Photo by Jonathan Wells Video Artist Bill Viola, and associate curator Barbara London of MoMA’s Department of Media in conversation with Joel Bachar of Microcinema at the California Video opening

• Name: California Video opening reception
• Date: Thursday March 13, 2008
• Location: The Getty Center
• Who was there: Artists Skip Arnold, Jim Campbell, one of the Kipper Kids, Suzanne Lacy, Jennifer Steinkamp, Bill Viola, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Skip Sweeney, Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, Paul Kos, Nina Sobell, Eleanor Antin, Martin Kersels, Chip Lord, Doug Hall, Meg Cranston, MoCA director Jeremy Strick, David Ross, Carole Ann Klonarides, Pam Kramlich, MoMA’s Barbara London, David Quadrini of Angstrom Gallery, LACE’s Carol Stakenas, Barbara T. Smith, gallerist Alexander Gray and more.
• What was served: South Asian food including basmati rice, naan and Thai chicken salad

“I didn’t think I was going to like this show,” artist Bill Viola told me at Thursday night’s opening reception for California Video, the Getty Center’s major exhibition celebrating California artists’ important role in video art which opens today.

The show features work of 58 artists ranging from single channel videos to complex installations. Personal highlights included Jim Campbell’s Home Movies (2006) a 16-foot grid of white LEDs that cast soft, moving light which resolve into movie-like images the farther you are away from the piece, Paul Kos’ Chartres Bleu (1983-86), a massive multi-screen piece with 27 monitors representing each of the 27 stained-glass window panes in France’s Chartres Cathedral and Jennifer Steinkamp’s impressive site-specific, Oculus Sinister (2008), which was created especially for the show. Everyone there was trying to figure out how the artist projected seamless video into the conical oculus skylight of the Getty’s special exhibition pavilion.

I arrived just after 8:30p with my friend Joel Bachar of Microcinema who flew down from San Francisco especially for the opening and the place was buzzing with people (I had to park five floors underground). After passing through the entrance hall, I entered a packed courtyard that was equal parts class reunion and art opening.

Photo by Jonathan Wells The opening of California Video drew a huge crowd to the Getty Center on Thursday night.

It is somewhat ironic that this historic museum exhibition – showing many works that have not been seen since they were created – showcases artists who, as Viola points out, were excited about video as an art medium in the early 70’s because the distribution opportunities it offered allowed artists to get their art seen by as many people as possible outside the museum circuit.

In the end, Viola loved the show and went on to say that it felt “like a trip down memory lane”. He laughed as he explained that the YouTube generation is looking at work that is similarly lo-fi as some of the work by the pioneering artists in the show. “Video has come full circle.”

California Video
March 15 - June 9, 2008

The Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California