Image: Gallery 98, Brooklyn
Paul Tschinkel’s ‘ART/new york: A Video Magazine on Art’ is being revisited online through a promotional update to its 1983 printed mailer, bringing renewed attention to a videotape series that documented New York’s contemporary art scene during the 1982–1983 season. The update presents six short video trailers, while the original programmes are available online through services including YouTube and Vimeo. Related ‘ART/new york’ ephemera is also being offered for sale.
The series was produced by Tschinkel at a moment when portable video cameras were still a novelty. According to the mailer, artists were eager to see themselves and their work on television, while a new generation was emerging alongside established figures from the 1960s and 1970s. Marc H. Miller of Gallery 98 participated as a narrator and interviewer, experiencing the exhibitions and artists documented by the project at close range.
The six programmes are organised thematically. ‘New Public Art’ features Joyce Kozloff, Keith Haring, John Ahearn and Henry Geldzahler. Its footage includes Kozloff discussing tiles used for the Wilmington, Delaware, train station; Haring speaking about his mural at Houston and Bowery; and the dedication ceremony for ‘We Are Family’, a South Bronx project by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres. The programme’s trailer identifies Haring’s segment as tape #15, produced in 1983.
‘Video as Art’, tape #16, focuses on Nam June Paik, David Byrne, Ernest Gusella and MoMA curator Barbara London. The material includes coverage of Paik’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art and a Museum of Modern Art exhibition concerning performance video, with Byrne discussing music videos. ‘Geometric Abstraction’, tape #17, brings together Brice Marden, Al Held and an installation of Sol LeWitt wall drawings. The trailer highlights Held’s discussion of spatial ambiguity, the installation process for LeWitt’s work and Marden’s explanation of numerical configurations.
The remaining programmes follow painting and the rise of younger artists. ‘Expressionist Painting’, tape #18, includes an interview with Lee Krasner and documentation of Malcolm Morley’s painting technique. The mailer presents Krasner discussing her creative aims during a period of late-career acclaim, and Morley speaking with what it describes as a passionate personality. ‘Young Expressionists’, tape #19, includes a rare early interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat, footage of his exhibition at the Fun Gallery and an interview with Julian Schnabel at his Bridgehampton summer studio.
The final programme, ‘Pop Art Today’, features Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg. Its trailer records Wesselmann and Rosenquist discussing the relationship between their 1980s work and their origins as Pop artists, alongside coverage of a Rauschenberg exhibition that included collaborations with Japanese ceramicists and Chinese artisans. The associated printed mailer, titled ‘ART/new york: A Video Magazine on Art, The 1982–1983 Art Season’, is described as a folded card measuring 10.5 by 12.25 inches and is listed for sale through Gallery 98.
