Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom
Opening Reception and Panel Discussion
Thursday, February 3, 2011
MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge (Building E15)
Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom is the first museum survey of the work of media art pioneer Stan VanDerBeek, exploring his investigation of art, technology and communication. Surveying the artist’s remarkable body of work in collage, experimental film, performance, participatory and computer-generated art over several decades, this exhibition highlights his pivotal contribution to today’s media-based artistic practices. Always at the forefront of new information, communication and visualization technologies, VanDerBeek understood their world–changing significance and the need to critically assess their sociopolitical consequences.
At Bell Labs, working with the first moving-image programming language, he produced Poemfields (1966-1969), a series of computer-generated films. As a research fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) and artist-in-residence at Boston’s public television station WGBH, he began to develop new forms of interdisciplinary work and integrated forms of visual information that now stand as significant experiments in early new media art. Much of his work presages today’s Internet and communications technology.
Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom is organized by Bill Arning, Director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and João Ribas, Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center, with special thanks to the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek and London-based independent scholar Mark Bartlett. The exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne and The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, along with the Council for the Arts at MIT, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Martin E. Zimmerman, the Union Pacific Foundation and the patrons, benefactors and donors to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s Major Exhibition Fund. The accompanying catalogue has been made possible by a grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc. Media sponsor: Phoenix Media/Communications Group.
Panel Moderator:
João Ribas, Curator, List Visual Arts Center
Participants:
Bill Arning, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
Sara VanDerBeek
Johannes VanDerBeek
Exhibition runs February 4–April 3, 2011