California Video
Critic's rating
Average User Ratings
Schedule
About
Fifty-eight past and present Californians are included in the Getty's big survey of more than 50 single-channel videos and 15 installation works, all made in the four decades since Sony introduced the first portable video recording device in 1967.
That was an epochal event in image-making history, giving individuals a powerful electronic image-making capacity formerly held only by corporations. Artists were instantly captivated. The event is smartly signaled at the show's entry, where a black-and-white John Baldessari video plays continuously on a vintage portable Sony TV. Baldessari shows his hand repeatedly writing "I will not make any more boring art" in pencil on lined paper, like a naughty boy kept after class.
A categorical aesthetic prejudice against entertainment in New York critical circles collided with West Coast video art. Easterners often regard local art as righteously avant-garde, while discounting California (especially Los Angeles) art as kitsch. Made in the vicinity of Hollywood, entertaining video art actually set a radically new standard. The Getty show happily gets it.
Read Los Angeles Times staff writer Suzanne Muchnic's report on this landmark survey show. Also check out art critic Christopher Knight's full review of the exhibition.
That was an epochal event in image-making history, giving individuals a powerful electronic image-making capacity formerly held only by corporations. Artists were instantly captivated. The event is smartly signaled at the show's entry, where a black-and-white John Baldessari video plays continuously on a vintage portable Sony TV. Baldessari shows his hand repeatedly writing "I will not make any more boring art" in pencil on lined paper, like a naughty boy kept after class.
A categorical aesthetic prejudice against entertainment in New York critical circles collided with West Coast video art. Easterners often regard local art as righteously avant-garde, while discounting California (especially Los Angeles) art as kitsch. Made in the vicinity of Hollywood, entertaining video art actually set a radically new standard. The Getty show happily gets it.
— Christopher Knight
Times Art Critic
Times Art Critic
Read Los Angeles Times staff writer Suzanne Muchnic's report on this landmark survey show. Also check out art critic Christopher Knight's full review of the exhibition.
Reviews about California Video
"Great Show of California Video"
Posted by leap-into-the-void on 03/15/08
Posted by leap-into-the-void on 03/15/08
The foundation of California Video is the collection of the Long Beach Museum of Art, which ran an impressive video program for artists,...
Know something we don't?
more...
|
|