Thanks to the funding support of UCB art librarian, Kathryn Wayne, MRC has recently acquired a fabulous group of performance works and experimental films from Electronic Arts Intermix in New York and Video Data Bank in Chicago.  Artists represented include Vito Acconci, Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Carolee Schneemann, and others.  Amazing stuff!

A sampling of these new additions is offered below.  For a complete listing of MRC's Avant-garde and Experimental film and performance works, click HERE 

The Red Tapes. Vico Acconci.   Considered to be Acconci's master work, this three-part epic is one of the major achievements in the video medium. Designed originally for video projection, the work is structured to  merge video space--the close-up--with filmic space--the landscape. Acconci maps a topography of the self within a cultural and social context, locating personal identity through history, cultural artifacts, language and representation.  DVD 5361 

Body Collage.  Carolee Schneemann.    Body Collage is a visceral "movement-event" from 1967, in which Schneemann paints her body with wallpaper paste and molasses, and then runs, leaps, falls into and rolls through shreds of white printer's paper, creating a physicalized corporal collage. "My intention was not simply to collage my body (as an object), but to enact movement so that the collage image would be active, found, not predetermined or posed," writes Schneemann.  Originally produced as a film on Sept. 12, 1967. VIDEO/C MM1061

Video Synthesizer and TV Cello Collectibles: 1965-1971.   Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut.  Video commune filmed in 1970; TV cello premiere filmed in 1971 at the Bonino Gallery in New York City.   These rare early collaborative works by Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut are historically significant as well as remarkably prescient. Recorded between 1965 and 1971, these 'video-films' reveal insights into the evolution of Paik's work and are among the earliest explorations of the interfacing of film and video. Video Commune is Jud Yalkut's documentation of Paik's first interactive television "performance" and also marks the debut of the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer. The images were generated directly from the synthesizer and mixed with prerecorded Japanese TV commercials with Beatles music. TV cello Premiere is a silent film of Charlotte Moorman in her first performance on Paik's "TV cello," in 1971.  VIDEO/C MM1053

Check out the Nam June Paik web site HERE!

Tony Sinking into the Floor Face Up and Face Down.  Bruce Nauman. In this film, a companion to Elke, the performer's task was to imagine himself sinking into the floor. The resulting images portray him stretched out on the floor, sometimes face up, sometimes face down, in a series of dissolves.  VIDEO/C MM134

Rare Performance Documents. Nam June Paik. Vol. 1: Performance documentation, Aachen, Germany (1965) -- Charlotte Moorman at the Howard Wise Gallery (1969) -- TV bed, the Everson Museum of Art (1972) -- TV cello performance (1973) -- Waiting for commercial (performance, 1972) -- New television workshop performance (1917) -- Vol. 2: Hand and face (1961) -- Fluxus sonata at Anthology Film Archives (1975) -- Violin dragging, Brooklyn, NY (1975) -- Tribute to GM (aka Video Venus) (1978) -- Nam June Paik with The Bad Brains (1991) -- Evening with Nam June Paik at the Kitchen (1994)   Ranging in length from 2 to 8 minutes, these performances are from Nam June Paik's personal archives and date from 1961-1994. Many include collaborations with Charlotte Moorman. VIDEO/C MM1050

Check out the Nam June Paik web site HERE!

Flux Concert.  On March 24, 1979, The Kitchen hosted a concert of reconstructed historical Fluxus performances. Over forty short pieces by thirty artists and composers were performed (with occasional assistance from the audience). Among the pieces featured were compositions by reknowned Fluxus artists Yoko Ono, Ben Vautier, Le Monte Young and George Maciunas. Performers include Simone Forti, Dick Higgins, Yoshi Wada and Geoff Hendricks.  82 min. Video/C MM1059

 

Check out the Fluxus portal HERE! 

 

Red Tape--Collected Work. Bill Viola. Playing soul music to my freckles so they won't get lonely -- A non-dairy creamer -- The semi-circular canal -- A million other things (2) -- Return.
Red Tape is a collection of short pieces that function thematically as a larger meta-work. In each of these performative, structuralist exercises, a specific function of perception or representation --as articulated through video technology-- becomes a metaphor for a perspective of the self. Here, Viola establishes themes that recur throughout his work, including cycles of light and dark and the metaphorical restructuring of the passing of time. Writes Viola, "A single figure appears in all the works as either the instigator or recipient of various actions performed on or initiated by nature, culminating in a ritualized cycle of death and renewal."  VIDEO/C MM1055

 

Check out the Bill Viola web site HERE!