French Video Art

Posted 6 December 2015

This exhibit of French video art from the 70’s was organized to tour the US in 1981 by the Center for Media Art which I ran at the American Center in Paris and the Vidéothèque de Paris. It was, to my knowledge, the first show of French video art to circulate in the US. It included work from the video section of ENSAD, students and invited artists, as well as tape from other French artists, including Chris Marker’s commission from the Georges-Pompidou Center.

The work was seen at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT and in San Francisco. I have forgotten at what other cities it was shown, but it had a long run in the US. I have found two critiques of the show from San Francisco which are available here. There is one mistake in one of the articles. The cover shown here, video à la mode, was not from a still, but a photo I shot expressly for the cover. The ice-cream leaked all over my kitchen floor. There were articles which have been lost.