A refreshing week with Martha Rosler
I have just attended a week-long seminar, from December 10-15, given by Martha Rosler within the program of unitednationsplaza. unitednationsplaza is ‘exhibition as school’, a seminar program based in the city of Berlin which was initially planned for Nicosia, Cyprus as a part of Manifesta 6. The program is organized by Anton Vidokle in partnership with individual artists, artist collaboratives and philosophers.
Martha Rosler’s seminar consisted not only of evening lectures but also of a video screening program. This included approximately 70 videos made between the 1970s and 2002 by activists or by artists from Canada and the Americas (two of the 70 videos were by Martha Rosler herself). Included works matched the initial utopian idea of video as a vehicle for provoking social transformation. This quality could be mapped in almost all the works since all were addressing different aspects of the social and political world. Selection of the videos was very telling because it is simply not easy for European audience to encounter most of the works, with the possible exception of Ant Farm’s Media Burn (1975) or Dara Birnbaum’s Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-1979), which have been shown in art exhibition context. The other unifying aspect of the works was that they were shot in the street, technology allowing the artists to use rather lighter equipment.
The leading interest of works from the 1970s was criticism of television either as a total negation or as an effort to find alternative ways within television to reach the people. In this context, it was refreshing to see the video work of Richard Serra, Television Delivers People (1973), an American artist widely known for his minimalist sculptures made of industrial material. Media-activist collective projects Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish triggered reflection about the alternative ways of working within the television system. During the 1980s video activists and artists made videos primarily about AIDS, about racism towards minorities and about class and gender politics. Hector Sanchez’s Life in the G: Gowanus Gentrified (1988) and Miriam Hernandez’s Millie Reyes, 2371 2nd Avenue: An East Harlem Story were exemplary works of the activists working together with youngsters in order for them to tell their own stories. In addition to the problems of the 1980s, videos from the1990s scrutinized the problems of the city. Paul Garrin’s By Any Means Necessary (1990) highlighted the political stance of the state towards homeless people. Some videos, especially more recent works about the war in Iraq such as Norman Cowie’s Scenes from an Endless War (2002) and Deep Dish’s Shocking and Awful, raised the question of how to provoke the attention of the public to things happening in the world without recourse to propaganda?
The videos were mostly content driven and the ultimate aim was to be able to disseminate the works to as many people as possible—be it in the art world or among the general public. As a result, the seminar foregrounded a crucial aspect of video, which is easily overlooked at the moment. This feeling was amplified by an exhibition taking place simultaneously at a contemporary art museum in Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof entitled The Art of Projection: Films, Videos and Installations. The videos included in the show, especially those dating from the 1990s onwards, revealed how works are becoming more and more monumental and sculptural in stark contrast to the low-tech, low-profile features of the early days. The Art of Projection, which was just one of many similar shows, made me realize once more how much video has lost its emancipatory aspect particularly in comparison to the videos I had seen over that one week.
Pelin Uran
is a Turkish curator currently based in Berlin
back to SPEECH
Martha Rosler’s seminar consisted not only of evening lectures but also of a video screening program. This included approximately 70 videos made between the 1970s and 2002 by activists or by artists from Canada and the Americas (two of the 70 videos were by Martha Rosler herself). Included works matched the initial utopian idea of video as a vehicle for provoking social transformation. This quality could be mapped in almost all the works since all were addressing different aspects of the social and political world. Selection of the videos was very telling because it is simply not easy for European audience to encounter most of the works, with the possible exception of Ant Farm’s Media Burn (1975) or Dara Birnbaum’s Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-1979), which have been shown in art exhibition context. The other unifying aspect of the works was that they were shot in the street, technology allowing the artists to use rather lighter equipment.
The leading interest of works from the 1970s was criticism of television either as a total negation or as an effort to find alternative ways within television to reach the people. In this context, it was refreshing to see the video work of Richard Serra, Television Delivers People (1973), an American artist widely known for his minimalist sculptures made of industrial material. Media-activist collective projects Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish triggered reflection about the alternative ways of working within the television system. During the 1980s video activists and artists made videos primarily about AIDS, about racism towards minorities and about class and gender politics. Hector Sanchez’s Life in the G: Gowanus Gentrified (1988) and Miriam Hernandez’s Millie Reyes, 2371 2nd Avenue: An East Harlem Story were exemplary works of the activists working together with youngsters in order for them to tell their own stories. In addition to the problems of the 1980s, videos from the1990s scrutinized the problems of the city. Paul Garrin’s By Any Means Necessary (1990) highlighted the political stance of the state towards homeless people. Some videos, especially more recent works about the war in Iraq such as Norman Cowie’s Scenes from an Endless War (2002) and Deep Dish’s Shocking and Awful, raised the question of how to provoke the attention of the public to things happening in the world without recourse to propaganda?
The videos were mostly content driven and the ultimate aim was to be able to disseminate the works to as many people as possible—be it in the art world or among the general public. As a result, the seminar foregrounded a crucial aspect of video, which is easily overlooked at the moment. This feeling was amplified by an exhibition taking place simultaneously at a contemporary art museum in Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof entitled The Art of Projection: Films, Videos and Installations. The videos included in the show, especially those dating from the 1990s onwards, revealed how works are becoming more and more monumental and sculptural in stark contrast to the low-tech, low-profile features of the early days. The Art of Projection, which was just one of many similar shows, made me realize once more how much video has lost its emancipatory aspect particularly in comparison to the videos I had seen over that one week.
Pelin Uran
is a Turkish curator currently based in Berlin
back to SPEECH
posted by speech at 4:44 AM
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