Cedric Caspesyan VS Video Art
I've been kind of loosing it up
these days at
Zeke's blog (where I love to comment) about the topic of
video art, and how artists practicing within that field
constantly refuse to adapt to some of the medium's primus
proprieties: the fact that the medium can be easily reproduced
and broadcasted.
I almost sound like I hate video art, which is not the case at all,
as I sort of come from that field, and did a few video installations
myself.
But in an age where one can find easily classics of cinema,
including experimental shorts, on various dvd collections, I am
amazed that years and years later it is still very hard
to find copies of some video art pieces considered
landmarks of contemporary arts.
This text mostly concern single-channel video art
pieces, of limited duration, a description still encompassing
a great majority of video art, though more and more of these
single channel "clips" are presented on museums walls as
though they are installations (including the video credits at the end).
Here I'll paste my comment
from Zeke's Blog, that was replying
to his comment about VTape
offering web brodcast of extracts
from canadian video art featured in their
collection.
Hmmm....Come to think of it..I will edit bits of it:
Video artists are soooo pretentious.
Their tapes lie in dust in video art centres. No one gives a damn, and those who give a damn (like I do at times) often encounter a lot of administrative resistance
when attempting to dig copies (or simply...that weird look from the guy or girl at the counter who wonder why you came here to look at those tapes).
The small bunch of people able to enjoy these types of films are not even given a chance to watch them. Video artists treat their potential audiences as collectors. You like video art? Hey that must mean you got 2000 bucks to spend for my 5 min piece (they are juste 6 copies, you know?).
Eventually the best artists are released in compilations (Bill Viola, Stan Brakhage and...hmmm....count them on the fingers of one hand).
Rebecca Horn had an edition of her film performances...Guess what: they are like 1000 copies or less and sold more than 4000 dollars each.
Her damn compil is the work of art itself.
Just like this new idea that video artists sell their monoband as projection art pieces. There is nothing that tells you that these pieces must be projected. They're not loops, they're not multi-screens, they have nothing to do with the use of any special architecture.
They are short films with broadcast conditions written by the artist or gallerist. I think of William Kentridge, how most of his films are really traditional short films. I was so upset at this guy, incredibly pretentious (he calls his animations "projected drawings") considering the amount of animators who surely used similar methods to him (pencil and eraser) because they were as poor as him when they started.
I mean, he's making money out of selling the drawings...why need to sell the films as pieces of art? (ed's note: I made a mistake here, below I will be re-adressing the issue) What if Peter Jackson came and say: look... they are 5 copies of King Kong and they will be sold 5 million each. That would be ridiculous, because it wouldn't follow what the medium is about. In cinema the object itself, the celluloid, the dvd, is quasi irrelevant. And Kentridge is as cinematic as Peter Jackson: it's the same thing.
Unless there is a special need for a video installation (say..a Rodney Graham loop really isn't going to work as a single channel monitor piece), I don't think video artists who do art that respect the format of traditional cinema (including experimental cinema) should pretend to be doing anything else than cinema.
It's irrespectuous of a tradition that's been there before them, attempting for a moment to profit from an interpretative confusion between the people able to read cinema from the people able to understand contemporary arts.
Kind of like delimitating what is so bad in Matthew Barney's cinema from what is interesting "within" it.
I have studied in both fields enough to know that cinema uses a certain senses of framing that visual arts would never tolerate. In visual arts you are looking at yourself watching the movie. The projection is a canvas. In the movie you are really looking at the film. Video artists attempt to create a distance that is for the most part impertinent. Since the 80's at least, a fair portion of them is simply relecturing trad. cinema, functioning within that field, sharing little with
visual arts but an irony that was already prevalent in 60's exp. cinema.
Very few video art actually spoof cinema in such ways that they need to be
seen on gallery walls. Many (single channel, limited duration pieces) are proposing ventures in experimental and documentary that would make as much sense or even better if they were projected in cinema screening rooms.
This said, proof that there is a pertinence to video art:
the Mike Kelley "Day Is Done" installation from last year
was one of the best video installation seen in ages. But that shouldn't hold back from a version that could circulate as a monoband on your tv. Peter Greenaway has already done films that exist both in cinema version and installation version. Obviously he is more admired by the cinema crowds than visual arts (we barely hear about his exhibits), but at least he's not wasting space showing his films on
gigantic museums walls for 3 months, with horrible sound conditions, and smell of fresh paint, asking passerbys to stand up for 2 hours.
He understands why screening rooms were invented, and actually
uses them.
And once the broadcast copies are sold and shown everywhere, he released them as dvds for standard folks.
But an old videotape by Pipilotti Rist? That is wayyyy too cool and
wonderful to be released for standard folks. Way much better than say..a video by Chris Cunningham (they are dvd compils of some of the best music clips directors). So all you ever get are the internet extract clips
(if you're lucky), and a curator text saying: "hey you... I know
you can't see the whole clip right here but you just trust me, cos I'm telling you, it's really really THAT great..Wooooo!!!".
Well, what party.
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
ADDENDUM:
Ooops...ok, my comparison Peter Jackson and William Kentridge was not fair on one account:
Peter Jackson releases a certain amount of full 35mm prints of King Kong for broadcast companies (cinemas). A year later he releases it on dvd for the standard crowd pleasure.
William Kentridge sells a certain amount of films to museums for them to be projected on white walls (why museum walls, go figure...).
The problem thereafter is that he never ever releases them on dvd for the general public (this is an hypothesis...a case study of a visual artists working with single channel work). They are catalogs of the drawings, but a catalog (dvd) of the films, which broadcast versions have all been sold since ages, seems implausible.
You can get a whole reproduction of a Picasso but you will never get a whole reproduction of a Kentridge. "20 000 frames
against 1 ???? Hey, that's not fair !! Don't steal my art!"
Video art suddenly becomes engulfed into an aura that it has created for itself. Tapes get stacked into the vaults of contemporary art museums and lays forgotten there through the years. Most people have never heard of that old Lisa Steele tape, you know?
And then, 20 years later some curator finds them back and show extracts on the web to not offuscate monsieur's copyrights. Or if he's a star they end up being released on dvd 75 years after the death of the artist.
I mean...frankly... They are many programs showing short films on specialized tvs (in Quebec there is Silence On Court), but I cannot think of one program, after 40 years of the birth of video art, that ever broadcasted video art tapes on public television. (!)
Why not ? Why do I still need to go freeze my ass into an obscure
abandoned factory at a Champ Libre event each 2 years to see some video art ??
Why do video artists, instead of snobbing movements like Kino, simply not participate and propose an alternative, throw them tapes on the stage, compile them, play them.
I mean...what's all the fuss about
video art ? I thought Brakhage did it all.
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
ADDENDUM 2:
Final one: promiss:
How in hell could I have forgottten
this:
There WAS a series last year in Quebec on video art made for ....forgot which channel, but it was not even Artv (meaning that no-one probably ever saw it).
But again I think it was all extracts, extracts, extracts...
It's a chance that with artists like Manon Labrecque
sometimes you don't make a difference between an extract and the whole thing. ;-)
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
1:11 AM
these days at
Zeke's blog (where I love to comment) about the topic of
video art, and how artists practicing within that field
constantly refuse to adapt to some of the medium's primus
proprieties: the fact that the medium can be easily reproduced
and broadcasted.
I almost sound like I hate video art, which is not the case at all,
as I sort of come from that field, and did a few video installations
myself.
But in an age where one can find easily classics of cinema,
including experimental shorts, on various dvd collections, I am
amazed that years and years later it is still very hard
to find copies of some video art pieces considered
landmarks of contemporary arts.
This text mostly concern single-channel video art
pieces, of limited duration, a description still encompassing
a great majority of video art, though more and more of these
single channel "clips" are presented on museums walls as
though they are installations (including the video credits at the end).
Here I'll paste my comment
from Zeke's Blog, that was replying
to his comment about VTape
offering web brodcast of extracts
from canadian video art featured in their
collection.
Hmmm....Come to think of it..I will edit bits of it:
Video artists are soooo pretentious.
Their tapes lie in dust in video art centres. No one gives a damn, and those who give a damn (like I do at times) often encounter a lot of administrative resistance
when attempting to dig copies (or simply...that weird look from the guy or girl at the counter who wonder why you came here to look at those tapes).
The small bunch of people able to enjoy these types of films are not even given a chance to watch them. Video artists treat their potential audiences as collectors. You like video art? Hey that must mean you got 2000 bucks to spend for my 5 min piece (they are juste 6 copies, you know?).
Eventually the best artists are released in compilations (Bill Viola, Stan Brakhage and...hmmm....count them on the fingers of one hand).
Rebecca Horn had an edition of her film performances...Guess what: they are like 1000 copies or less and sold more than 4000 dollars each.
Her damn compil is the work of art itself.
Just like this new idea that video artists sell their monoband as projection art pieces. There is nothing that tells you that these pieces must be projected. They're not loops, they're not multi-screens, they have nothing to do with the use of any special architecture.
They are short films with broadcast conditions written by the artist or gallerist. I think of William Kentridge, how most of his films are really traditional short films. I was so upset at this guy, incredibly pretentious (he calls his animations "projected drawings") considering the amount of animators who surely used similar methods to him (pencil and eraser) because they were as poor as him when they started.
I mean, he's making money out of selling the drawings...why need to sell the films as pieces of art? (ed's note: I made a mistake here, below I will be re-adressing the issue) What if Peter Jackson came and say: look... they are 5 copies of King Kong and they will be sold 5 million each. That would be ridiculous, because it wouldn't follow what the medium is about. In cinema the object itself, the celluloid, the dvd, is quasi irrelevant. And Kentridge is as cinematic as Peter Jackson: it's the same thing.
Unless there is a special need for a video installation (say..a Rodney Graham loop really isn't going to work as a single channel monitor piece), I don't think video artists who do art that respect the format of traditional cinema (including experimental cinema) should pretend to be doing anything else than cinema.
It's irrespectuous of a tradition that's been there before them, attempting for a moment to profit from an interpretative confusion between the people able to read cinema from the people able to understand contemporary arts.
Kind of like delimitating what is so bad in Matthew Barney's cinema from what is interesting "within" it.
I have studied in both fields enough to know that cinema uses a certain senses of framing that visual arts would never tolerate. In visual arts you are looking at yourself watching the movie. The projection is a canvas. In the movie you are really looking at the film. Video artists attempt to create a distance that is for the most part impertinent. Since the 80's at least, a fair portion of them is simply relecturing trad. cinema, functioning within that field, sharing little with
visual arts but an irony that was already prevalent in 60's exp. cinema.
Very few video art actually spoof cinema in such ways that they need to be
seen on gallery walls. Many (single channel, limited duration pieces) are proposing ventures in experimental and documentary that would make as much sense or even better if they were projected in cinema screening rooms.
This said, proof that there is a pertinence to video art:
the Mike Kelley "Day Is Done" installation from last year
was one of the best video installation seen in ages. But that shouldn't hold back from a version that could circulate as a monoband on your tv. Peter Greenaway has already done films that exist both in cinema version and installation version. Obviously he is more admired by the cinema crowds than visual arts (we barely hear about his exhibits), but at least he's not wasting space showing his films on
gigantic museums walls for 3 months, with horrible sound conditions, and smell of fresh paint, asking passerbys to stand up for 2 hours.
He understands why screening rooms were invented, and actually
uses them.
And once the broadcast copies are sold and shown everywhere, he released them as dvds for standard folks.
But an old videotape by Pipilotti Rist? That is wayyyy too cool and
wonderful to be released for standard folks. Way much better than say..a video by Chris Cunningham (they are dvd compils of some of the best music clips directors). So all you ever get are the internet extract clips
(if you're lucky), and a curator text saying: "hey you... I know
you can't see the whole clip right here but you just trust me, cos I'm telling you, it's really really THAT great..Wooooo!!!".
Well, what party.
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
ADDENDUM:
Ooops...ok, my comparison Peter Jackson and William Kentridge was not fair on one account:
Peter Jackson releases a certain amount of full 35mm prints of King Kong for broadcast companies (cinemas). A year later he releases it on dvd for the standard crowd pleasure.
William Kentridge sells a certain amount of films to museums for them to be projected on white walls (why museum walls, go figure...).
The problem thereafter is that he never ever releases them on dvd for the general public (this is an hypothesis...a case study of a visual artists working with single channel work). They are catalogs of the drawings, but a catalog (dvd) of the films, which broadcast versions have all been sold since ages, seems implausible.
You can get a whole reproduction of a Picasso but you will never get a whole reproduction of a Kentridge. "20 000 frames
against 1 ???? Hey, that's not fair !! Don't steal my art!"
Video art suddenly becomes engulfed into an aura that it has created for itself. Tapes get stacked into the vaults of contemporary art museums and lays forgotten there through the years. Most people have never heard of that old Lisa Steele tape, you know?
And then, 20 years later some curator finds them back and show extracts on the web to not offuscate monsieur's copyrights. Or if he's a star they end up being released on dvd 75 years after the death of the artist.
I mean...frankly... They are many programs showing short films on specialized tvs (in Quebec there is Silence On Court), but I cannot think of one program, after 40 years of the birth of video art, that ever broadcasted video art tapes on public television. (!)
Why not ? Why do I still need to go freeze my ass into an obscure
abandoned factory at a Champ Libre event each 2 years to see some video art ??
Why do video artists, instead of snobbing movements like Kino, simply not participate and propose an alternative, throw them tapes on the stage, compile them, play them.
I mean...what's all the fuss about
video art ? I thought Brakhage did it all.
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
ADDENDUM 2:
Final one: promiss:
How in hell could I have forgottten
this:
There WAS a series last year in Quebec on video art made for ....forgot which channel, but it was not even Artv (meaning that no-one probably ever saw it).
But again I think it was all extracts, extracts, extracts...
It's a chance that with artists like Manon Labrecque
sometimes you don't make a difference between an extract and the whole thing. ;-)
Cheers,
Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com
1:11 AM
posted by Cedric at 11:31 AM
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