archivevideo

Pipilotti Rist, Pickelporno, 1992, Video still, 12’’, © Pipilotti Rist.

Video (1970s-Now): On Becoming a Genre of Contemporary Art

Cao Fei, Cosplayers, 2004, Video still, 8’, © Cao Fei.

Peter Fischli, David Weiss, Der Lauf der Dinge, Schweiz 1987, 30 Min., Farbe, Ton, PAL, U-Matic.

Shahryar Nashat, Optimism, 2003, Video still, 9’15’’, © Shahryar Nashat.

Kunsthaus Zurich
Heimplatz 1
+ 41 (0)44 253 84 84
Zürich
Video Lounge
September 7-
November 18, 2008

Kunsthaus Zürich shows artists’ videos from the 1970s to the present day. The pieces selected belong to a collection begun three decades ago when Kunsthaus Zürich was one of the first Swiss museums to focus on the fledgling genre before video was recognized as an artistic medium. The collection, newly restored, catalogued and digitized, includes works by such Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Arnulf Rainer, Dieter Roth, Fischli/Weiss, Roman Signer, Pipilotti Rist and Hubbard/Birchler, as well as younger artists like Emanuelle Antille, David Chieppo, Cao Fei and Zilla Leutenegger, which can also be viewed onsite.

In a quest for fresh means of expression, artists in the mid-1960s discovered videotape. As technical possibilities continued to grow unceasingly, these pioneers set about revolutionizing 20th-century art. Now, as the 21st century wears on, video has come a long way from documentation of happenings and “body art” of those early days, becoming a pillar of the exhibition scene.

Kunsthaus Zürich, quick to perceive the potential of this new artform, began to select artists’ videos for collection in the late 1970s. Its strategy was to seek works that highlighted video as an independent medium, deliberately refraining from acquiring material intended for the historical or documentary record and commercial clips. The result is an important and eclectic public store of domestic and foreign video art. At its core are Swiss, German and US productions of the 1960s and 1970s, with new works being acquired to this day.

No collection of media art, however, can get around one central problem: the fragile and ephemeral nature of its objects. New formats supplant older ones, which thus quickly become obsolete; as for videotape, frequent play leads to wear and tear, while prolonged storage causes tapes to adhere to themselves. Kunsthaus Zürich saw the writing on the wall and initiated a comprehensive restoration project lasting several years. The works were examined and transferred to Digital Betacam, the current format, which meets international quality standards for the coming decades. As for tapes whose condition no longer permitted them to be played, they were replaced wherever possible, in consultation with the artist in question. Finally, those pieces that could neither be viewed nor replaced were simply consigned to the archives by experts. The restoration work is at the moment being wrapped up with the creation of a new catalogue, and the collection will be accessible on the Kunsthaus website as of September. What is more, most of the pieces will also be available for viewing on DVD in the museum’s library. Apart from Kunsthaus Zürich, only the Centre pour l’image contemporaine Saint-Gervais in Geneva provides art-lovers and specialists with an equivalent service.

The Video Lounge was established to mark the collection’s new public accessibility. It will offer a selection of the best, most important and most striking exemplars of video art. Curator Tobia Bezzola and art historian Franziska Lentzsch have assembled a representative survey, from the earliest pioneer work to the most recent creations, and thus allow the public to take stock of the entire 40-year history and development of video art to date.