Video Data Bank - Collections

Collections

The Video Data Bank maintains three collections of video produced from 1968 to the present:

Early Video Art includes many titles from the Castelli-Sonnabend collection, the first and most prominent collection of video art assembled in the United States. All of the work in this collection was produced between 1968 and 1980. These works represent examples of the first experiments in video art and include conceptual and feminist performances recorded on video, experiments with the video signal, and 'guerilla' documentaries representing a counter-cultural view of the historical events of the 1960s. Artists included are Vito Acconci, Lynda Benglis, Dara Birnbaum, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman and William Wegman.

Independent Video and Alternative Media is a collection that includes works made since 1980. These works represent the next generation of video makers and younger artists, and largely address post-modern themes in contemporary art such as feminism, AIDS, gender studies, guerilla television, technology, and multi-cultural identity. This collection includes active contemporary artists such as Sadie Benning, Jem Cohen, Harun Farocki, Walid Raad, Paul Chan, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Miranda July, and George Kuchar.

On Art and Artists is a collection of taped interviews with visual artists, photographers and critics. The interviews focus on the development of the artists' body of work.