The selection of video art works by Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazil), Jacco Olivier (The Netherlands) and Jennifer Steinkamp (USA) shows how some contemporary artists use new technologies to bring painting beyond its classical limits. Thanks to the wide possibilities of projections and computer animations, the traditional genres of landscape and portrait gain movement and change shape, perspective or colour. Through the interaction with sound and architecture, painting abandons its static character, expands from the bounds of the canvas and explores new conceptual and aesthetical territories.
JACCO OLIVIER (Goes, The Netherlands, b. 1972)
Jacco Olivier has recently created a series of “Moving Pictures” that bring the classical horizons of painting into new areas of technical development and visual pleasure. Jacco Olivier departs from modern painting and he creates a series of pictures with abstract or figurative landscapes. He photographs and films these fragments to produce vivid and poetic animations. Landscapes and human figures become abstract compositions while abstract forms become suddenly figures and real things. These visual narratives are humorous and casual reflections on our world. Their meaning is enhanced by the interconnection of the images and the sound tracks.
JENNIFER STEINKAMP (Denver, USA, b. 1958)
Jennifer Steinkamp uses computer animation to create virtual forms that provoke new perceptions of the architectural spaces where they are projected. Eye Catching 5 shows the image of a young tree in motion. The foliage, the branches and the trunk bow down, stretch up and rotate smoothly. This image belongs to a series of trees that were specifically created for the Yerebatan Cistern in 2003 during the 8th International Istanbul Biennial. Creating simulated images of fake natural elements and exploring the notions of gravity, turbulence and wind, Steinkamp provides a fascinating and non-narrative visual experience. Her projections bring painting beyond its classical limits. She reinvents the forms of nature, dematerialises the space and produces complex interactions between the viewer and the artwork.
RIVANE NEUENSCHWANDER (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, b. 1967)
The artist Rivane Neuenschwander connects science and language in order to reinscribe culture into nature. Love Lettering is a video made with her brother, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. Words taken from love letters were cut out and attached to the tails of red-orange fish in an aquarium. The trajectories of the undulating fish compose disconnected or intensified combinations of meanings: “Late – wish – hotel”… “your - talking", and so on. This film includes the perspective of two readers: the real, intended recipient of the original letter and the viewer who sees it recomposed by chance. Combining formal systems with organic forces, Rivane Neuenschwander proposes a new balance between art and nature... Her art suggests that destiny can be changed by interfering through simple means, like writing or tearing a love letter, with the flow of what seems predetermined.
This video art exhibition was curated by Rosa Martinez.
16 April - 25 August 2005
