Art Videos on the Web.
18 Jan 2008
A few days ago, Monsieur Winkleman made a little post about online art medias offering a “TV” feature. I wanted to follow up and add a few websites to his list.
(Left image, screen capture from Cool Hunting, Brooklyn based artist Michael DeLucia in Rivington Arms for his show. Right image, screen capture from artreview, Yves Klein’s symphony “Monoton-Silence“.)
- Artivi
French site started in 2006 by Marc Gusils (the honorable Pierre Bergé is also a partner in the venture)
- watched: French Kissin in the U.S.A, 06:12.
Direct links to videos, comments, RSS and podcasts available.
The resolution is pretty good and I like the aspect ratio of their videos. I found the background music disturbing at times.
Since there are no tags, keywords or whatnot, their search button doesn’t fully function. I typed the name of an artist from the video French Kissin in the USA and the engine didn’t point to the piece.
So far the coverage is mostly of Europe and NY.
- VBS.TV
Vice on TV.
They have a newish program entitled “Art Talk!” where artists discuss their work (from Richard Prince to Misaki Kawai) in their studios. I liked to glimpse at these. The emphasis is clearly on the work itself and the process of making it.
- watched: Art Talk! - Aurel Schmidt Part 1 of 2, 02:50.
Direct links to videos, full screen feature. No RSS feed but each program is linked to a particular blog one can receive announcements from.
The low points come with the short yet loud ads at the beginning of each piece, and yes, the overly NY centric program.
- VernissageTV
One of the first I found. Since the coverage is pretty wide, yet pretty concentrated in Europe, it’s always a good way to see/hear about what is going on, let’s say, in Zurich, or Madrid. I often find the documentaries pretty dull. The editing is at times clearly a disaster, but I would browse a video on mute and get a feel for a show I was intrigued by.
- watched: Allie Bogle, Shana Lutker, Justin Beal and Mateo Tannatt at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, 04.51.
What pleasantly differentiate vtv from the other sites, are the tags, which allow you to see everything from, one artist, one city or one fair (LA hasn’t been talked about since last August though.. ouch - vs. NY with 4 entries since the beginning of the year). The videos can be downloaded in quicktime format (nice) and you can subscribe onto your iphones or other apple devices.
Oh and they have a new HD feature (!) with the full lenght version of the documentary film Paul McCarthy Head Shop/Shop Head at SMAK/Gent Belgium by Thom de Bock.
- Cool Hunting Video
Cool Hunting is one of those pop-culture induced website I check regularly as to get a grip on the “mainstream avant-guarde“. Their videos convey the same flair, but they are also one of the best executed ones, with great editing, great camera moves, light and such. Yet, as with often documentaries, the music takes too much space for my liking.
- watched: Michael DeLucia by Ami Kealoha, 03:25
Can download video in QT and can link to it. The search engine combined with a few keywords make the browsing pretty easy.
With these two next sites, we enter the realm of user-generated websites. These provide a great platform for people to post their own art-related documentaries, therefore one can find underrepresented topics or edgy points on view on a more popular issue. Yet, the quality - I am talking technicality here - is often of the YouTube admitted aesthetic.
Videos - artreview.com.
The British magazine evolved from a regular paper-based publication to offering its full content online. With this next step, they opened their doors to the hordes of web browsers slash critics, slash artists, slash art lovers to freely absorb and generate content to their new publishing platform. Think myspace/facebook for the art community, without the hassle of a bad code/design job. (Yes, we are talking to you Saatchi Gallery.)
- watched: Matthew Barney press briefing at the Serpentine, 02:07.
- watched: Yves Klein, Symphonie “Monoton-Silence” (1947-61), 10:00.
I picked 2 videos. One uploaded by artreview, one uploaded by one of its users. The press briefing of Matthew Barney’s show at Serpentine was quite terrible: shaky camera, ugly sound, and overall, boring video. It raises the question as to whether or not, all content should be available on a video format. (I vote for not) If I was curious to know about the curator’s view on the show, I’d rather read the full press release than go through these 2 min.
As for the second video, the appeal is greatly different. Here we watch, without a movement the performance of Yves Klein infamous piece of “silence-après” [afterwards silence]. Although the sound isn’t at its finest, the video plays the role of a lucky witness, recording a special and isolated occurrence.
- CultureTV
The interface is pretty bad for streaming the videos and the quality of each piece also varies greatly. RSS feed available. Link to each video.
Finding videos is a real hassle, no info, no tags, no dates.
(Left image, screen capture from artivi, view of the installation of Jean-François Moriceau and Petra Mrzyk. Right image, screen capture from VBS, Brooklyn based artist Aurel Schmidt in her studio.)
Finally, here is a list of brilliant web platforms for video works and films, as opposed to art documentaries.
- tank.tv (One need to subscribe, which is free, to access their archives.)
- UBUWEB (check for example the works available from Gordon Matta-Clark.)
- Perpetual Art Machine
- Video Pool (A real treasure. As with UBU, one can easily get lost in the hours spent watching all the gems available)
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