Miami Art
Central 
Video: An
Art, a History, 1965-2005, is an international group exhibition based
on the video and multimedia installations of the Centre Pompidou which
recounts the history of this very contemporary field, punctuating the main
phases of contemporary art from 1965 to 2005. Curated by Christine Van
Assche, Media Arts Curator at the Centre Pompidou, this exhibition will be
on view at Miami Art Central from September 20 through December 10,
2006.
Video: An Art, a History, 1965-2005 presents an overview of
how video has developed in the last forty years. Video as a means of
creative expression appeared in the early 1960s and has developed
considerably since then.
Originally used by artists to record
their live performance works, video became an artistic art form in its own
right in the 1990s, and now plays an important role in contemporary art
practice. Developed in the 1970s as a more practical alternative to film,
video, like television, has been available to mass audiences from the
beginning, making it especially appealing to artists seeking a wider forum
(Nam June Paik) for their work. The medium dominated in the 1980s, and the
term “new media” was coined to describe video-as-art. Video was initially
adopted by many artists seeking to document performances. A number of
these artists sought to push the boundaries of the medium, utilizing
strategies taken from television, and experimenting with closed-circuit
recording monitors, feedback, slow-motion and fast-forward functions, etc.
Others used it to critique the images and content of mass media (Dara
Birnbaum), particularly as they related to phenomenological concerns of
identity. New media evolved in the 1980s and ’90s toward experimentation
with installation through discursive devices, the systems of cinematic
narrative, the parameters of installation, the active role of the viewer,
and installations that function as exhibitions (Douglas Gordon, Pierre
Huyghe, and Isaac Julien). In the 2000s, many aesthetic directions are
being pursued through technological research, interactivity,
theatricality, etc. However, the issues that have captured the focus in
this exhibition are the works made by artists responding to more global
concerns and issues of form and content.
