- Title: USA: Guggenheim and YouTube award online video artists
- Date: 23rd October 2010
- Summary: EXTERIOR OF GUGGENHEIM WITH YOUTUBE SYMBOL ON ROTUNDA
- Embargoed: 7th November 2010 15:55
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA53PF2Y5MN9IM65EIBB6OO05D4
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: A new exhibition at The Guggenheim Museum reveals winners of worldwide competition among video art submitted via YouTube.
The Guggenheim Museum unveiled the winners of a contest between videos submitted via YouTube from artists around the world on Thursday (October 21).
The top 25 videos selected in the competition called "You Tube Play" were shown for the first time on a large screen at New York City's Guggenheim, which created the contest with video-sharing web site YouTube. It was aimed at showcasing innovative online video artists.
To showcase the artists, the videos were projected onto the exterior of the museum's iconic rotunda on 5th Avenue next to Central Park in Manhattan.
Varying from animated line drawings to cartoons, the top 25 videos were created by 39 artists from 14 countries.
Among those chosen was Lisa Byrne's piece on Northern Irish taxi drivers injured during 'the Troubles'. The quick cut piece, entitled "Stand Up and Cry Like a Man" captures men recounting their experiences in just over three minutes.
"It is, it's a fabulous feeling, I have to say -- the buildup beforehand and not really knowing what exactly is going to happen, but knowing your work is in such a place -- it feels really amazing," Byrne said, adding that she was happy not only for her work, but also for the recognition of her subjects' stories in her home country.
Brothers Matthew and Erik Huber from Atlanta earned acclaim for their gravity-defying work "The Huber Experiments" in which everyday 'still life' undergoes improbable motion.
"I mean, I love the beauty," said Matthew. "I think it was about, or part of what it's about, is taking, like a really kind of, a scene that you've seen a million times - a place setting - and then having something dramatic and magical happen to it."
Erik Huber was more blunt about the point of their work and what they hope the audience on YouTube and at the museum will think.
"Ideally, they want to see more of it and come knock on my door with a check, and have me do some more," he said with a smile.
Other winning videos included "Birds on the Wires" from Jarbas Agnelli of Sao Paulo, Brazil, featuring instrumental music and shots of birds perched on wires resembling a bar of music, and the brief "Seaweed," showing a man stretching his arms, from London-based Remi Weekes and Luke White.
The exhibition serves as a sign of older art institutions such as The Guggenheim giving a nod to the growing power of the internet and YouTube to distribute art globally, as well as the growing influence of video in all forms of entertainment, from the art world to theater and books.
"The Guggenheim has always been really committed to new media," Guggenheim Chief Curator Nancy Spector told Reuters. "So the notion of expanding our research into the internet and to try and understand whether platforms such as YouTube are changing how artists are working with the mediums is really compelling to us."
"We didn't know what the outcome would be when we started the collaboration, but it's really proven to us that there is an emerging genre and a new kind of energy of artists working with video," Spector added.
YouTube Marketing Manager Ed Sanders explained that the Google entity was constantly looking at ways to push forward the medium and the 'art competition' was a continuation from last year's 'YouTube Symphony Orchestra'.
"I think that the real key point for this is the access and the democratization of that access. I think for people to have an opportunity to distribute their creativity and also watch other people's creativity using a mechanism like YouTube, which has only been around for five years, has really opened people's eyes up to the potential all around the world," he said.
The chosen video artists included nine from the United States, two from Canada, two from England and two from South Africa. Winners were chosen from more than 23,000 submissions originating in 91 countries.
Some of the artists admitted that they had no idea their creations would be held in such high regard and entered the competition on a whim or a dare.
"It's very interesting, because I make videos, but generally not for public consumption, just as sort of a therapeutic thing for myself. I submitted it on a lark, so it's kind of odd to actually have made it to the top 25," said Bryce Kretschmann, whose blurry piece 'Auspice' superimposes opinionated American cable news talking heads onto each other.
The videos can be seen at youtube.com/play and will be shown at The Guggenheim from Oct. 22 to 24, while similar events will be held at other Guggenheim locations.
The jury for "YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video" included artist Laurie Anderson, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, U.S. musicians Animal Collective and Japanese visual artist Takashi Murakami.
Originally only 20 videos were going to be picked but the number was increased to 25 due to the high quality of submissions, YouTube and The Guggenheim said in a statement. The jury will reconvene in two years time to evaluate another crop of artistic videos for exhibition. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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