Abramovic/Ulay, AAA-AAA, 1978, Single channel video, 09:52 min, Van Abbemuseum Collection, Eindhoven.
Exhibition: Embodied Time: Art Video, 1970-Present (9 Dec 2006-25 Feb 2007)
History of Art’s co-curated this exhibition with René Zechlin of UCC's Lewis Glucksman Art Gallery. The exhibition ran from 9 December 2006 until 25 February 2007 in the Glucksman, and the project was developed with the support of the Netherlands Media Arts Institute–
The exhibition Embodied Time investigates the role that the human body has played in the time-based medium of video, from 1970 to the present moment. Unlike painting or sculpture, the medium of video records actions, events, or performances using technological means to incorporate duration into art making. Embodied Time investigates the interplay of artist, technical media, and viewer, presenting a range of works from the documentation of a performance to large-scale video installation works.
The representation of the human body was a central aspect in the development of video art from its beginnings in the 1960s and 70s. Video offered a more affordable alternative to film making, and allowed artists new possibilities to document time-specific artistic events, such as live performances and ‘happenings', – practices which were prominently and concurrently being developed from the 1960s onward. In these contexts, artists used their own bodies to subvert established and hegemonic representations, especially from feminist perspectives. The partnership of artists' bodies and video also coincided with the issue of ‘dematerialization', a term which coined artists' resistances to the commodification of art in both subject and object.
Video was used, not simply a documentation-tool, but also as a creative framework with its own set of aesthetic and material parameters. Video also reconfigured artists' relationships to audiences, allowing artists to perform solely in front of a camera as a way of interaction with the viewer. In other cases, such as in video installations, the viewer does not assume a fixed and passive position, but is required to interact and immerse themselves into the artwork, therefore becoming part of the work's activation.
Just as earlier developments in film enabled the body to appear in dimensions of time and space that were never before possible – video enabled artists to explore this further with renewed possibilities and interests. Throughout the exhibition, artistic examinations of the human body do not only include its physical aspects, as well as the body's pathological limits or vulnerabilities. The human body is also addressed in its spatial and social context.
Beside the time-based character of the medium, time comes to present in the works in various forms, such as history, memory, or transience. But time can also become a pact with the viewer, often demanding a specific length of engagement – from the start to the end of the tape. Video returns the viewer to the origin of the event, declaring its absolute, self-renewing presence, returning us to the performing body, in history, again and again in a suspended and endless present.
Participating Artists:
Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Kevin Atherton, Lynda Benglis, Marinus Boezem, Peter Bogers, Valie Export, Dan Graham, Nan
