OUTER & INNER SPACE

Sip My Ocean, 1996, by Pipilotti Rist (Video still, courtesy Luhring Augustine) Rapture, 1999, by Shirin Neshat (Production still © 1999 Shirin Neshat, courtesy Barbara Gladstone) Stasi City (Interview room partial view Hohenshönhausen), 1997, by Jane and Louise Wilson; C-type print mounted on aluminum (Courtesy of 303 Gallery)

Outer & Inner Space brings exemplary international video art to Virginia. It presents recent major works by Pipilotti Rist (born in Switzerland in 1962), Shirin Neshat (born in Iran in 1957)), and Jane & Louise Wilson (both born in England in 1967), four of the most significant artists to emerge in the past decade. They make large-scale installations, creating environments of moving images and sound with multiple video projections. Their extraordinary works have been shown at major international venues, but never before in the Southeastern United States. The exhibition will take place in three eight-week installments, each exploring the relationship between interior states of mind and external reality. Outer & Inner Space places the three recent video installations in the context of classic video art from the 1960s to early 1980s. These early works of video art by the pioneering generations will be shown in an adjoining gallery on individual monitors; a different selection of early works will be paired with each installation. Video art has traveled an immense distance from its rough-edged, hand-held origins to the present. Advances include technological sophistication, grandeur of effect, and an ability to transport viewers to an experiential space between reality and fiction. Showing classics with recent work emphasizes video art's development and helps viewers appreciate it as a discipline with its own history, underlying formal issues and broadly shared thematic concerns. This exhibition explores mature themes and several works contain some nudity. Under age 17 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Shirin Neshat, Rapture
April 6-June 2, 2002
Rapture uses lush black-and-white projections on opposite walls to explore the strict division between men and women in some Islamic countries. A selection of early videos treats related themes of gender roles, cultural identity and spatial divides. Included are works by Marina Abramovic & Ulay, Vito Acconci, Klaus vom Bruch, Shirley Clarke, Juan Downey, Mona Hatoum, Gary Hill, Joan Jonas, Charlemagne Palestine, Howardena Pindell, Daniel Reeves, Edin Velez, and Bill Viola. Music composed by Sussan Deyhim, who performed at the museum's April 5 Fast/Forward.

Jane and Louise Wilson, Stasi City
June 22-Aug. 18, 2002
Using four projectors simultaneously in opposite corners of the room, Stasi City presents a dynamic and disorienting view of the abandoned headquarters of the former East German secret police. Works by Ant Farm & T. R. Uthco, James Byrne, Peter Campus, Dan Graham, Mary Lucier, Branda Miller, Bruce Nauman, Marcel Odenbach, Nam June Paik & Jud Yalkut, Charlemagne Palestine, Richard Serra, Steina, and Bill Viola explore related themes of vision, anxiety, surveillance and power.

This exhibition is made possible by an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award. The Exhibition Award program was founded in 1998 to honor Emily Hall Tremaine. It rewards innovation and experimentation among curators by supporting thematic exhibitions that challenge audiences and expand the boundaries of contemporary art. Additional funding was received from The Council of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Fabergé Ball Endowment. Other contributors include the Friends of Art; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; Marion Boulton Stroud; and Mr. and Mrs. T. Fleetwood Garner through The Community Foundation; Bill and Sara Borowy; Paul and Sara Monroe; and La Difference. State-of-the-art digital video equipment by Zenith Electronics Corporation. Media sponsorship provided by the Weekend section in the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Exhibition Book

OUTER & INNER SPACE By John B. Ravenal, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts with essays by Laura Cottingham, Eleanor Heartney, and Jonathan Knight Crary. Paperback, 112 pages, 95 color and 28 b&w illustrations ISBN 0-917046-61-7 $34.95 (Museum members $31.45), plus tax>

Borrowing from the title of Andy Warhol's 1965 double-screen film, Outer & Inner Space, this book explores how video art addresses the interplay between external reality and internal states of mind. Three recent video installations--by Pipilotti Rist, Shirin Neshat, and Jane & Louise Wilson-- are placed in the context of forty influential early works from the late 1960s to mid-1980s. These pairings underscore both the chance and the continutiy in video art, from its rough-edged experimental origins to works that use sophisticated technology to create environments of image and sound.

Read this book's Introduction