attempt to melt down ballistic missiles into bells and site them in the city they had once targeted, 100 homing pigeons were used as metaphors, each carrying a small bell and capsule…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags:

Paul Kos

Tower of Babel

1987| 00:14:10

75 people speak 50 languages sometimes simultaneously.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos.

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Language, Performance

When everyone has forgotten the romantic refrains of the Internationale sung in different languages, Pablito, a blue front Amazon parrot, capable of living to 100 years old, will remember. He rings…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: History, Humor, Language, Music

Paul Kos

La Vache!

1996| 00:02:41

Caught by video on a mountainside, Swiss cows compose and orchestrate a bell sonata.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The Videoworks of Paul Kos.

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Environment, Landscape, Music

Filled to capacity, each car of a 157 car train sounds a percussive note in this homage to John Coltrane. And not one coal train, but two.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Expedition/Travel, Music

Paul Kos

2x2

1997| 00:04:43

On the narrow stairway that exits Paul Kos’s Tunnel\Chapel, where his 27-channel Chartres Bleu installation is housed, Kos writes with both hands on opposite walls, recording the narrative of Noah’s…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Drawing, Performance

Paul Kos + 1 other

Reflection

1998| 00:11:11

Within the historic district of Saida, Lebanon, a boy learns to capture light.Cast: Husni Tutunji Camera: Abdallah al-Bunni

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Photography

Neither a Sierra snowfield nor a tunnel proves to be the perfect studio space for the improvement of one’s craft. Only practice counts.This title is also available on Sympathetic Vibrations: The…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Landscape

Paul Kos

Flørli I

2007| 00:03:19

The combination of a found site (an old power station in Norway), and a found object (a log) and a found instrument ( a wooden floor) produce a found sound in this acoustically alive action. This…

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Installation, Sound

Paul Kos

Flørli IV

2007| 00:02:19

Relying on the magic echo found in an old power Station in Norway, the artist whistles and marches to the Internationale, a May Day workers’ song. This title is also available on Sympathetic …

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Installation, Performance, Sound

Paul Kos

Basho

2007| 00:04:12

Split screen. On the left is a walk up a twisting, rocky trail while on the right is Kanji caligraphy describing the action, completing a Haiku by Basho.This title is also available on Sympathetic …

Collections: Single Titles
Tags: Language, Mental Landscape