Images Against Darkness

KIT and imai show video art from Düsseldorf

Imai and KIT have had points of contact since 2008, when KIT planned its first video exhibition. A conversation between Gertrud Peters and the then head of imai – inter media art institute – drew attention to the foundation in the neighbourhood that concentrated on the development and meaning construction of video art. This usually occurred with scholarly reserve in its spaces at the NRW-Forum, where a video art archive was also maintained on which imai’s comprehensive and distinguished online service is founded.

Discovering quality, archiving, conserving, marketing and transmitting video art, this was the mission of the foundation established in 2006; it was the wish of Renate Buschmann, who has headed imai since the fall of 2008, to show the collected video treasures to a large audience.

She inquired whether a collaboration between imai and KIT – Kunst im Tunnel was imaginable. Given KIT’s task, it was naturally possible to also show the works of younger artists, and this resulted in the collaboration with Prof. Marcel Odenbach from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.

The images against darkness are hence complex and come from all generations of video art. One of works on show, “Sisyphos,” was made in 1994 by Jan Verbeek for the then still untouched, raw break room: 18 years later it finds itself back again in the same now slightly smaller space that has been transformed for the exhibition venue.

After Julia Stoschek (Video Koop, 2008), Mischa Kuball (Along the Rhine, 2009) and Silke Schmickl (Human Frames, 2011), Renate Buschmann is the fourth curator specialized in time-based media and film to cooperate with KIT. We are inviting you to partake in the development of an art that presents its critical observations with beautiful images, with sound and technology.

With Julián Álvarez, George Barber, Dara Birnbaum, Claus Blume, Klaus vom Bruch, Robert Cahen, Peter Callas, Douglas Davis, Sachli Golkar, Bettina Gruber, Nate Harrison, Freya Hattenberger, Oliver Held, Gary Hill, Patricia Hoeppe, Nan Hoover, Hörner/Antlfinger, Gudrun Kemsa, Sunjha Kim, Kevin Pawel Matweew, Franziska Megert, Norbert Meissner, Chris Newman, Michalis Nicolaides, Marcel Odenbach, Raskin, Ulrike Rosenbach, Lydia Schouten, Bill Seaman, Peter Simon Steina, Myriam Thyes, Woody Vasulka, Maria Vedder, Jan Verbeek