Since the 1960s, various generations of avant-garde artists have integrated into their production processes elements that are related with the attitudes and imaginaries of pop music. Artists of the calibre of Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Dan Graham, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, John Baldessari, Rodney Graham, Tony Oursler, Christian Marclay, Mike Kelley, Douglas Gordon, Jeremy Deller o Damien Hirst, and many more, down to today, have approached this genre in some of their most outstanding works, sometimes even collaborating with different rock bands or recording their own albums. Similarly, leading musicians such as John Lennon, David Bowie, Pete Townshend, Syd Barret, Brian Eno, Alan Vega, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson and members of essential bands of the last two decades, like Sonic Youth, REM, Blur, or Franz Ferdinand all trained at art school before becoming professional musicians.
From this approach and bearing in mind that the origins of video-art run almost parallel to those of pop music, the project is divided into two sections:
1- Pop and video-creation. Shared genealogies
This section includes more than 30 significant works in the history of video art and experimental film from the 1960s to 2013 that are formally and conceptually related to the iconographies of pop and rock, with works by Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, Yayoi Kusama. Dan Graham, Tony Oursler, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Christian Marclay, Douglas Gordon, Candice Breitz, Jeremy Deller, Mark Leckey, Jon Mikel Euba, Largen & Bread and others.
2- Music for your eyes. Visual arts and the aesthetics of the videoclip
This section is a journey through the history of the musical videoclip to review the careers of the most important authors of the last 40 years and their connections with contemporary visual arts and cinema and includes a programme of music videos by artists like Andy Warhol, Tony Oursler, Judith Barry, Robert Longo, Joan Morey, Damien Hirst, Ana Laura Aláez, Carles Congost, Pipilotti Rist, Dara Birnbaum, Joseph Beuys, Adel Abidin, Hugo Alonso, Charles Atlas, Marc Bijl, Olaf Breuning, Charley Case, Cheryl Donegan, Jorge Galindo i Santiago Sierra, Jesús Hernández , Bjørn Melhus, César Pesquera, John Sanborn, Kit Fitzgerald (Antarctica), etc.
Javier Panera Cuevas is Professor of Audio-Visual Culture and Latest Artistic Trends at the University of Salamanca. He has been Director of DA2, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Salamanca (2004-2011) and of the Festival Internacional de Fotografía y Artes Visuales de Castilla y León, Explorafoto (2006-2011). Furthermore, he has acted as curator for over one hundred one-man/woman exhibitions devoted to contemporary artists, both from Spain and abroad, such as Albert Oehlen, Judith Barry, Tony Oursler, Franz Ackerman, Fernando Sinaga, Kendell Geers, Roland Fischer, Concha Jerez, Félix Curto, Tania Bruguera and Marc Bijl, as well as for the group shows Barrocos y neobarrocos. El infierno de lo bello (2005), Mascarada (2006), Video Killed the Radio Star. Una historia del videoclip (with Diego Manrique, 2006), Rock My Religion (2008), and Merrie Melodies (y otras trece maneras de entender el dibujo) (2010). Panera is a regular contributor to specialised magazines including Flash Art International, Art Pulse and art.es, and has written, among other books, Emociones formales. Reflexiones sobre el inconsciente pictórico en la fotografía y la imagen en movimiento (2005), Música para tus ojos. Artes visuales y estética del videoclip. Una historia de intercambios (2009) and Video Killed the Painting Star – Pintura e imagen en movimiento (2010). He is currently directing the ‘Plataforma. Artes visuales y puesta en escena en la era digital’ research project.
4 April 2017