Video Art

26 articles

As the name clearly suggests, video art is a form of art that depends on moving-picture or video technology as an audio-visual medium. This art form emerged and gained traction when consumer video technologies, particularly videotape recorders, became advanced and readily available in the late 1960s. Visual artists started experimenting with video as a form of art almost immediately.

Video art may comprise the video, the final product, and perhaps the actual video-recording equipment as part of the artwork. In essence, video art can’t exist without the video element. Well-known video artists include Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Diana Thater and Matthew Barney.

Adrian Paci - Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (Temporary Reception Center), 2007, 16-9 video projection, color, sound, 5’30’’

Adrian Paci’s Temporary Reception Center – Hope for a better future

Adrian Paci’s artwork, Temporary Reception Center (2007), is a powerful take on the political themes of displacement. Paci, an Albanian artist, captures the drama of migrants, the denied hope, and the uncertainty of life in a new environment in this art piece. With his work, the artist makes a statement on the refugee crisis and […]

Adrian Paci’s Temporary Reception Center – Hope for a better future Read More

Lin Yilin - Safely Maneuvering across Lin He Road, 1995, performance, Guangzhou, China feat

Lin Yilin’s performance – Safely Maneuvering Across Lin He Road

Lin Yilin needs no introductions in the world of performance art. As one of the most well-known Chinese artists, Yilin has made a name for himself for his contemporary interventions and performance pieces that often criticize China’s extreme urbanization, modernization, commercial globalization, as well as its geopolitical conflicts. Lin was born in Guangzhou, China, and

Lin Yilin’s performance – Safely Maneuvering Across Lin He Road Read More

Francis-Alÿs-The-Green-Line-2004-Jerusalem-Israel-feat

Francis Alÿs’s Green Line & 58 liters of paint

In 1995, Francis Alÿs performed a walk holding a leaking can of blue paint in the Brazilian city of São Paulo. That simple walk was then interpreted as a poetic gesture. Nine years later, Alÿs re-enacted that same gesture with a leaking can of green paint. Alÿs’s performance provoked so much attention because the artist

Francis Alÿs’s Green Line & 58 liters of paint Read More

Showcase-of-the-7000-Oak-Foundation-on-Friedrichsplatz-Kassel-on-the-7000-Oak-Project-feat

Joseph Beuys’ ambitious plan to plant 7000 oaks

7000 Oaks is an environmental artwork created by German artist Joseph Beuys. The artist proposed a plan to have 7000 oaks trees planted across the Germany city of Kassel, each tree accompanied with basalt stone, 4 feet high above the ground. Joseph Beuys’ objection was for the project to extend throughout the world as the

Joseph Beuys’ ambitious plan to plant 7000 oaks Read More

Bill Viola - The Crossing, 1996

Bill Viola’s The Crossing – Everything you need to know

Underlying Bill Viola’s work over the past few decades has been the use of advanced media technologies for purposes of explaining and highlighting spiritual phenomena. As a result of his immersive audio and video installments and environments, the artist manages to externalize the internal realm of the unconscious, supplying audiences with plenty of space for

Bill Viola’s The Crossing – Everything you need to know Read More

Bruce Nauman - Clown Torture, 1987, four-channel video installation, two projections, four monitors, color, sound, approx. 60 minutes, Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

What makes Bruce Nauman’s Clown torture so controversial?

As you look at Bruce Nauman’s Clown Torture, what you see is the wildness and relentlessness of his work. A deeper examination of this masterpiece also reveals the work of a person who wishes to explore a few issues that affect human life. Among these are boredom, confusion, and entrapment. On top of that, Nauman’s

What makes Bruce Nauman’s Clown torture so controversial? Read More

Some of Vito Acconci’s most influential performance pieces

Vito Acconci is one of the most influential American artists. He was a poet, an architect, and a pioneer of performance art. Acconci is commemorated in art history for his artworks, including the ones we are going to discuss in this article. Influence His artwork involved crossing the boundaries, including the public-private, real-world, and art

Some of Vito Acconci’s most influential performance pieces Read More

What is the meaning of Christian Marclay’s Telephones?

Christian Marclay’s Telephones, created in 1995, was a skilfully edited arrangement of black-and-white, as well as color film clips that highlighted different subjects utilizing an array of telephones, all designed before the smartphone era that we live in today. At the time of its release, technology was just reaching its peak, which is why Telephones

What is the meaning of Christian Marclay’s Telephones? Read More

Fischli & Weiss: The groundbreaking way things go

Peter Fischli and David Weiss are two Swiss artists that have made some of the most significant, most unanticipated and funniest artworks of their generation. The Swiss duo, Fischli and Weiss’s celebrated film The Way Things Go had a remarkable influence on the way artists, curators and audiences approached and interpreted art in relation to

Fischli & Weiss: The groundbreaking way things go Read More

Why did Nam June Paik create his TV garden?

No one would think televisions are artistic under normal circumstances. Handy, yes. Useful, quite so. Nam June Paik, however, managed to put television sets in circumstances where he reveals their artistry. The celebrated artist is regarded as the father of video art and has manipulated television sets, broadcasted live performances and video installations to depict

Why did Nam June Paik create his TV garden? Read More

Nam June Paik’s legendary Electronic Superhighway

Electronic Superhighway is one of the most noted works of Korean Nam June Paik artist. It illustrates how he interpreted a diverse nation through media technology. The Electronic Superhighway is a large installation, constructed with 336 televisions, 50 VHS players, 3750 feet of cable, and 575 feet of multicolored neon tubing. The impact on visitors

Nam June Paik’s legendary Electronic Superhighway Read More

Sun-Yuan-and-Peng-Yu-Dogs-Which-Cannot-Touch-Each-Other-2003-feat

Banned: Sun Yuan & Peng Yu’s controversial dog video

The video work titled Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other has only recently been removed from Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition series known as Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World. The video series has been met with disapproval and disparagement not only by some art critics but animal lovers and welfare organizations as well.

Banned: Sun Yuan & Peng Yu’s controversial dog video Read More

Stay in touch

We would love to keep the conversation going.

Please join us on Instagram, Telegram or YouTube.

Want inspiration in your inbox?