Art in Motion. 100 Masterpieces with and through Media

The black and white photo shows a woman in a black mini dress on her knees. Her face is covered by an oversized camera.

An Operative Canon

Sat, July 14, 2018 – Sun, January 20, 2019

Atrium 1+2

»Art in Motion. 100 Masterpieces with and through Media. An Operative Canon« will portray the development of media arts by showcasing pivotal pioneering works that utilize technical devices: from photography to cinematography and sound art, the theater of machines and projections, radiophonic and televisual art, the art video, media-based action and Fluxus arts, and the networked and collaborative artistic practices of the last decades.

The works in the exhibition have not been selected on the basis of the classic notion of an image which is oriented on painting, for this always attempts to bend back the new media towards the traditional visual arts and hinders understanding of how the media arts have developed. The coevolution of wheel-based technologies, such as clockwork and calculating machines, transportation machines like automobiles and trains, as well as the image machines that have not only brought forth moving pictures, moving sculptures, and moving spectators, but also ushered in the changeover to electromagnetic production, storage, and distribution media, is an area that is still a mystery to the wider art world. This is why it is important to advance understanding of the development of this art genre by presenting a selection of canonical works.

»This exhibition's importance can not be overstated. It provides a rare and perceptive opportunity to see classic examples put into a new context and as well to experience works whose relevance had been previously obscured. How fortunate that your excavations resulted in this profound manifestation.«

Lynn Hershman Leeson, media artist, to Peter Weibel and Siegfried Zielinski