Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995

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In a long view of a black and white gallery space, several video sculptures are displayed.

Installation view, Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2018. Photo: Peter Harris Studio.

Location
Hayden & Reference Galleries
Featured Artists
Dara Birnbaum
Ernst Caramelle
Takahiko Iimura
Shigeko Kubota
Mary Lucier
Muntadas
Tony Oursler
Nam June Paik
Friederike Pezold
Adrian Piper
Diana Thater
Maria Vedder
Explore all artists who have exhibited at the List in our Artist Index.

Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995 shines a spotlight on a historical moment and a body of work in the history of media art that has been largely overlooked since its inception.

The exhibition explores the connections between our current moment and the point at which video art was transformed dramatically with the entry of large-scale, cinematic installation into the gallery space. This exhibition will present a re-evaluation of monitor-based sculpture since the 1970’s and serve as a tightly focused survey of works that have been rarely seen in the last twenty years. Artists featured in the exhibition are Dara Birnbaum, Ernst Caramelle, Takahiko Iimura, Shigeko Kubota, Mary Lucier, Muntadas, Tony Oursler, Nam June Paik, Friederike Pezold, Adrian Piper, Diana Thater, and Maria Vedder

Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995 is curated by Henriette Huldisch, Director of Exhibitions & Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center.

The exhibition traveled to and was exhibited at SculptureCenter, NY Sep 17–Dec 17, 2018.

Sponsors

The exhibition is presented as part of a citywide partnership of arts and educational institutions organized to recognize the outsized role greater Boston has played in the history and development of technology. The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston initiated this partnership to link concurrent exhibitions and programs related to the themes of the ICA exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today.

Exhibitions at the List Center are made possible with the support of Fotene Demoulas & Tom Coté, Audrey & James Foster, Jane & Neil Pappalardo, Cynthia & John Reed, and Terry & Rick Stone.   In-kind media sponsorship provided by 90.9 WBUR.

Additional support for Before Projection: Video Projection 1974-1995 was provided by Lévy Gorvy and SPAIN arts & culture.

General operating support is provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Council for the Arts at MIT, Philip S. Khoury, Associate Provost at MIT, the MIT School of Architecture + Planning, the Mass Cultural Council, and many generous individual donors. The Advisory Committee Members of the List Visual Arts Center are gratefully acknowledged.

Images

Three brightly colored video images are reflected in the water of a curved stainless steel trough.
Still of a blurred sunrise, casting orange and pink, fog like, over city rooftops.
Three black and white screens appear to float within the dark space, displaying the same video image at different angles.
2 people playing ping pong at a table flanked by a pair of monitors, displaying players engaged in a simultaneous game. 
A wall of video monitors display an overall blue image, castle tower with a nuclear stack sits on a pedestal in front.
Two face-to-face monitors sit on the floor in a dark room, and monitor plays a video in a lighted area beyond.
A figure made of cellos, color TVs, and antique TV cabinets, leans near a sculpture reflecting colored lights from above.
Two monitors sit on the floor, screens pressed together, and a blue light emanates from a display in the room beyond.
Five stacked rows of five monitors each, 1 monitor missing, display a woman, a single monitor on the floor repeats the image.
In a long view of a black and white gallery space, several video sculptures are displayed.
A curved, steel trough reflects colored images from 3 CRT monitors, suspended face-down above it, in a dark space.
An array of video monitors on desks displaying faces, upside down chairs placed before each, portraits line the walls in back.
Three video monitors, displaying red, green, or blue, sit by a large window, 2 monitors stand in front of a ping pong table.
Totem of 4 monitors display videos of body parts, beyond which a monitor is mounted on a black section of a white wall.
A mounted video monitor with attached speakers displays 2 rows of competition figure skaters, words superimposed over them.
In a dark room, a curved formation of video monitors display a succession of sunrises.

Events

Videos

Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995

Preview image for the video "Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995".

Related Publication

Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995

2018, MIT List Visual Arts Center and Hirmer Verlag

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Book cover of rBefore Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995 featuring an image of screens showing a close up of a human face and a close up of a body in black undergarments with a black rectangle on top with the exhibition title in white.

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