To coincide with Argentina's International Video Art Festival (FIVA 2016), we take a closer look at the universe of video art, which peaked in the 1960s and 70s. Thanks to the Fluxus current we were able to find out more about a marginal artistic style. With international figures of the stature of Yoko Ono, Fluxus was just one of the expressions of video art, the legacy of Dadaism and pop art. Despised by some, praised by others, for a while it lived alongside Viennese Actionism but, unlike that movement, the artist collectives that fall within video art are still around today (offshoots of Ant Farm or of Fluxus). Welcome to the universe of 20th century marginal art.
The origin: video art in its own time
There are few artistic currents that aren't children of their time. Video art was not going to be an exception. The Avant Garde and Dadaism, surrealism at its most extreme, had to come first. Pop Art had to give its first thrashes and the Bauhaus had to spread across the whole of Europe from the Nordic countries before video art could begin to find a place in the collective imagination.
It reached the height of its popularity in the sixties, when domestic technology started to become available to high society. Many of the great video artists of the Fluxus movement came from there. In fact, the use of video cameras and technological democratisation brought about "the miracle" to a large extent. In a way, video art was possible thanks to globalisation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njtMsimGID0Paradoxically, this movement tried to avoid the commercial tone of Pop Art or the Bauhaus even though it came directly from two factors that were strongly tied to what its members criticised: the ruling classes and mass communication. The event that defined what we know today as video art was the creation of the video "Caos y Creación" by Salvador Dalí. Needless to say, this iconic artist came from an aristocratic family.
Like him, Wolf Vostella has been considered the father of video art for his creation "Sun in your Head" (1963). Its importance lies in the use of photographic techniques, collage and video all in one. He is the greatest representative of the Fluxus era. After him many more would appear, as in the case of Paul Wong, Juan Downey or Nan Hoover.
Lisa Steele, or women in video art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEi7bfayII8There is something very characteristic about the Fluxus collective, and that is that numerous female artists became known in this field. Conceptual art was a direct descendant of Dadaism and, as such, the female role in art was starting to be perceived as actor and not as object.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XdAIoit_KIIf until the beginning of the 20th century the role of women in artistic creation had been abruptly limited to that of muse or consort artist, the artistic movement of video art acts as a lifeline for women artists who, throughout history, had been defined as object and not as subject.
The art that wanted to get close to the public (but was private)
Both Viennese Actionism and video art (in a way, Viennese Actionism was a form of video art) tried to include the viewer in the creative process, to get them to intervene. Performances and happenings come from them. The difference, though, was that Viennese Actionism was the filmic resolution of Dadaism (the movement lasted just as briefly in one case as in the other) while video art endured over time. Why did that happen?
When an avant-garde movement appears it faces two outcomes. The first is that it becomes democratised (in which case it fails), the second is that it has no impact on society at large because the individual doesn't recognise themselves in the movement (in this case, it also fails). In other words, the avant-garde cannot survive its own aim, to make an impact and provoke emotions in the viewer. It may seem shocking or attractive at first but, as time goes by, the art consumer gets used to it and folds the exception into the artistic norm shared by all the artists of the same movement.
On the other hand, if art aims to be groundbreaking and to invite reflection it cannot become an artistic current, because in the process it would be taking on patterns that this very movement is trying to break. That is why video art cannot be considered a filmed Dadaism or an evolved Viennese Actionism. Its function was to stir consciences and what it managed to do was create an elitist minority around itself.
https://youtu.be/QL7hguy3YdMVideo art in Spain
The reach of video art in Spain is the product of artists appearing in this country during the 80s and 90s. As happens with contemporary art trends, Spain delayed the arrival of every avant-garde until the end of the dictatorship. The European, American and South American precedents had been Martin Sastre, Shriin Neshat and Mathias Müller.
Today its representatives are Jordi Colomer (one of the few who lived in Spain, apart from spending years in France) as well as Luis Bezeta or Julia Juaniz. Perhaps what will interest the reader most, however, is getting to know some of the most important events in the field.
IVAHM (Madrid)
An annual gathering of artists. Worth it from the perspective of single channel art.
LOOP (Barcelona)
It's the benchmark video art festival in Spain and takes place every year during the month of May. Over a whole week there are numerous spaces set aside for showing alternative art by a range of artists.
Video art remains a current that has been democratised and that, today, we can enjoy in almost any contemporary art exhibition. However, most of the active, aware viewers who form part of this movement are also video creators, which leads us to ask, is there transgression after success? Can an artistic current be killed by its own success?
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