The Video Data Bank
Originally published 6/2010, reposted for the series “Best of Chicago Art Magazine”
Roxanne Samer
Wonder Woman, Dara Birnbaum
The Video Data Bank, located on Michigan Avenue in the Loop, is one of the country’s top video art rental, screening and preservation facilities. Founded in 1976 by two School of the Art Institute graduate students, Kate Horsfield and Lyn Blumenthal, it’s collection now boasts an extensive array of works, from canonical pieces of video art, such as Richard Serra’s Television Delivers People (1973), Lynda Benglis’ Female Sensibility (1973) and Dara Birnbaum’s Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978), to recent works of new media by those such as George and Mike Kuchar, Tony Cokes, and Peggy Ahwesh. The Video Data Bank originated with the goal of collecting and making available to the public the newest forms of artistic production and established from the start a clear dedication to the oft-underrepresented work being made by female artists. It has kept both of these priorities at the forefront of its development to this day. The Video Databank’s collection is now approximately five thousand titles strong, two thousand of which are currently in distribution. Nearly half of these titles are by female artists. Furthermore, under the direction of Abina Manning, the Video Data Bank has recently begun to actively work to expand its collection of titles by international artists.
In addition to collecting, preserving and distributing these titles, the Video Data Bank has created its own content. Beginning in 1974, two years prior to the collection’s official inception, Video Data Bank co-founders Horsfield and Blumenthal began conducting in-depth video interviews with artists as they came through Chicago. As the data bank grew and the two began travelling to New York and Los Angeles, among other places, in search of new video art, they brought along their video equipment and expanded this process to nearly each and every contemporary artist they could get to sit before their camera and answer a few questions. Significantly, they were also able to interview key critics and historians, such as Laura Mulvey, Linda Williams and Benjamin Buchloh. The result is an unprecedented collection of art world interviews from the 1970s through the present day. The earliest of these—including those with “Happenings” creator Allan Kaprow, feminist art critic Lucy Lippard and avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage—maintain a distinct grainy, black and white, up close and personal video aesthetic. Both the interviewer’s questions and the interviewee’s answers are detailed and thorough, and one gets the distinct sense that the process was far from rushed. While artists’ interviews and writings from this era are by no means lacking—the seventies is one of the most well-documented periods of American art—the opportunity to see and hear them speak, rather than simply read their words, is an exciting and unique experience. Blumenthal passed away in the eighties and Horsfield retired in 2006; however, the VDB continues to conduct two to three artist interviews per semester, primarily pulling from the talented pool of School of the Art Institute visiting artists and Conversations at the Edge speakers.
Lucy Lippard
In May 2007, Sally Berger, the Assistant Curator of the Film Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York took it upon herself to recognize the extensive array of interviews with female artists, curators and critics that Video Data Bank had conducted over the preceding three decades, highlighting over thirty interviews and video works in eleven film programming events over the course of the month. A full list of Video Data Bank interviews can be accessed online, with the exception of the newest of these, which are still being edited and processed, but here is a select list of some of their interviewees from throughout the years: Barbara Kruger, Vito Acconci, Agnes Martin, Adrian Piper, Alice Neel, Andres Serrano, Chris Burden, Cindy Sherman, Coco Fusco, Craig Owens, Dennis Oppenheim, Eleanor Antin, Eric Fischl, George Kuchar, the Guerrilla Girls, Hollis Frampton, Hal Foster, Jim Dine, John Baldessari, Yvonne Rainer and Judy Chicago.
One other endeavor that the Video Data Bank has taken under its wing is the assemblage of single artist and curated compilation DVD box sets. Accompanied by an educational introduction to the body of work, often written by a distinguished critic or historian of the period and/or artist, these box sets make it easy for educators to formulate the connections between the historical pieces for their students, whether they be teaching a history of video art course using the eight DVD collection of Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the U.S. 1968-1980 or introducing students to the complex bodies of work by artists such as Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Yvonne Rainer or Paul Chan. Representatives from art and educational institutions can purchase or rent these as well as other titles through the data bank directly, and a select few are available for individual purchase. The Video Data Bank is currently designing a brand new website, as their current frames-based site only offers limited streaming opportunities, and the new site is expected to launch by fall 2010. This will make previews and clips available online and is expected to eventually lead to online streaming rentals.
The Video Data Bank
As of now, however, one can most easily and affordably access the collection by making a screening room reservation and visiting the facilities in person. This opportunity is one extended to the public, and yet, it is rarely utilized outside of local art students and faculty and scholars who come specifically to Video Data Bank for research. During the school year, the single screening room—furnished with a large screen television and comfy chairs—is in high demand and one should expect to have to call or email in a reservation a week or two in advance. In the summer, however, with all the students out of town for a few months and the Chicago sun distracting all others, the space is almost always empty. This is an opportune time to get a break from the heat and snuggle up in the dark with interviews and video works by some of modern society’s most beloved artists. One need not wait for the next video art exhibition at the Art Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art or elsewhere but can access thousands of hours of artworks and interviews on videotape and DVD at the Video Data Bank just downtown.
