Early Video Art is a collection of titles that are central to an understanding of the historical development of video art. This collection includes, but is not limited to, many titles from the original Castelli-Sonnabend collection, the first and most prominent collection of video art assembled in the United States. All of the work in this collection was produced between 1968 and 1980. These works represent important examples of the first experiments in video art, and include conceptual and feminist performances recorded on video, experiments with the video signal, and "guerilla" documentaries representing a counter-cultural view of the historical events of the 1960s and 70s. Many of these tapes represent a desire for a radically redefined television experience that is centered on the innovative, the personal, the political and the non-commercial.
LISTING STYLE:

Bill Murray and Christopher Guest lead a behind-the-scenes tour of the 1976 showdown between the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Mixing documentary reality with clever comic invention, TVTV decked itself out in tuxedos and ankle-length gowns to cover Hollywood's annual celebration.

Bob Snyder

Winter Notebook

1975 | 00:06:00

This tape exemplifies Snyder’s early experiments with the image processor.

Simone Forti

Three Grizzlies

1974 | 00:17:00

Forti uses the camera as a research tool to record the movements of three grizzly bears pacing anxiously behind the bars of their cage in the Brooklyn Zoo.

Lynda Benglis

On Screen

1972 | 00:07:45

"Benglis manipulates generations of video footage to confound our sense of time; she implies an infinite regression of time and space — Benglis making faces in front of a monitor of her making…

Lynda Benglis

Document

1972 | 00:06:08

With Benglis standing in front of a photograph of herself, which is then affixed to a monitor bearing her image, the notion of "original" is complicated—making the viewer acutely aware of the…

Using imagery from a Japanese "creature feature" and a chewing gum commercial, Benglis's camera focuses on different parts of the screen to emphasize different messages.

Baldessari presents photographs to his friend Ed Henderson and asks him to reconstruct the meaning of the image.

Baldessari asks Ed Henderson to discuss the meaning of selected news photos.

Baldessari has Ed Henderson examine obscure movie stills and attempt to reconstruct the films’ narratives.

Lynda Benglis

Noise

1972 | 00:07:15

The earliest of Benglis's videoworks, Noise calls attention to the assemblage element of video by allowing the image to disintegrate into static between edits.

Lynda Benglis

Discrepancy

1973 | 00:13:44

This structurally simple video, shot through Benglis's apartment window, contains a, "distinct disjuncture between the visual and aural components of the work.