scenes and traces - from the collection video, photography & installations

This exhibition focuses on three parts of the Stedelijk Museum collection: video, photography and installations. 

In the presentation of works from the video collection, the emphasis is on performance and the way in which conceptual artists utilized the medium. In the early years of video art, artists used the camera to register simple actions, often performed in the seclusion of the studio (Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Richard Serra, John Baldessari). Others, particularly from the mid nineteen-sixties onwards, primarily worked in the arena of performance and explored ways of confronting and participating with the public (Ulay/Marina Abramovic, Joan Jonas).

The use of video expanded traditional views of painting and sculpture (Ger van Elk, Gilbert & George). Another group of artists in this presentation investigates the medium as a narrative or technical instrument (Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Gary Hill). All these approaches freed the way for a younger generation of artists to reveal ways in which video and film techniques are harnessed to intoxicate (Pipilotti Rist, Douglas Gordon).

You can read about the collection presentation in more detail in the Stedelijk Museum Bulletin 3, 2007