Generations: Experimental Video and the de Saisset Museum

During the early to mid 1970s, under the leadership of visionary Director Lydia Modi-Vitale and Video Curator George Bolling, the de Saisset Museum played a leading role in commissioning and exhibiting video art. A series of solo and group exhibitions during this era helped cement video as a legitimate art form. Generations: Experimental Video and the de Saisset Museum explores this highly productive moment.

The exhibition revisits select works from the Museum’s 12th annual St. Jude Invitational in 1972, which focused exclusively on the new medium of video, bringing the first generation of Bay Area conceptual artists into conversation with their Los Angeles and New York–based counterparts. The 1972 Invitational featured diverse approaches by John Baldessari, Lynda Benglis, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos, and Rainbow Video (Bill Viola, Mimi Munroe, Tom Morris), among others.

Generations: Experimental Video and the de Saisset Museum presents rarely seen performance-based works, as well as material from experimental exhibitions from the era, such as Fish, Fox, Kos (1971) and Eat Your Totems Mary Ashley (1975), which offer new perspectives on this Northern California story.

These historic works are paired with single-channel videos by contemporary Bay Area artists. From the studio to outdoor environments, these short works, primarily from 2000 to the 2010s, are characterized by their pared-down approach, in which the camera is used to record a performance or action.

Generations: Experimental Video and the de Saisset Museum is co-organized by Ciara Ennis, Director & Chief Curator, de Saisset Museum, and Tanya Zimbardo, guest Co-curator.