New release: Channel VB
An interview granted to Brazilian television by the American artist Aysha Quinn, and a performance that has José Roberto Aguillar wrapping up the Museum of Image and Sound, in São Paulo, in a tribute to the Bulgarian Christo. These two historical events from the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, both dating from the 1980s, are part of the contents now available to the public on the web.
Channel VB compiles and provides access to interviews, news reports, and other records of relevant figures and moments in the history of the Festival, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2013. The new online channel is one in a series of contents, publications, and programs designed to mark the date, leading up to the 18th Festival due next November in São Paulo.
Now open to all artistic manifestations from the geopolitical South of the world, Videobrasil emerged in 1983 to showcase the then-nascent Brazilian video production. Over the course of three decades, the Festival morphed along with the medium, following it as it moved closer to the art field.
The initial contents of Channel VB hark back to the early days of the Festival. In a context marked by the waning of Brazil’s military dictatorship regime, television had a strong grip on the imagination of a generation of artists and video makers who wanted to take charge of the medium in order to reveal other views of the world. Video was becoming a sort of “counter-television,” ushering in a new visuality that was welcomed by a generation of auteurs hungry for experimental practices.
Apart from this initial set, comprising 37 videos arranged into various sub-channels and focusing on the early days of the Festival, the collection will be augmented on a fortnightly basis with records of performances by the likes of Alexandre da Cunha, Chelpa Ferro and Coco Fusco; accounts from artists and curators who have taken part in the Festival, like Peter Greenaway, Cao Guimarães, Waly Salomão, Breda Beban, Tom Van Vliet, Michael Mazière, Thomaz Farkas, Daniel Minahan, and Stephen Vitiello; and myriad other videos and records.