Video Resurrection
Works by Vito Acconci, Peter Campus and Joan Jonas

28 April to 29 July 2007
UBS Contemporary Art Galleries, Level 3
Admission free

This exhibition features work from the 1970s by
pioneer video artists Vito Acconci, Peter Campus
and Joan Jonas. The seven works on display were
acquired by the NGV during the 1970s but have
been unable to be viewed in recent years due to
the instability of the early video formats on which
they were originally recorded. This selection is
the first group of videos from the NGV’s collection
to be re-purposed and archived, thus ensuring
their long-term viability and making them available
to contemporary audiences for the first time in
decades.

The individual working styles and concerns of
Acconci, Campus and Jonas are indicative of the
varied uses to which video was put by artists in
the early part of the decade. Employed as both
medium and tool, the use of this relatively new
and inexpensive technology was closely linked
to developments in conceptual, performance
and body art. However, both the positioning and
understanding of video as an art form in its own
right at this time is similarly evident in each artists’
exploration of the inherent formal and technical
properties of the medium.