Mercer Union: We Interrupt This Program

When I first walked into the exhibit, I was slightly shocked to see how small it was. For some reason I expected to see a huge art gallery with multiple rooms, but this intimate experience was interesting to see nonetheless. The exhibit had about ten different mini TVs all playing different videos. The whole exhibit investigates into the history of artists who have inserted their work directly into the flow of commercial print space or TV airtime. All of the TV videos were from 1969- 1993, so many different views were showing throughout these years. With every video, there was an “interruption” in it. Also around the TVs were glass cases displaying print works (advertisements) that have also been re-contextualized to interrupt the flow of mass media to the audience.  One of my favorite video pieces was called “Facing A Family” by Valie Export. This video was interesting to me because it showed two little kids watching TV and their silent reaction to it, intermediately throughout the video the noise from the TV comes out. The interruption of noise was only evident for the viewer, and the children did not have a reaction to it, which was unexpected. The video that I thought was somewhat pointless and unoriginal was “TV as a fireplace” by Jan Dibbets. The TV screen merely served as a fireplace for about 3 minutes. I thought it was very boring because nothing happened, expect for the logs burning. The way of understanding the insertions is also productive because it allows us to link them to a larger history of contextual practices. The ads that were displayed in glass cases around the TV’s were unique and a few were even disturbing. The point of the ads were to draw on the actual cultural and economic utility of the advertisements. One that I liked was called “I Want a Girlfriend” by Skip Arnold. He was trying to illustrate this method of solicitation in a very direct and blunt way. Under the picture of a man looking into the distance, leaning on his car it read “not just any girlfriend, a real girlfriend”. This was somewhat random but after reading about the performance more I understood what the artist was trying to convey.
In the back room of the gallery, there was also a large video being played, and it was basically discussing art, students and the studying of art. The man talking on the film, was implying that studying art and sketching other peoples work makes not sense, because you must invest your own time in the study and try to leave a contribution of your own. By making a replication of someone else’s work you are not leaving your legacy and are deprived of a historical contribution. I think this encourages art students to be create and not get caught up in the focus of replicating pre-existing works of art.
The exhibits were nice to see, and each one explored a different thought-provoking meaning.
I have also added some images from the exhibit..enjoy!!