A short comment on the Exhibition art_clips at the Media Museum ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany.

This exhibition is curated by Gerhard Johann Lischka and shows 90 short clips produced between 2000 and today, for the purpose of hammering the message home dubbed ‘art_clips’, from three countries: Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The DVD is available in the local Museum Shop.

What is worth a comment about this exhibition is the fact that this exhibition unintentionally raises the question what’s happening to the way video art gets distributed these days.

The resume states that these “art_clips” are the “subject-centered answer of art to the end of industrially produced music videos for television.”

Thinking of why one has to pick the music video industry as the point of reference, in order to define oneself, leaves one with plenty of question marks. But the desperation for one’s own position on the curator career ladder in art history shall be not of our interest in this case.

In times when Filmmakers like Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham are shown on various Music TV Channels, selling successfully their work in form of DVDs on unpretentious places like Amazon, one might wonder what the point is this exhibition tries to make?

There is clearly the attempt to offer artists a forum, a point of access to the ‘market’ – which is definitely a good thing as such.
And the ZKM is a well established place do do so … but why do they opt for an exhibition? Videos in exhibitions are boring Everybody who has been to an exhibition presenting predominantly videos, knows how fantastically well those work.
And why on top of it release a DVD as a distribution method for clips, which are obviously for a fragmented niche market?
Would it not be better to seek the challenge to broaden this niche, to allow that niche, wherever it can be found, access to this material? Instead of opting for making yourself at home in the corner of clichés and using a distribution method which is simply to expensive to make it work well?

In times when artists take it on themselves to put their clips up on You Tube, when their clips become very popular and even get commissioned by the likes of Coke, and you see yourself as a curator for the good cause why not become the filter for particular clips you call art_clips , open an account on You Tube and offer your choice – or even better create something like You Tube only better suited for your peer group (there is definitely space) since you are not only a museum but also a research facility?

Funnily enough the flyer of the exhibition (above) makes use of the top level domains (.de, .ch, .at) - maybe as a subconscious reference to where it should be heading. While underscores might be popular with file names, they are a no no if it comes to URLs - if only the ZKM would know … !

The exhibition is open until the 25th of March – and the DVDs can be bought in the local Museum Shop long after …