NAM-joon Paik, TV Garden, video installation, 1974–1977
Pop artist Andy Warhol once said that in the future everyone can become famous for 15 minutes. In the era of short videos, this prediction has become a reality. Even in just 15 seconds, a city, a brand and a celebrity can become popular overnight. Brushing short videos has also become a "bedtime ritual" for many people. So, what is the difference between video art and short video that emerged in the 1960s?
In the second half of the 20th century, with the development of video technology, mass entertainment gradually changed from static media such as newspapers, magazines and comic books to dynamic forms such as television and movies, and Video Art also came into being, becoming an important carrier for avant-garde artists to convey artistic concepts.
Nam-joon Paik, Nixon, video (two monitors), 1965–2002, now in the Tate Gallery, UK
As an important member of the Fluxus, Paik Nam Joon is widely regarded as the founder of video art. In 1965, he used a Sony Portapak portable video recording device to capture the pomp and circumstances of Pope Paul VI's visit to New York and show it to friends in a café, becoming the beginning of video art.
NAM Paik's TV Cello and TV Eyeglasses, "played" by American cellist Charlotte Moorman in 1971.
So, this is not much different from the Vlog videos we see now, so why can the former be called art and the latter just ordinary videos? Today, Harper's Bazaar Art tells you the answer.
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Video artist Vito Acconci's exhibition "WHERE WE ARE NOW", 2016
The relationship between video art and conceptual art is inseparable, and it can even be said that the image was originally one of the means of expression of conceptual artists. This means that whether the "concept" in the work is avant-garde and novel, and whether it can provoke thinking is the essential difference between the two. You might say that this can also be done with high-quality short videos. But don't forget, artists don't think about whether the audience can understand or accept them when creating video works. They will throw their own wild ideas at you, leaving you dizzy and even confused.
Nam-joon Paik, TV Buddha, video installation, 1974
In Paik Nam-joon's most famous video installation, TV Buddha, a Buddha statue faces a TV screen and a video camera, which shows the live broadcast of the Buddha statue, which looks like a "still picture".
Nam-joon Paik and the video installation "TV Buddha"
In his video work I Am Making Art, conceptual artist John Baldessari repeats "I am making art" with every wave of his arm, expressing his reflections on the relationship between ideas, language and behavioral movements, and the challenge to traditional art forms.
John Baldesari, "I'm Making Art," video screenshot, 1971
Andy Warhol's black-and-white silent film Sleep focuses on his then-lover, John Giorno, which lasts nearly five and a half hours; soon after, he filmed the Empire State Building for more than eight hours, from night to dawn the next day, and called it "the audience to witness the passage of time."
Andy Warhol, "Sleep", video installation, 1963, now in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York
Andy Warhol, Empire State Building, still frame, 1964
These works are all contrary to the characteristics of short videos - easy to understand, straightforward and easy to understand, short and compact, almost all popular short films are common. It can be seen that compared with short videos, video art is much more "high and cold", and it also requires a certain threshold to understand.
Diversity and integration
Nam-joon Paik, "FAMILY OF ROBOT: BABY", Video Sculpture (13 displays), 133.3×96.2×20.3cm, 1986
Video art often does not exist in isolation, it often intersects with different art categories, presenting a rich variety of forms and contents, such as installations and sculptures containing television sets, projectors and other equipment, performance artists recording their creations with images, and cross-border cooperation between painters and ballet companies on short film projects. As a result, video artists often wander across multiple identities and experiment with art using different mediums.
Marina Abramovich, Rest Energy, Still Frame, 1980
Artist Anselm Kiefer collaborates on a short film project with Ballet de Opéra de Paris
An example is the American artist Bruce Nauman, who has created sculpture, photography, neon installations, prints, performance art, and of course video art. In his work Art Make-Up, he paints his face and body with layers of paint in different colors, expressing his exploration of personal identity such as skin color and gender, which is undoubtedly also performance art.
Bruce Naumann, Artistic Makeup, Video (40 min.), 1968
Bruce Nauman, No, New Museum, video (62 min)," variable size, 1987
At the same time, although the appreciation of video art requires a certain threshold, it itself relatively reduces the threshold of creation, so that people who have not studied pure art can also use images to convey artistic concepts. The "father of video art" mentioned above, Paik Nam-joon, has not received pure art training, he studied piano from an early age, and majored in music history and aesthetics at university.
It can be seen that the image further expands the form and connotation of art, and also brings art closer to people's daily lives. Short videos are different, they are the daily life itself, so they are much more extensive in terms of dissemination and audience than video art.
Propagation and presentation
Bruce Naumann, Artistic Makeup, video installation, 1968
Bruce Nauman, Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, Video, 2015-2016, Philadelphia Museum of Art Exhibition
According to the "2020 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report", as of June 2020, the scale of short video users in China reached 818 million, and the per capita single-day brushing time of short videos was 110 minutes; in 2018, the average daily use time of short video applications has become the first in the field of online audio-visual applications.
The rapid development of short video is inseparable from the full popularity of mobile phones, and the advent of the 5G era has made it more powerful, but the dissemination and presentation of video art are more limited. Of course, you can also say that video art can also be disseminated through short videos. However, just as movies are best viewed in the IMAX cinema hall, professional books and famous books are better to read paper books, video art also needs to be carefully planned, exhibited, and presented in the exhibition hall of the art museum with lighting and sound effects, in order to bring a better experience to the viewer.
Joan Jonas, Reanimation, 2010-2013, consists of four videos, a crystal sculpture, two custom seats, 18 works on paper, and two pieces of audio.
In other words, video art is like a serious meal that needs to be carefully chewed, and now we are losing more and more patience to calm down and savor it. This can't help but remind people of the "smelly and long" criticism after the re-release of the fantasy epic movie "The Lord of the Rings" some time ago, although this film does not belong to the category of video art, but the reaction it triggered may be exactly what video art will face.
The Clock, a 24-hour video installation by artist Christian Marclay, contains more than 10,000 film clips, was exhibited at Tate Modern in 2018.
This also echoes the "adult childishness" talked about by scholar Liu Qing - entertainment methods such as short videos bring people instant happiness and satisfaction, but they cannot bring long-term in-depth thinking. It is true that the era of short videos is unstoppable and brings unlimited opportunities, but video art and long-form films also urgently need space for dissemination and development.
Business & Academics
Nam-Joon Paik, Untitled, piano, wires, 15 displays, two cameras, two laser disc players, 254×266.7 ×121.9cm, 1993
Due to the "decentralized" characteristics of short videos, everyone can use them to record their lives, but the ultimate goal of short video platforms is to monetize without exception, and many short videos are finally led to shopping links, making people call this "TV shopping" more than a decade ago?
Of course, there is nothing wrong with monetizing, but video art is very different. If the artist's purpose is to make money, it is difficult to create excellent works, and it is difficult to sell good prices if the works are not excellent. Artistic creation always needs to be undistracted, which most people must recognize.
Anne Imhof, Untitled (Wave), 2021, installation of the exhibition "A Fire in My Belly", Julia Stoschek Collection, German video art agency, photo: Alwin Lay
In fact, the market potential of video art is gradually being tapped. In 2006, artist Bill Viola's work Eternal Return sold for about $700,000, making it the most expensive video art of art at the time. Although this is much inferior to tens of millions of paintings, but now riding on the prosperity of short videos, video art will surely arouse the interest of more collectors.
Bill Viola, Eternal Return, Video-Sound Installation, 207.7×63.8×15.6cm, 2000
At the same time, academically, video art has also received more and more attention. For the first time in 2018, the Turner Awards' nominees were all made up of video artists, which art critic Adrian Searle called "the best nominee in years." The collection of video art in major institutions such as the Tate Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York has also continued to grow, and related exhibitions and exhibition halls have become more and more diverse.
2018 Turner Award winner Charlotte Prodger, whose work is mainly recorded using iPhone phones.
Cao Fei, "Whose Utopia", video installation, 2006, MoMA 212 exhibition hall
Not to mention short videos, even if it takes longer to appreciate video art than painting and sculpture, this is undoubtedly a huge challenge for the audience, but it may also be a good medicine to save attention. Today, did you brush up on short videos? Perhaps you can change your taste, start from the works mentioned in the article, and understand the art of video is also a harvest.
Editor, Wen Zhang Jianlei
This article is original by Harper's Bazaar Art Department and may not be reproduced without permission