Distorted Image. Chapters from the beginnings of video art

Exhibition Architecture: Kateřina Radakulan

The exhibition explores the beginnings of video art in former Czechoslovakia, and later in Poland and Hungary. It covers the period from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. The selection of key events and artworks cannot be separated from the broader social and political context, which largely determined access to technology, approaches to working with video imagery, and the possibilities for sharing it. Through examples of works from different countries, the exhibition encourages viewers to look for differences as well as parallels and points of connection.

The exhibition includes experimental films, recordings of performances and actions, and early animations, which together provide a comprehensive view of the development of this art form. An important part of the exhibition is independent video magazines and news coverage on politics and culture distributed on videocassettes (including Originální Videojournal, Videomagazín Vokna, Videomagazín Karel Kyncl, and Infermental). In addition to single-channel video, the exhibition features various forms of video installations and video sculptures, many of which survive only in documentation.

The title refers to a situation in which images were deliberately or unintentionally distorted and manipulated. Experiments were conducted with analog and digital imagery, television transmission, and the television set as an object, questioning the very ability of images to convey truth. At the same time, it suggests that from today’s perspective it is difficult to present the development of video art in its entirety. Access to sources is already challenging: materials are scattered across private and public collections, artists’ archives, in various stages of digitization, or still stored in attics and cellars on historic and slowly degrading media. Very few institutions in the Czech Republic or other Central European countries actively collect and preserve video art, and almost none focus on video installations. When exhibiting historical works, questions arise about the proper way to present them, and to what extent they can be reconstructed or reproduced.

The exhibition emphasizes the local context. Brno played an important role in the early history of video art—for example, screenings of video portraits of exhibiting artists were part of openings at the underground Gallery drogerie - Zlevněné zboží (1986–1989). From the 1980s, the Audiovisual Center Na Květné operated within Brno’s VUT, and by 1992, the FaVU VUT established the Studio of Video and Multimedia Animation, the Media Archive, and the Multimedia Laboratory, whose development was briefly influenced by Woody Vašulka. Since the 1990s, innovative Hi-Tech/Art festivals have been held in Brno.

From the Czech context, the exhibition presents creators associated with the Video Department (Radek Pilař, Lucie Svobodová, Petr Skala, Ivan Tatíček), independent artists working from performance and action art backgrounds with film and video technology (including Lumír Hladík, Tomáš Ruller, Vladimír Ambroz, Miloš Šejn, Vladimír Havlík, Petr Váša and Marian Palla, Martin Zet, Jiří Černický, Jennifer DeFelice, and Adéla Loučanská), the first generation of students from video studios (Janka Vidová-Žáčková, Filip Cenek, Zdeněk Mezihorák, etc.), creators of video installations (including Tomáš Ruller, Vladimír Ambroz, and Jaroslav Vančát), and artists who worked in emigration (Michael Bielický, Petr Vrána, Milan Kohout).

In Slovakia, one of the first artists to focus on video art was Peter Rónai, whose conceptual approach influenced a generation of Brno students through his work at FaVU. A conceptual approach is also present in the works of Miroslav Nicz. From the experimental film sphere, Vladimír Havrilla is represented, and the work of Jana Želibská, which engages with image and corporeality, is shown on multiple levels. A feminist approach is also evident in the work of Ilona Németh.

In Poland, early video art centered around the group Warsztat Formy Filmowej, founded by students of the Łódź Film School (including Józef Robakowski, Wojciech Bruszewski, Zbigniew Rybczynski), and another creative circles emerged at the academies in Warsaw and Katowice. Thanks to relatively more accessible technology, they and other artists from the early 1970s explored television transmission and worked with the specificity of video imagery (including Jolanta Marcolla, Izabella Gustowska, Anna Kutera, and Grzegorz Zgraja).

In Hungary, Studio Béla Balázs played a significant role in supporting film and developing video art. The exhibition features works by artists associated with it, such as Ágnes Háy, Gábor Bódy, and Tibor Hajás, conceptual films by Dóra Maurer, video installations by János Sugár, and documentation of Károly Halász’s television experiments.

The exhibition draws on loans from numerous individuals and institutions both in the Czech Republic and abroad. Special thanks for consultations on the selection of works and events along the timeline go to: Katarína Rusnáková (SK), Łukasz Guzek, Tomasz Załuski (PL), Miklós Peternák, Simon Petri-Lukács (C³: Center for Culture & Communication, Budapest), František Zachoval (GMU Hradec Králové), and Miloš Vojtěchovský (Vašulka Kitchen Brno).

Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00; extended hours on Wednesday until 20:00. 

Photo: Izabella Gustowska, Portret wielokrotny (Multiple Portrait), documentation of the video performance, Galeria Akumulatory 2, Poznań, 1985. Archive of the author