Over the past fifty years video has established itself as a major form of creation in contemporary art. Through the strength of its direct connection with contemporary society since its beginnings—a connection, moreover, which has only grown closer with the advent of social media—video quickly took hold as an artistic language in its own right while at the same time making clear its power to express and assert social demands. Having grown up largely on the margins of the academic milieu, and subject to few economic constraints with respect to either production or distribution, video has made a considerable contribution to the democratisation of art.
It was in this spirit of democratising the production and distribution of audiovisual documents that a group of filmmakers and producers in Montreal, coming out of the NFB (National Film Board), founded Vidéographe in 1971, the first organisation of its kind in Canada. The organisation quickly established itself as an essential player in the field of independent video, introducing a number of filmmakers, video makers and artists with a decisive influence on local and international media art, including, to name just a few, Jeanne Crépeau, Nelson Henricks, manon laBrecque, Robert Morin, Serge Murphy and Charles Guilbert. Today, Vidéographe continues to support the development of forms arising out of experimental video, confirming its place as a centre devoted both to distribution and to artistic exploration in the now quite extensive field of image practices. With a catalogue containing more than 1,700 works, Vidéographe is dedicated to promoting both recognition of new work and an understanding of more historical work.
Last season, Dazibao presented a very free sampling of the Vtape catalogue. For this second edition, we propose a similar survey, with just as many gaps, by trawling this time through the Vidéographe catalogue. The program of sixteen videotapes offers a non-linear reading which attempts to bring out certain angles peculiar to Vidéographe, from autobiographical confession to dream-like portrait and from collage to political and even militant documentary by way of performance conceived for video.
