Exhibition

Changing Scenes: Points of View in Contemporary Media Art

April 5, 2013–August 11, 2013

Adrian Piper, Out of the Corner, 1990. Seventeen videos, color, sound, 26 min each on seventeen monitors installed on sixteen pedestals and one table with twenty-three chairs and sixty-four gelatin silver prints. Installation view at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Gift of the Peter Norton Family Foundation. 94.38. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.

Changing Scenes: Points of View in Contemporary Media Art draws from a long history of independent film, video, and installation art practices from the 1970s to the present, and includes works from artists: Sadie Benning, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ayoka Chenzira, Tony Cokes and Donald Trammel, VALIE EXPORT, Alexander Kluge, Pepón Osorio, Nam June Paik (with Charlotte Moorman), Adrian Piper, Jason Simon, and Javier Téllez.

An important feature of film and media art in the late 20th century has been the exploration of point of view and the construction of self. These themes have been treated in an array of strategies, including the cinema, single-channel videotapes, and installations.  Much of this work examines how we see ourselves and the world around us through the objectifying lens of the camera. Artists have also used language in new ways to engage viewers and to conceptualize thought processes.  The artists included here have used the moving image both to destabilize the authority of the camera and to acknowledge its power to communicate.
— John G. Hanhardt

Location

The Fabric Workshop and Museum
1214 Arch Street
First, Second, and Eighth Floors
Philadelphia, PA 19107

The New Temporary Contemporary
1222 Arch Street
Screening Room
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Opening Reception

Friday, April 5, 2013, 6–8 pm

Members Preview:
Gallery talk by John G. Hanhardt at 5:30 pm

Free parking on opening day provided for Members and Donors
Membership $20 and up


About the Curator

John G. Hanhardt has a long career devoted to representing film and the media arts in museum exhibition, collection and archival programs. He began his career at the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art and went on to establish the film program and film study collection at the Walker Art Center. In 1974 he was appointed Curator and Head of the Film and Video Department at the Whitney Museum of American Art where he directed the New American Film and Video Series which featured independent film and video art as well as commissioning art projects and expanding the museum’s collection to include video installation art. In 1996 he joined the Guggenheim Museum as Senior Curator of Film and the Media Arts developing its international exhibition program as well as video installation art collection. Since 2006 he has been Consulting Senior Curator for Film and Media Arts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum where he is developing exhibitions, collections and archives in film and the media arts. Curator of the recently established Nam June Paik Archive at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as well as the exhibition Nam June Paik: Global Visionary (on view through August 11, 2013).