Video within and beyond art: a survey of the medium's political
meanings
Video is everywhere. Since its debut as a consumer medium in the 1960s,
video has shaped our opinions, our politics and our societies. On our
phones and computer screens, walls and streets, it defines new spaces
and experiences--spreading memes, lies, fervor, fact and fiction. In
other words, video has transformed the world.
Featuring works from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New
York, this illuminating exhibition catalog--MoMA's first major
publication on video art in nearly 30 years--explores the ways in which
artists have both championed and questioned video's promise, some hoping
to create new networks of communication, democratic engagement and
public participation, others protesting commercial and state control
over information, vision and truth itself. Lavishly illustrated essays
by esteemed scholars and artists--including Ina Blom, Aria Dean, David
Joselit, Pamela M. Lee, Glenn Ligon and Ravi Sundaram--highlight video's
widely varied formats, contexts and global reach. Signals is a manual
for understanding the present, an era in which video has pervaded all
aspects of life.
Artists include: Ant Farm, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Black
Audio Film Collective, Tony Cokes, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, Kit
Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Dan Graham, Mona Hatoum, Every Ocean
Hughes, Mako Idemitsu, Emily Jacir, Amar Kanwar, Victor Masayesva Jr.,
Marta Minujín, Carlos Motta, Fujiko Nakaya, New Red Order, Nam June
Paik, Sondra Perry, Howardena Pindell, Walid Raad and Souheil Bachar,
Raindance Corporation, Marlon Riggs, Martha Rosler, Julia Scher, Richard
Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman, Tiffany Sia, Frances Stark, Martine
Syms, TVTV, Stan VanDerBeek, Videofreex, Ming Wong, Nil Yalter and Artur
Zmijewski.
