Presentation of ASAC – Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts
The documents and the materials (photographs, catalogues, press kits, press clips, etc.) that bear
witness to the activities of all the Sectors (Visual Arts, Architecture, Cinema, Music and Theatre) of
la Biennale di Venezia are conserved in its Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC).
Currently, the Historic Fund (the heart of the archives) and the collections of posters, photographs
and plates, periodicals, musical scores, documentary collections, media library and artistic fund, are
conserved in the spaces located in the VEGA Scientific and Technological Park in Porto Marghera,
and are open to consultation by the public (students, researchers, critics, etc.), thanks to the
restoration and reorganization projects completed in recent years with the help of the
Soprintendenza Archivistica per il Veneto.
The Library is located in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini di Castello. Now that the Funds have
been stored and catalogued, every year specific exhibitions are organized in the Biennale
headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian, in collaboration with the various Sectors. ASAC has ongoing
collaboration and exchange programmes, in various fields, with cultural, educational and
conservation Institutions, in Italy and abroad.
The Library of the Biennale
The new Library of la Biennale is an integral part of the historic Central Pavilion in the Giardini, as
a result of the project that has transformed it into a new multi-purpose structure. The restoration
project was completed in 2010 with the opening of the new, large reading room, surrounded by a
two-storey mezzanine floor which carries over 800 linear metres of shelving with 134,000 books, of
which 40% are stored on the open shelving, catalogues, monographs, texts and editorial series from
all the Sectors of activity at la Biennale: Visual Arts, Architecture, Cinema, Music, Theatre, Dance.
The Library is particularly distinguished for its complete collection of catalogues of la Biennale
since the first edition of the Art Exhibition in 1895, which has since been complemented by the
acquisition of exhibition catalogues from all over the world, becoming one of the most complete
collections with over 70,000 books at the disposition of scholars and researchers. In order to identify
guidelines for the acquisitions policy in years to come, in 2009 the “Bibliography of the Exhibition”
was introduced: the artists and architects invited to the Exhibitions must contribute the publications
they deem most significant regarding the works on display. The initiative has proven effective and
900 books per year have been collected for Art and Architecture. New acquisitions also derive
from an intense and prolific exchange between institutions. The Library is open all year, and may be
accessed from Calle del Paludo Sant’Antonio, and when the Exhibitions are open, including
Saturday and Sunday.
VIDEO MEDIUM INTERMEDIUM: thematic explorations
Videogallery by Gerry Schum
In 1969, the year in which the first video-recording equipment came out on the market, Gerry
Schum announced the foundation of a videogallery in which TV was used as an artistic medium.
The video broadcasts, which up to that time were simple reports on art projects, become actual
works of art. The objective was to step out of the restricted elite circle represented by galleries and
museums. The Fernseh Galerie in Düsseldorf was inaugurated by Land Art, a film by Schum
focusing on the artists who work directly on the natural environment, outside traditional exhibition
spaces. The land artist produced works without stable form, subject to natural phenomena and to
the action of time. The film Land Art uses images alone to document the processes leading to the
creation of the great installations and works on the environment produced by Earth Art artists such
as Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Dennis Oppenheim, Marinus Boezem, Robert Smithson, Jan
Dibbets, Walter De Maria. Transferred into video, Land Art was broadcast in April 1969 by a
television station in Berlin, Freies Berlin. A second broadcast entitled Identifications was produced
by Schum the following year. It is a collection of videos lasting 35 seconds to 5 minutes featuring
twenty artists from different countries including Joseph Beuys, Mario Merz, Alighiero Boetti,
Daniel Buren, Walter De Maria, Richard Long and Giliberto Zorio.
Artists with Fluxus and Happening Art background
Fluxus was an international movement that spread around 1960 across two major centres, New
York and Tokyo, and simultaneously through many European cities such as Copenhagen, Paris,
Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, London and Nice. George Maciunas, an American artist of Lithuanian
origin, is considered the founder. Giuseppe Chiari was the only Italian artist to join the movement,
starting in 1962. The Latin word fluxus suggests the idea that art filters into daily life and also refers
to the temporary nature of art objects. The exponents of Fluxus are attracted by the idea of total art
combining music, dance, poetry, theatre and performance. Happenings are a practical translation of
this concept. The word was invented by Allan Kaprow between the Fifties and Sixties to indicate
artistic events that emphasize the relationship between the spectator and the performer, and the
importance of randomness and improvisation. The video medium made it possible to record the
Fluxus events and happenings, thereby transforming their nature. Fleeting situations turned into
representations permanently established in time.
Performance
Performance art was developed in the Sixties thanks to the work of conceptual artists who used
their own body as a means of expression, including Marina Abramovich and Simone Forti. The
conditions conducive to a performance required the presence of four basic elements: time, space,
the body of the performer and the relationship between the performer and the public. The
possibility of recording these events fostered the diffusion of performances held in the absence of
spectators.
Linguistics and tautology
In the Seventies some artists used video as a means for reflecting on visual and verbal language.
They were based on the linguistic theories of Wittgenstein, on semiotics and on Structuralism. John
Baldessari, for example, used word games and semantic constructs with irony and brilliant
humour. He thereby ridiculed the pedantry of much of the conceptual art of the time.
Self-reflections
Artists began to turn the video-camera on themselves, using their own body as the preferred subject
of their works, like Vito Acconci and Arnulf Rainer. This practice was not just an exploration of
individual identity but also of the relationship between man and society, intimacy and public space,
freedom and social conditioning.
Electronic Experiments
Starting in the late Sixties, some artists began to consider video as a plastic medium and to use
various technical devices to manipulate electronic signals and create an original imaginary of
abstract forms that undergo a continuous metamorphosis. They often relied on the collaboration of
technical personnel and experts and avant-garde technological discoveries. Two important centers
for electronic art were The Kitchen, a workshop founded in 1971 in New York by Woody and
Steina Vasulka and the Experimental Television Center in Binghamton, New York where Ed
Mellnik recorded his first live performances.
Extension of artistic experimentation through video
Thanks to the spread of new video technology that was cheaper and easier-to-handle than in the
past, at the end of the Sixties the artists discovered a new terrain for experimentation. They had a
new tool that could be combined with performance and body art, sculpture and installations, and
strengthened their expressive power. In addition, sustains Les Levine, video is a liquid media that
is constantly changing and evolving. These characteristics made it a highly fascinating medium for
an entire generation of artists.
VIDEO MEDIUM INTERMEDIUM
Videos in Exhibition
Section 1: Video-gallery by Gerry Schum
Gerry Schum – TV Show 1. Land Art (1969), 35’ (Boezem, Dibbets, Flanagan, Long, De Maria,
Oppenheim, Smithson)
Gerry Schum – Tv Show 2. Identifications (1970), 50’ (Anselmo, Beuys, Boetti, Brown, Buren,
Calzolari,De Dominicis, Van Elk, Fulton, Gilbert&George, Kuehn, Merz, Rinke, Rueckriem,
Ruthenbeck, Serra, Sonnier, Erhard Walther, Weiner, Zorio)
Section 2: Fluxus e Happening Art
Joseph Beuys - Vitex Agnus Castus (1972), 11’
Giuseppe Chiari - Spoleto Concert 2 (1974), 19’45”
Allan Kaprow - Then (1974), 23’38”
Nam June Paik - Global Groove (1975), 50’
Section 3: Electronic Experiments
Ed Mellnik - A piece to the Puzzle (1975), 4’50”
Ed Mellnik - One Minute (1975), 1’03”
Pamela Shaw - Cross Currents (1975), 18’24”
Nina Sobel - From 73 & 74 (1975) , 4’02”
Woody Valsuka - Random Selection. Vocabulary (1973), 5’ 54”
Bill Viola - Polaroid Video Stills (1973), 10’59”
Section 4: Performance Art
Marina Abramovic - Art must be beautiful, Artists must be beautiful (1975), 8’07”
Eleanor Antin - Europa n.1 (1974), 33’11’
Christian Boltanski - La vie est triste, la vie est gaie ( 1974), 25’
Simone Forti - No title Untitled (1973), 29’10”
Rebecca Horn - Videotape n.3, (1973), 29’46”
Joan Jonas - Merlo (1974), 10’53”
Section 5: Linguistics and tautology
Vincenzo Agnetti - Documentario n.2 ( 1973), 8’
John Baldessarri - The Italian Tape, (1974), 8’32”
Dan Graham - Past. Future Split Attention (1975), 17’03”
Maurizio Nannucci - The missing Poem is the Poem (1974), 8’
Section 6: Self-reflections
Vito Acconci - Home Movies (1973), 33’24”
Douglas Davies - The Florence Tape: clothing, walking, lifting, leaving (1974), 28’21”
Ketty La Rocca - Appendice per una supplica (1972), 9’26”
Arnulf Rainer - Slow Motion ( 1974), 9’53”
Section 7: Extension of artistic experimentation in video
Alighiero Boetti - Ciò che sempre parla in silenzio è il corpo (1974), 1’
Les Levine - Outside the Republican Convention (1972), 17’17”
Urs Luthi - Self Portrait (1974), 8’
Giulio Paolini - Unisono (1974), 1’03”
Lucio Pozzi - Portrait of Maria Gloria (1975), 1’09”
Description of the restoration of the art/tapes/22 collection
The digital preservation of the art/tapes/22 collection began with the collaboration between ASAC Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts of the Biennale di Venezia and the Università degli
Studi di Udine with CREA (Centro Ricerche Elaborazione Audiovisiva), its production and
audiovisual preservation laboratories, and La Camera Ottica. The project, conceived jointly by the
university located in the Friuli region and the Venetian archives, included the conservation of part
of the collection of works that came prevalently from the artistic video production company
art/tapes/22. The purpose of the project was to stabilize the physical and chemical conditions of the
original supports, the digital preservation of approximately 200 works and the creation of access
copies to view the works on DVD and on intranet. The protocol used by the laboratories of the
Università degli Studi di Udine was developed in conformity with the methodologies, decisionmaking models and operational protocols adopted in the most important experiences for the
conservation of artistic video collections carried out in Europe and in the United States.
Restoration procedures
The first phase of the works served to gather the documentation and the paratexts of the works
subjected to the preservation treatment; it also included the verification of metadata on the covers
and on the supports; a survey and philological analysis were conducted on the versions in the
collection. The diagnosis of the material state of the supports highlighted the presence of traces of
physical deterioration caused by exposure to moisture in the conservation spaces and wear caused
by use of the tapes. As a result, a chemical, physical and mechanical regeneration process was
undertaken, and the magnetic supports were cleaned. The tapes in the collection were also cleaned
and baked to make it possible to reactivate the supports in order to digitize them.
The second phase of digital acquisition required the stabilization of the signal and the production
of working copies to assess the technical quality of the image and the state of the work as a text. By
comparing the information gathered in the earlier documentation phase and, in some cases, by
means of a comparison with other versions of the same work, the integrity of the text, the quality
of the image and the correspondence between the digitized work and the artistic intentions of the
original work were assessed. This made it possible to verify whether the material conditions of the
digitized work corresponded to its meaning (from an aesthetic and historical point of view). When
no discrepancy between the digitized copy and the aesthetic and historic intent of the original
work were noted, a digital conservation copy was produced. In the opposite case, a further
attempt was made to acquire the signal. The conservation copy (made on an AIT-3 support and on
a hard disk) duplicates the original material as faithfully as possible without any editing or
intervention of any sort, and this makes it possible to keep the intervention as reversible as
possible. These digital copies are the new masters that can be used to produce access and
exhibition copies. In the process of publishing the access copies, editorial decisions were made to
restore the integrity of the works and the original viewing conditions, thereby actualizing and
functionalizing them by virtue of the cultural and aesthetic value of this artistic collection. The
laboratories of La Camera Ottica and CREA also completed a pilot project for the digital
restoration of the work Portrait of Maria Gloria by Lucio Pozzi. Using algorithms for the digital
correction of the image made it possible to eliminate the errors and defects of the video signal due
to corruption caused by the physical deterioration and the material history of the work.
The collection of artists’ videos in ASAC
The media library of the Biennale founded by Wladimiro Dorigo at the beginning of the Seventies
currently gathers audio-visual material for an overall number of approximately 9,000 catalogued
titles, subdivided by discipline: art, film, music, theatre, dance, mass-media. A significant part of
these titles refers to cinema and is composed of 3,550 films, including 1200 reels from the Venice
International Film Festival. Another important section of the collection includes over 1,500
magnetic-tape video recordings produced prevalently between the early Seventies and the late
Eighties by the Audio-visual Laboratory of the Biennale, documenting theatre and musical
performances, dance, animations, street happenings, individual and collective interviews,
workshops, press conferences, lessons, conversations, exhibitions, conferences, courses, debates
seminars and various events.
The remaining part of the media library is constituted by artists’ videos and the documentation of
happenings and performances. These works were initially recorded on 1-inch and 1/2 inch openreel tapes, progressively transferred by the Audio-visual laboratory of the Biennale into Umatic,
VHS and finally DVD formats to guarantee that they may be enjoyed over time despite the
obsolescence of the equipment required to view them. A Catalogue-pricelist of the magnetic-videotape
recordings of the ASAC printed in 1979 showed that at that time the collection counted 249 original
tapes (masters) of this kind, which have now grown to 1,000, almost 2,000 if we take into
consideration the various access copies catalogued over time, which in turn required a treatment
similar to that of the masters, given that the various typologies of copies on different supports have
been registered with their own inventory number.
Since 2005 the latter corpus of the media library has become part of the Artistic Fund (the collection
of the Biennale works of art) to make it easier to manage them and, funds permitting, to initiate a
new project to re-order, catalogue, restore and utilize them.
The first nucleus of video works at the Biennale was collected in 1972 almost by accident with
respect to the intentions of the operators of the time. The idea that the new media for recording on
magnetic tape rather than on film, which cost relatively little, could lead to the development of a
new area of artistic creation, was still hard to imagine at that time, and in fact the tapes were
inventoried in the media library as ‘other video documentation material’. Nevertheless, the first
tapes to be included in the archive were milestones in the development of video art: they were four
reels (one-inch open reels) donated to the 1972 Biennale by Gerry Schum, who had been
commissioned to curate the innovative Video-tapes section and especially to involve and stimulate
the creativity of artists who had not yet begun to consider this new means of expression.
The inauguration of the ASAC headquarters at Ca’ Corner della Regina in 1976 coincided with the
Biennale’s acquisition of the entire body of works produced or distributed by the art/tapes/22
gallery in Florence. The gallery, founded and directed by Maria Gloria Bicocchi, the energetic
cosmopolitan daughter of Futurist painter Primo Conti, sold over 200 tapes made by artists who
came to Florence from various parts of the world: many of them were inexperienced but would in
many cases turn out to be major protagonists of the contemporary art scene. To support them in the
development of their works, Bill Viola was brought in to serve as technical director from the
United States, where the technology in this field was more advanced: he would never neglect to
underline on various occasions how important this early Italian experience became for the
subsequent development of his artistic career. Also included in the Bicocchi sale were the entire
archives of the gallery, including photographic documentation of all kinds, correspondence, books,
magazines regarding the production, exhibition and issues involved in video-art, its production and
distribution, economic and technical issues, and its diffusion.
These were mostly tapes/masters purchased by Asac with circulation and reproduction rights; in
some cases with the right to sell a limited number of copies, in other cases purchased with
distribution rights alone, and in some rare cases, with permission only for internal screenings, some
of them produced in collaborations between art/tapes/22 and other galleries (for more information
on this issue see the book entitled Arte in videotape art/tapes/22 collezione ASAC La Biennale di Venezia,
conservazione restauro valorizzazione, edited by Cosetta Saba, Silvana editrice 2007).
In this exciting phase for this new means of communication, the archives set up a viewing room,
which was very futuristic for the time, with a series of stations equipped with monitors and
headphones for consultation upon request of both audio and video tapes. In collaboration with
Maria Gloria Bicocchi, who briefly became a consultant for ASAC in 1977, a number of initiatives
were held to advance awareness of this means and the ability of artists to use it. In this context, a
seminar entitled Artists and videotape was organized, during which the Biennale would directly
produce a series of videos made by Giuseppe Chiari, Jean Otth, Richard Kriesche, Michele
Sambin.
The collection would later be expanded with new tapes from the various editions of the Art
Biennale and the cycle organized by Asac in 1980 entitled Videotapes from Australia.
With the return to painting invoked in the Eighties, interest in video art slowly dwindled, or better
yet, underwent a transformation that led to the creation of video installations that became much
easier thanks to the evolution of the technology. Acquisitions would not take up again with
renewed vigor until 1986 with the arrival of videos presented in the Installations section, which
raised yet another issue: at this point these videos are elements of a sum total of far more complex
works whose only reason to be is documentation and study, and they represent one or more
fragments of a work of art that in turn must be documented by a video to be understood in its
complexity.
Since 2003, the procedure has been reorganized so that the Visual Arts and Architecture sectors
systematically send ASAC service copies of the artists’ videos presented in the various editions of
the exhibitions curated directly by the Biennale, though they can only be used for documentation
and study.
Since 2005, under director Giorgio Busetto, the Biennale began a systematic project to transfer the
works included in the nucleus of video art into digital format, initiating a collaboration with a
scientific committee from the University of Udine.
The first significant corpus, selected prevalently from the Bicocchi acquisition, was exhibited in 2007
for the entire duration of the 52nd International Art Exhibition in the ASAC spaces in the Arsenale,
in concurrence with the beginning of a pilot project created in collaboration with Cosetta Saba and
Andrea Lissoni, respectively a professor and student of the University of Udine, the purpose of
which was to test which methods were most appropriate for cataloguing and documenting complex
multimedia installations and performances with photographic images, videos and interviews. The
same year Chiara Bertola, as part of the Tribute to Vedova shown in the Venice pavilion, presented a
selection of art/tapes/22 videos.
In 2008 about thirty of the most significant videos were loaned by ASAC for the exhibition
art/tapes/22 production organized by Alice Hutchinson at the University Art Museum UAM (Long
Beach California State University). On that occasion Hutchinson wanted to explore, in close
collaboration with the artists, the possibility of using new technologies to present works conceived
mostly to be seen on 24-inch black and white monitors, thereby updating the exhibition as far as
possible.
Currently the works that have been progressively digitized – the project is an ongoing one – have
been made available for consultation by appointment on intranet in the various venues of la
Biennale.
Video art in the history of la Biennale di Venezia
The first exhibition of video art entitled Exposition of Music – Electronic Television took place in March
1963 in Wuppertal in Germany, and focused on the Korean-born artist and musician Nam June
Paik, considered by many to be the father of electronic art. On that occasion, the images and sounds
reproduced by thirteen televisions were deformed by placing a magnet near the cathode ray tube.
With this device Paik inaugurated his first manipulations of television images and the creative use
of the medium. Two years later in New York he made the video Café Gogo using the first model of
portable video-camera released on the market. This was the founding act of video art because a
commonplace event – city traffic – was presented as an artistic fact in a process similar to
Duchamp’s ready-made. The manipulation of the electronic signal, of broadcasts and recordings
will remain the indisputable constant in Paik’s work which brings together music, sculpture,
painting and film in the immateriality of the electronic image. His experimentations were however
preceded by two significant events. In 1952 Lucio Fontana published his manifesto of the spatial
movement for television, co-signed, among others, by Ambrosiani, Burri, Tancredi, Deluigi. In 1958
the Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell created the first TV dé-collage, an assemblage of objects that recall
the mass society of which electro-acoustic devices and televisions are part.
Electronic art appears for the first time in the history of the Biennale di Venezia in 1968 (director:
Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua) in two spaces created by Vostell under the title Omaggio a Venezia.
Electronic de-coll-age-happening. Room 1959-1968. These are works with a strong visual impact
constituted by light, sound, television sets and photo-electric devices, glass and computers. The
presence of Vostell, as a representative of the nascent video-art, was part of the Biennale’s attempt
to bring itself up-to-date with respect to the new fields of artistic expression of those years, in an
extremely lively cultural and political climate. Video was taken in this context to be the most
appropriate tool for achieving the “democratization of art” and breaking open the so-called
“triangle” of artist-gallery-museum. In addition electronic media allowed the artist great creative
freedom and a substantial reduction in the costs of producing and diffusing the works.
In 1969 Germany’s television channel one broadcast a group of videotapes entitled Land Art,
produced by Gerry Schum for the “Fernseh Galerie” (videogallery) which opened in Dusseldorf
that same year, and soon became a reference point for video-artists from all over the world. Land
Art, devoid of commentary, was a live documentation of interventions on nature and the landscape
by artists such as De Maria, Long, Dibbets and Smithson. The following year Schum produced
Identifications, videos that recorded the actions and performances of international artists such as
Beuys, Gilbert & George, Boetti, Serra, Anselmo, De Dominicis, Merz and Zorio. In Schum’s
utopian vision TV could have become a formidable tool for the democratic diffusion of art.
In 1970 the exhibition Gennaio 70, curated by Renato Barilli, Maurizio Calvesi, Andrea Emiliani
and Tommaso Trini opened in Bologna. Defined as “the first exhibition of video-objects directly
deriving from the work of artists without the mediation of film” is unquestionable one of the most
advanced presentations in Italy of the new forms of expression such as actions and video
performances. The same year, the 35th Art Exhibition of the Biennale (director: Umbro Apollonio)
organized the sections Manual, mechanical, electronic, conceptual Production, in which the visitor could
see the first laser images and works made by computer, and Relax e gioco which set up a closedcircuit TV system.
It was in 1972 (director: Mario Penelope) that video stormed its way into the Biennale with its full
communicative force, particularly in the section entitled Video-Nastri , curated by Gerry Schum. In
this exhibition, videotape was presented both as a tool for documenting artists operating in the area
of Performance, Happening, Body and Land Art, and as a means of expression in and of itself, in
the form of video-object. The artists included, among others, Baldessari, Beuys, Buren, De
Dominicis, Dibbets, Serra and Weiner. On this occasion, Schum presented his now-famous work
Land Art at the Biennale for the first time.
In Italy during those years, centres for the diffusion and production of video-art proliferated: in
Ferrara the Centro Videoarte in the Palazzo dei Diamanti founded by Lola Bonora in 1972, in
Florence art/Tapes/22 directed by Maria Gloria Bicocchi assisted by a very young Bill Viola, and in
Venice Carlo Cardazzo and the Galleria del Cavallino. In America one of the most important
centres was The Kitchen, founded in new York by Steina and Woody Vasulka in 1971.
In 1974 various exhibitions of video-art were organized in important international museums: at the
Kunstverein in Cologne the exhibition Video Tapes with works by Acconci and Nauman, at the
Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels Artist’s Video with works by Paik, Vostell and Beuys, and at the
Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris the Art Video Confrontation retrospect whose participants included
Dan Graham, among others.
At the 37th Art Biennale in 1976 (director: Vittorio Gregotti), entitled Environment.Participation.
Cultural structures, video became the ideal medium for live documentation of the political upheaval
of that historic period. In the exhibition The Environment as Social, curated by Enrico Crispolti and
Raffaele de Grada, the vast audio-visual documentation (interviews, films, videotapes) was to
demonstrate how the role of cultural operator had changed and that his role was increasingly
becoming “cultural solicitor”.
The most important event that year was however the inauguration, in Ca’ Corner della Regina, of
the new headquarters of ASAC, the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts, directed by
Wladimiro Dorigo. ASAC became a centre of the avant-garde thanks to its modern amenities:
exhibition spaces, a film screening room, a multimedia room, a photographic studio, monitors and
permanent stations to consult audio and video material.
In 1976 Maria Gloria Bicocchi sold ASAC the videotapes made by her gallery art/Tapes/22 which
closed that year due to problems of financial viability. This was an experimental centre for the
production, distribution and diffusion of videos made by a range of different artists working within
various movements such as Pop Art, Minimalism, Arte Povera, Conceptual Art, Fluxus, Body Art,
Land Art, Lettrism. In the reminiscences of Bill Viola, who served as technical director of the centre
starting in 1974, art/Tapes/22 was “a place where artists from all nations could find a common
language in video”. In addition to the corpus of videotapes, ASAC also purchased the archives of
the gallery that contained publications, photographs signed and numbered by the artists, slides
from behind-the-scenes made by Gianni Melotti and other documents.
In November 1977 the cycle Gli Art/Tapes dell’ASAC was organized to present the material
purchased by the Biennale to the public. The program of screenings included a selection of 39
videos and was accompanied by a course in The theory and practice of videotapes in mass
communication, in which American scholar Marshall McLuhan participated, and a seminar
entitled Artists and videotape during which the audio-visual laboratories of ASAC produced a first
series of videos by Giuseppe Chiari, Richard Kriesche, Jean Otth and Michele Sambin.
During the 1978 Biennale (director: Luigi Scarpa), a special project curated by Vittorio Fagone was
dedicated to the relationship between art and film and to the comparative analysis of historical and
recent works. The films in the programme were not videos however but Super 8 and 16mm films.
Videotapes were featured massively in the next edition of the Biennale in 1980 (director: Luigi
Carluccio). The main exhibition The Art of the Seventies, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Michael
Compton, Martin Kunz and Harald Szeemann, dedicated an entire section to film and video. It was
divided into three parts: Documentation (which presented the report on Arte Povera made by Bonito
Oliva and Emilio Greco for Rai Television) and Films and video-productions by artists working in
performance art (which presented, among others, the work of Vito Acconci, Rebecca Horn, Dennis
Oppenheim, Ulay and Marina Abramovich from the collections of ASAC). In the catalogue
Szeemann underlines how that decade witnessed “a superb tendency to dematerialize art” that
produced more “formalistic” results in America, whereas in Europe it sought to bring change to
man and the community. In the 1980 edition, video art was also the protagonist of national
pavilions such as Canada, which presented an ample overview of the country’s video production,
and Portugal which exhibited a video performance by Ernest de Sousa; ASAC contributed with the
cycle entitled Videotapes from Australia (Ca’ Corner della Regina from 19-31 July).
Between the end of the Seventies and the early Eighties, several European cities founded festivals
and programmes dedicated to electronic art including the VideoArtFestival in Locarno and Ars
Electronica in Linz.
In 1984 the Art Biennale directed by Maurizio Calvesi organized a Programmed Selection of Videotapes
which included over 50 works by the most important artists of the moment and dedicated a section
to Video-installations. After the end of the season of political and social utopias, video was no longer
considered a tool for dematerializing art, but a means of pure artistic expression.
The 42nd Exhibition in 1986, directed by Giovanni Carandente, featured a futuristic centre for
telematic connection called Ubiqua to explore the potential of new computer technology with a
Laboratory Workshop open to visitors. The section of the exhibition dedicated to the Installations
displayed works made by using computers, synthesizers, lasers and other electronic devices. The
artists in the show included Bill Viola and Brian Eno.
In the Nineties, there was an explosion of electronic media, which had become a vital instrument for
creative expression. In 1990 (director: Giovanni Carandente) the United States won the Golden Lion
award for an installation by Jenny Holzer which consisted in LED signboards that reproduced
statements and literary or poetic quotes. In Aperto ’90, the section dedicated to young art, the artists
invited to participate included Stan Douglas, Gudrun Bletz and Ruth Schnell, Border art
workshop-Taller de arte Fronterizo, the Japanese group Complesso Plastico, Theodoulos Gretou
and Jana Sterback.
In 1993 in the Biennale curated by Bonito Oliva, The Cardinal Points of Art, electronic art was
featured in all the sections of the exhibition in the widest variety of forms. The Golden Lion for best
national participation was awarded to the Federal Republic of Germany which hosted an
extraordinary electronic installation by Nam June Paik in its pavilion, together with a work by
Hans Aacke. The many electronic works included: videos by Yoko Ono and Mario Schifano,
documentations by Luciano Giaccari and experimentations by Grazia Toderi and Pippilotti Rist,
both shown in the section Aperto ’93 which included a space dedicated to Video/tape/media.
Though the 1995 Art Exhibition directed by Jean Clair favoured figurative art, Gary Hill won the
Golden Lion as best artist for a video-installation. Among the national pavilions, several
particularly significant video artists were featured, such as Bill Viola, for the United States, and
Peter Fischli and David Weiss for Switzerland.
In the 1997 Biennale, curated by Germano Celant, the presence of videos and video-installations
was rather limited, except for the recording of performances by Marina Abramovich entitled Balkan
Baroque, the works of Pippilotti Rist, Douglas Gordon and Sam Taylor Wood. The national
pavilions featured among other the works of a pioneer of electronic art such as Steina Vasulka and
Japanese artist Mariko Mori with a three-dimensional digital-video installation.
The 48th Art Exhibition directed by Szeemann in 1999, under the first presidency of Paolo Baratta,
presented many video works by recognized artists such as Bruce Nauman, Jenny Holzer and
Rosemarie Trockel, and younger artists such as Doug Aitken, Grazia Toderi and Shirin Neshat.
In 2001, in the second Biennale curated by the Swiss critic, the international exhibition and the
national pavilions together counted over one hundred electronic works. The most interesting of
these works include The Quintet of the Unseen by Bill Viola, winner of the Golden Lion, and
Wallpiece by Gary Hill. The artists working with video included Stan Douglas, Regina Galindo and
Alessandra Tessi. The pavilions featured an array of multi-screen video installations. The British
pavilion exhibited a video installation by Markus Wallinger, the Canadian pavilion featured a
work by Lyndal Jones, Greece exhibited Nikos Navidris and Iceland presented a complex
installation by Finnbogi Pètursson.
The 50th Exhibition curated in 2003 by Francesco Bonami, supported by eleven other international
critics, featured a growing contingent of electronic art, both in the essential form of a video and in
more complex and innovative combinations. Among the various sections, the most interesting was
Z.O.U. Zona d’urgenza organized by Hou Hanrou, which in a relatively small space gathered an
incredible quantity and quality of works produced with an amazing range of electronic devices. The
most significant works included Blue and White by Xu Tan, Let’s puff by Yang Zhenzhong and Safety
Instruction by Zhan Peili.
At the beginning of the new millennium, it seemed like that extraordinary idea of the
dematerializing and democratizing art through the mass media, imagined in the Sixties, was going
to be made possible by the diffusion of a means that was far more powerful than television , i.e. the
Web.
In the 2005 edition, curated by Spanish critics Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez, many of the most
significant works proved to be electronic works. The Italian Pavilion, in addition to the installation
by Tania Bruguera, featured the works of several giants of video-art such as Stan Douglas, Jenny
Holzer, Bruce Nauman and William Kentridge. At the Arsenale, the main attractions were the
large space-ship by Mariko Mori, the video-installation by the group Blu Noses and the video
works by Regina Galindo, winner of the award for young artists. Among the electronic works on
exhibit in the national pavilions, those of Pippilotti Rist for Switzerland and Eva Koch for Denmark
deserve particular mention.
The 52nd Exhibition curated by Robert Storr in 2007 counted more than 40 electronic works and
multimedia installations, including the series of videos Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest by
Chinese artist Yang Fudong, the work of the Italian collective Alterazioni Video, the videoinstallation by Austrian VALIE EXPORT and the work of Steve McQueen.
In the 2009 edition of the Art Biennale directed by Daniel Birnbaum, the presence of video-art was
less invasive, in particular in the Arsenale which did however feature the three-channel animation
by Paul Chan, Sade for Sae’s Sake, the video by Ulla von Barndenburg filmed in the Villa Savoye
designed by Le Corbusier and the video installation by Grazia Toderi. In the central Pavilion,
particularly interesting works included the Claymation film by Nathalie Djurberg (winner of the
Silver Lion for a promising young artist), the kinetic sculpture of Simon Starling which served as a
film projector and the 16mm film by Gordon Matta-Clark Tree Dance made in 1971.
The latter brings us back to the origins of video art when, in connection with the contemporary art
movements, it proved to be the most appropriate instrument for the documentation of
performances and the most fleeting actions to preserve a trace of them over time. As Nam June
Paik correctly predicted “the experience of audiovisuals, music and video accumulated over history
makes it possible to enter the memory of history. Of course our brain is made like a magnetic tape.”
Video artists awarded in previous editions of Biennale Art
year
1993
1995
1997
1999
edition
45.
46.
47.
48.
director
Achille
Oliva
Bonito
Jean Clair
Germano Celant
Harald
Szeemann
artist
award
section
notes
Nam June Paik
Coutries Award
German pavilion
Germany is
rappresented
Hans Haacke
also
by
Matthew Barney
Award Duemila young
artist
Open 93
exhibits
in
against AIDS
Art
Gary Hill
International Award La
Biennale di Venezia Golden
Lion
for
sculpture
Identity
Alterity
Richard Kriesche
Honor mention
Austrian Pavilion
Pipilotti Rist
Award Duemila young
artist
Futur, Present, Past
Douglas Gordon
Award Duemila young
artist
Futur, Present, Past
Sam Taylor-Wood
Award illycaffè
Futur, Present, Past
Shirin Neshat
International Award La
Biennale di Venezia Golden Lion
APERTO Over All
3
Golden Lion:
Doug Aitken, Cai
Guo-Qiang
and
Shirin Neshat
Doug Aitken
International Award La
Biennale di Venezia Golden Lion
APERTO Over All
3
Golden Lion:
Doug Aitken, Cai
Guo-Qiang e Shirin
Neshat
Grazia Toderi
Golden Lion for best
National participation
Italian
inside
Over All
Grazia
Toderi
rappresent
Italy
with
Monica
Bonvicini,
Bruna
Esposito,
Luisa
Lambri, Paola Pivi
Eija-Liisa Ahtila
Honor mention
Finland Pavilion
Kataryna Kozyra
Honor mention
Poland Pavilion
and
Pavilion
APERTO
Honor
mention
with
Nunzio,
Hiroshi
Seneju,
Jehon Soo Cheon
3 Honor mention;
E.L. Ahtila, Georges
Adéagbo, Kataryna
Kozyra
Bruce Nauman
year
2001
2003
edition
49.
50.
director
Harald
Szeemann
Francesco
Bonami
Golden Lion to a
master
of
contemporary art
APERTO Over All
artist
award
Janet Cardiff &
George
Bures
Miller
Specials Awards "La
Biennale di Venezia"
Canadian Pavilion
Pierre Huyghe
Specials Awards "La
Biennale di Venezia"
France Pavilion
Anri Sala
Specials Awards
young artists
for
Plateau
Humankind
of
3 special awards for
young artists: Anri
Sala,
Federico
Ferrero, John Pilson
John Pilson
Specials Awards
young artists
for
Plateau
Humankind
of
Tion Ang
Mention
Plateau
Humankind
of
Juan Downey
Mention
Cile Pavilion
Golden Lion for artist
under 35
Conflicts
and
dreams.
The
Dictatorship of the
Viewer
Ministry of Heritage
and
Culture
DARC - artwork for
National museum
of
XXI
century
MAXXI
videoart
photografy/installat
ions
3 special awards for
young artists: Anri
Sala,
Federico
Ferrero, John Pilson,
A1-53167
4 mentions:
Tiong Ang, Yinka
Shonibare, Samuel
Becket/Marin
Karmitz,
Juan
Downey
4 mentions:
Tiong Ang, Yinka
Shonibare, Samuel
Becket/Marin
Karmitz,
Juan
Downey
filmakers
Oliver Payne
Nick Relph
e
section
Avish
Kheberhzadeh
Award
for
italian art
Su Mei-Tse
Golden Lion for the
best
National
Participation
Luxembourg
Pavilion
Golden Lion for artist
under 35
Always a little bit
more
far
the experience of art
51.
Rosa Martinez
Maria de Corral
Regina
Galindo
2009
53.
Daniel
Birnbaum
Nathalie Djurberg
Silver Lion for best
young artist
Making Worlds
Ming Wong
Special mention
Singapor Pavilion
Christian Marclay
Golden Lion for best
artist
ILLUMInations
54.
Bice Curiger
José
young
2005
2011
2
Lifetime
achievement: Bruce
Nauman and Louise
Bougeois
notes
video -animation
R.J.
Galindo
participate
to:
Always a little bit
more far
Artist
cinema
/performance
VIDEO MEDIUM INTERMEDIUM – Videolibrary Artists
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
Marina Abramovic
Vito Acconci
Vincenzo Agnetti
Giovanni Anselmo
Eleonor Antin
Ylona Aron
Enrico Bafico
John Baldessari
Joseph Beuys
Alighiero Boetti
Marinus Boezem
Christian Boltanski
Corinne bronfman
Stanley Brown
Chris Burden
Daniel Buren
Richard Calabro
Pierpaolo Calzolari
Giancarlo Cardini
Sandro Chia
Giuseppe Chiari
Colette
James Collins
Diego Cortez
Andrea daninos
Douglas davis
Gino De Dominicis
Marco Del Re
Walter De Maria
Antonio Dias
Jan Dibbets
Ger van Elk
Franz Erhard Walther
Barry Flanagan
Simone Forti
Hamish Fulton
Gilbert & George
Frank Gillette
Ulrike Golden
Dan Graham
Andrea Granchi
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
David Hall
Rebecca Horn
Peter Hutchison
Taka Ito (Takahito)
Iimura
Joan Jonas
Allan Kaprow
Jannis Kounellis
Gary Kuehn
Ketty La Rocca
Elliot Landy
Richard Landry
Les Levine
Richard Long
Alvin Lucier
Urs Lüthi
Andy Mann
Ed Mellnik
mario merz
Gerald Minkoff
Alberto Moretti
Antoni Muntadas
Maurizio Nannucci
Muriel Olesen
Luigi Ontani
Dennis Oppenheim
Luciano Ori
Jean Otth
Charlemagne
Palestine
Giulio Paolini
Claudio Parmiggiani
Paolo Patelli
Alberto Pirelli
Lucio Pozzi
Arnulf Rainer
Klaus Rinke
Fried Rosenstock
Ulrike Rosnbach
Reiner Ruthenbeck
Ulrich Rückriem
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
Michele Sambin
Mona Sarkis
Guido Sartorelli
Richard Serra
Gerry Schum
Willoughby Sharp
Pamela Shaw
Robert Smithson
Nina Sobel
Allan Sondheim
Allan Sonfist
Keith Sonnier
Mike Steiner
John Sturgeon
Peggy Stuffi,
UFO
Woody Vasulka
Steina e Woody
Vasulka
99. Bill Viola
100. Lawrence Weiner
101. Nancy Kitchell
Wilson
102. Gilberto Zorio