Peter Campus
22 Sep 2017 - 21 Jan 2018
Peter Campus
Optical Sockets, 1972–73; Installation
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, Nueva York
© Peter Campus, 2017
Optical Sockets, 1972–73; Installation
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, Nueva York
© Peter Campus, 2017
Peter Campus
Interface, 1972;Installation
Centre Pompidou, Paris - Musée national d’art moderne / Centre de création industrielle
Courtesy of the artist and Musée national d’art moderne
© Peter Campus 2017
Interface, 1972;Installation
Centre Pompidou, Paris - Musée national d’art moderne / Centre de création industrielle
Courtesy of the artist and Musée national d’art moderne
© Peter Campus 2017
Peter Campus
convergence d’images vers le port, 2016;Installation
Produced by Jeu de Paume, Paris
Filmed in Pornic, France, May 2016
© Peter Campus 2017
convergence d’images vers le port, 2016;Installation
Produced by Jeu de Paume, Paris
Filmed in Pornic, France, May 2016
© Peter Campus 2017
PETER CAMPUS
Video Ergo Sum
22 September 2017 – 21 January 2018
Curator: Anne-Marie Duguet
Peter Campus is one of the most important pioneers of video art. However, the nature of his works, which are complex to set up, has limited their public exposure. In this respect at least, this exhibition – the first of its kind in France – is a unique event. All of his pieces, from the closed-circuit video installations he began making in 1971 to his more recent work, may be said to explore the processes of perception and vision, exploiting the specific characteristics of both the electronic and later the digital image.
For the visitor, a Peter Campus exhibition is a veritable experience, requiring him or her to activate the artwork and play with it, exploring his or her own image. Without this interaction, the artworks would not exist. Thanks to the use of the live image, the artist’s interactive works from the 1970s are a source of mystery and strangeness, where doubles of the self exist and where one’s relationship to one’s own image is always a problematic one.
In 1978, Peter Campus decided to leave his studio and devote himself to photography, working outdoors, with nature as his workshop. When he returned to video in 1996 after an extended hiatus, the medium was now digital, and the equipment much lighter. His video productions from this period were intimate and poetic, and as experimental as before. In 2007, he chose to create “videographs” of landscapes from his familiar environment of Long Island, made from static, unedited shots¬. Campus’s treatment of the images, at the level of the pixel, creates a certain degree of abstraction, engaging the viewer in a new exercise in perception and interpretation.
His intense connection to the site chosen and his attention to light, colour and framing may best be seen in his most recent work, created specially for this exhibition. Filmed in a natural setting in ultra-high definition (4K), here the visitor’s gaze intersects with the sensibility and emotion of the artist’s vision.
“Video never left me,” claims Peter Campus. It is his medium. video ergo sum.
Anne-Marie Duguet
Exhibition curator
Video Ergo Sum
22 September 2017 – 21 January 2018
Curator: Anne-Marie Duguet
Peter Campus is one of the most important pioneers of video art. However, the nature of his works, which are complex to set up, has limited their public exposure. In this respect at least, this exhibition – the first of its kind in France – is a unique event. All of his pieces, from the closed-circuit video installations he began making in 1971 to his more recent work, may be said to explore the processes of perception and vision, exploiting the specific characteristics of both the electronic and later the digital image.
For the visitor, a Peter Campus exhibition is a veritable experience, requiring him or her to activate the artwork and play with it, exploring his or her own image. Without this interaction, the artworks would not exist. Thanks to the use of the live image, the artist’s interactive works from the 1970s are a source of mystery and strangeness, where doubles of the self exist and where one’s relationship to one’s own image is always a problematic one.
In 1978, Peter Campus decided to leave his studio and devote himself to photography, working outdoors, with nature as his workshop. When he returned to video in 1996 after an extended hiatus, the medium was now digital, and the equipment much lighter. His video productions from this period were intimate and poetic, and as experimental as before. In 2007, he chose to create “videographs” of landscapes from his familiar environment of Long Island, made from static, unedited shots¬. Campus’s treatment of the images, at the level of the pixel, creates a certain degree of abstraction, engaging the viewer in a new exercise in perception and interpretation.
His intense connection to the site chosen and his attention to light, colour and framing may best be seen in his most recent work, created specially for this exhibition. Filmed in a natural setting in ultra-high definition (4K), here the visitor’s gaze intersects with the sensibility and emotion of the artist’s vision.
“Video never left me,” claims Peter Campus. It is his medium. video ergo sum.
Anne-Marie Duguet
Exhibition curator