Offering historical and theoretical positions from a variety of art historians, artists, curators, and writers, this groundbreaking collection is the first substantive sourcebook on abstraction in moving-image media. With a particular focus on art since 2000, Abstract Video addresses a longer history of experimentation in video, net art, installation, new media, expanded cinema, visual music, and experimental film. Editor Gabrielle Jennings—a video artist herself—reveals as never before how works of abstract video are not merely, as the renowned curator Kirk Varnedoe once put it, “pictures of nothing,” but rather amorphous, ungovernable spaces that encourage contemplation and innovation. In explorations of the work of celebrated artists such as Jeremy Blake, Mona Hatoum, Pierre Huyghe, Ryoji Ikeda, Takeshi Murata, Diana Thater, and Jennifer West, alongside emerging artists, this volume presents fresh and vigorous perspectives on a burgeoning and ever-changing arena of contemporary art.
Gabrielle Jennings is Associate Professor, Graduate Art, at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
Kate Mondloch is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Director of the New Media and Culture certificate program at the University of Oregon.
“Abstract Video charts a diverse range of perspectives and topics in the fields of art history and media studies. This collection of thoughtful articles by established figures and emerging voices demonstrates that the idea of abstraction is relevant not only to painting, where it is has been thoroughly explored, but also to video, where it has been largely ignored. Abstraction provides a new lens through which to regard the work of contemporary artists who work with moving images. This excellent book will be of interest to artists, curators, and scholars alike.” —Mark Tribe, author of New Media Art
“This anthology is very exciting and timely, the list of authors and topics impressive and broad. It is a great sign of the continuing vitality of abstract cinema in our own time.” —A. L. Rees, author of A History of Experimental Film and Video
“A deft and comprehensive critical anthology devoted to abstraction in the analog and digital realms. From origin stories to contemporary works, this volume collects some of the most diverse and theoretically rigorous writings on a woefully underexamined art form. Abstraction in the moving image (beyond film) finally has a collection of writings that grapples head-on with the engaging, innovative, and compelling use of abstraction in the video landscape and its intriguing intersection with contemporary visual culture.” —Erika Suderburg, author of Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art
304 pp.7 x 10Illus: 59 color photographs, 11 b/w i
9780520282483$34.95|£30.00Paper
Sep 2015