As the tenth anniversary of the festival is coming up on December 14, the Berlin-based Videoart at Midnight festival is honouring the one hundred artists that have been featured throughout its decade-long spree. Directed by Olaf Stüber, this year, there will be a two-day program of screenings of films at Berlin’s biggest cinemas. Directed by creatives like the renowned German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, who has a varied diverse body of work, Japanese artist Shingo Yoshida, who explores all of nature’s curiosities, and the Israeli Yael Bartana, who investigates identity and the politics of memory.
But not only that, these will be followed by video art installations, which will be exhibited in four different museums (Berlinische Galerie, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Galerie Pankow and Akademie der Künste), all free of charge, throughout the last leg of the year and the beginning months of 2019, as a way to demonstrate all of the different ways you can consume art.
One of the beauties of making any kind of audiovisual work is knowing that it will be shown on a big screen in front of an audience. And this rarely happens for video art, which mostly gets shown in an exhibition context, which takes away from the communal experience. Museum-goers can come and go as they please, and they can just walk past a screen if they aren’t entirely interested, which is why this is the perfect opportunity to finally get to see those films in a cinema setting, where they rightfully belong.
On Saturday 15 and Sunday 16, at the Babylon Big Cinema, you’ll get to see the screenings of all one hundred artists who have been involved with the festival throughout its ten-year run, like Antje Engelmann, Dani Gal, Mario Pfeifer, Maya Schweizer, Tobias Zielony, or Sven Johne. In addition, many of them will even be present. There will be around six to seven screenings per day – which will go on until a little after midnight, hence the name – and each of them will show around five films, all of them being either recent pieces or long unseen work. Some of the themes explored will be: double take, image makers/image breakers, home of the free land of the brave.
Adjacent to these screenings, as to examine a different side of the genre outside of the cinematic experience, video art installations will be shown in four museums. The first of the two stand outs is famed art historian Wulf Herzogenrath curated study archive of photos, letters, and installation designs related to the art form, at the Video Art in the Akademie Archives, until December 16. At the same time, artist Christian Friedrich’s exhibition will be going on. It explores the sexually outré, and mixes footage from sex dungeons and touristy images of New York, with very different imagery like an installation involving dripping water at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
But one of the most important days is Friday, December 14. Ed Atkins, the famed artist, will be the centre of the event. Starting at midnight, and for an hour and a half, his audiovisual pieces will be screened. Nevertheless, there will be talks by the likes of Thomas Köhler, Director of the Berlinische Galerie, or Anna-Catherina Gebbers, Curator at Hamburger Bahnhof (Museum für Gegenwart).
One of the beauties of making any kind of audiovisual work is knowing that it will be shown on a big screen in front of an audience. And this rarely happens for video art, which mostly gets shown in an exhibition context, which takes away from the communal experience. Museum-goers can come and go as they please, and they can just walk past a screen if they aren’t entirely interested, which is why this is the perfect opportunity to finally get to see those films in a cinema setting, where they rightfully belong.
On Saturday 15 and Sunday 16, at the Babylon Big Cinema, you’ll get to see the screenings of all one hundred artists who have been involved with the festival throughout its ten-year run, like Antje Engelmann, Dani Gal, Mario Pfeifer, Maya Schweizer, Tobias Zielony, or Sven Johne. In addition, many of them will even be present. There will be around six to seven screenings per day – which will go on until a little after midnight, hence the name – and each of them will show around five films, all of them being either recent pieces or long unseen work. Some of the themes explored will be: double take, image makers/image breakers, home of the free land of the brave.
Adjacent to these screenings, as to examine a different side of the genre outside of the cinematic experience, video art installations will be shown in four museums. The first of the two stand outs is famed art historian Wulf Herzogenrath curated study archive of photos, letters, and installation designs related to the art form, at the Video Art in the Akademie Archives, until December 16. At the same time, artist Christian Friedrich’s exhibition will be going on. It explores the sexually outré, and mixes footage from sex dungeons and touristy images of New York, with very different imagery like an installation involving dripping water at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
But one of the most important days is Friday, December 14. Ed Atkins, the famed artist, will be the centre of the event. Starting at midnight, and for an hour and a half, his audiovisual pieces will be screened. Nevertheless, there will be talks by the likes of Thomas Köhler, Director of the Berlinische Galerie, or Anna-Catherina Gebbers, Curator at Hamburger Bahnhof (Museum für Gegenwart).
The Videoart at Midnight will take place in different places during several days in Berlin. To see the full program, visit their website.
Annika Larsson – The Discourse of the Drinkers, 2017
Anri Sala – If and only if, 2018
Antje Majewski & Ginette Daleu – Ancêtres, Rencontres et Dialogues Inédits, 2018
Bjørn Melhus – Moon over Da Nang, 2016
Candice Breitz – Sweat, 2018
Christian Falsnaes – Icon, 2018
Clemens von Wedemeyer – Die Pferde des Rittmeisters, 2015
Fischer & el Sani – Freedom of Movement, 2018
Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz – To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe, 2013
Simon Faithfull – EZY, 2012
Theo Eshetu – Body And Soul V3, 2004
Ulf Aminde – Körper Theorie Poetik, 2018
Yael Bartana – Tashlik (Cast Off), 2017