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Mike Olenick
Dec 31, 2018
For our last post of the year, the second in a series of occasional updates about the Film Video Studio’s Archive Project from archivist Mike Olenick. You can read the first entry here.
In 2017, the Wexner Center received a $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to develop an archive of the numerous works made with the support of our Film/Video Studio. Often called the Wex’s “best kept secret,” the Studio is a residency program for artists and filmmakers working in film and video. The program was originally known as Art and Tech and has been operational since late 1991, when it was first equipped with video editing technology for artists to use. The projects that pass through the Film/Video Studio range from short experimental films to multi-channel installations to feature films and documentaries. I’m currently sifting through and organizing information about all these different projects with the end goal of making that information more organized and more accessible—not just for Wexner Center staff, but also for you.
One of my big tasks over the past year has been figuring out all the artists and projects the Film/Video Studio has supported over the years, including how and when we supported each project. While we have a general sense of most of this information, it’s not all been kept in one place or format. I’ve also discovered that some of that info isn’t accurate and, in some cases, is missing entirely from our records. To make a definitive list of residency projects, I’ve referenced documents from the past 25-plus years collected from different staff members in the F/V department, searched through tape databases, spoken with Wexner staff to clarify information about possible residencies, and combed through paper records and emails. If all else fails, I watch the videos themselves and keep my eyes peeled for a mention of the Wexner Center in the end credits. While I’m not done combining all this information, I can safely say that the Film/Video Studio has supported approximately 350 artists working on about 600 different film and video projects since 1991.
We are in the process of making some of this information more readily available on our website. You’ve probably already noticed that the Wex’s website got a huge makeover in July, which included a major upgrade for the Studio’s page. Prior to then, our site featured a bare-bones list of artists who visited the Studio over the years. It wasn’t very informative. (And even had a few errors in it!) Over the years Film/Video Studio Curator Jennifer Lange and I often imagined how we might be able to use the website to tell the world a little bit more about the program’s history and the diverse group of people who have been in residence over the years.
When we launched this new website, we were able to add information about 31 artists who recently completed projects with the help of the Studio. This first batch of information is just scratching the surface of what we plan to add in the coming year. If you check back in the summer, you should see even more artists appear on the page, bios of the artists, a list of projects we supported for each artist (along with information and stills from each project), and maybe even a few video clips. There’s also a gallery of Featured Residencies, which will change occasionally to reflect recently completed or notable works that we’ve supported.
For a variety of reasons, we don’t always have the opportunity to show a work we’ve supported at the moment it is completed. I’m happy to say that there are already plans to show a number of Studio supported works at the Center in 2019. This January in The Box you can experience The Ague (2018), a brand new video created by Australian artist Pilar Mata Dupont during a residency earlier this year. It’s a conceptually, visually, and sonically dense piece that explores the more insidious effects of colonialism on our environment. And in February, also in The Box, be sure to check out Yvonne Rainer’s poetic consideration of age and the legacy of the historic Avant Garde movement in After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid (2002), which was edited in the Studio in 2002.
For a more concentrated viewing experience, look out for another Picture Lock event this spring, where a group of Studio alums will converge at the Wex to present works made with the help of the F/V Studio. And in the summer, Jennifer Lange is curating a solo gallery exhibition of a pioneering artist, Barbara Hammer, who has received support from the F/V Studio for over two decades. Barbara Hammer: In This Body is centered around a new video installation, Evidentiary Bodies, which was completed with the Studio’s help earlier this year and will also include related photography and installation-based work related to her explorations of the female body and its functions including aging, illness, and dying. Hammer’s work was included in a number of screenings and exhibitions around the world this past year (including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Berlin Film Festival, Leslie-Lohman Museum for Gay & Lesbian Art, and UCLA), and we’re excited to bring more of her groundbreaking work back to Ohio this year.
