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This archival screening offers a rare opportunity to take a close look at synthesized portraits and landscapes from Shigeko Kubota’s video sculptures, and places them in the context of works by fellow Downtown artists who were working between the 1960s and the 1980s. (Kubota also screened the work of many of these artists when she was video curator at Anthology Film Archives from 1974 to 1983.) Several of the works included in this program were made using electronic video processing, embodying the increasingly fluid relationship between nature and technology; others employ performance-based practices to explore the tension between self and environment. Each goes against the grain of the hyper-saturated media landscape, playing with color, light, space, or process to expand moving images into the physical realm.
Artist Diana Thater will introduce the program with a personal take on how Kubota’s legacy continues to reverberate across generational lines. The program will be followed by a conversation between Lori Zippay, Director Emerita, Electronic Arts Intermix, and Erica Papernik-Shimizu, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance.
Screenings include:
Wind. Joan Jonas. 1968. 16mm film transferred to video (black and white, silent), 5:37 min. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Self-Portrait. Shigeko Kubota. c. 1970–71. Video (color, silent), 5:48 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation
Excerpt from Orbital Obsessions compilation. STEINA. 1975–77. Video (black and white, sound), 8:17 min. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Excerpt from Red, Blue, Yellow. Jaime Davidovich. 1974. Video (color, sound), 12:13 min. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Bird’s Eye. Mary Lucier. 1978. Video (black and white, sound), 10 min. Music: Bird and Person Dying, by Alvin Lucier. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Front Hand Back Hand. Peer Bode. 1977. Video (color, sound), 2:57 min. Courtesy of Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Excerpt from Rituals for a Still Life. Frank Gillette. 1974–75. Video (black and white, sound), 6:50 min. The Museum of Modern Art. Purchase. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Excerpt from “Teton” channel of Three Mountains. Shigeko Kubota. 1976–79. Standard-definition video (color, silent), 5 min. From four-channel standard-definition video (color, sound), seven cathode-ray tube monitors, plywood, and mirrors, overall dimensions variable. Collection of the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation. In its intended context as a component of the four-channel, seven-monitor video sculpture Three Mountains (1976–79), this video is surrounded by mirrors that invert, refract, and multiply the image.
Water Plastic Bag. Tony Ramos. 1973. Video (black and white, sound), 8:45 min. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
“Summer” channel of Niagara Falls I. Shigeko Kubota. 1985. Video (color, sound), 30:55 min. From four-channel video (color, sound, 10 cathode-ray tube monitors, plastic mirrors, plywood, water, and sprinkler system, 8′ × 54″ × 8′ (243.8 × 137.2 × 243.8 cm). Collection of the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation. In its intended context as a component of the four-channel, 10-monitor video sculpture Niagara Falls I (1985), this video is repeated, positioned at various angles, and presented behind a curtain of water.
Virtual Cinema is not available to Annual Pass members. Virtual Cinema screenings are not available outside the US.