Tired of Netflix? Here Are 11 Outstanding Works of Video Art That You Can Watch From Home

If you’re craving something a little more mentally stimulating
after months of Netflix binging—or just a brief break from the
news—might we suggest some video art? Often intellectual, sometimes
soothing, and frequently entertaining (even when it’s disturbing),
there’s a reason the medium has grown in popularity among art
lovers in recent decades.

Below, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite works of
video art, available for free viewing, right from your sofa. Happy
watching!

Moyra Davey’s Notes on
Blue (2015)

Length: 28:00

Where to Watch: Vimeo 

What It Is: In Notes
on Blue, a diaristic film inspired by the work of the late
British filmmaker Derek Jarman, Davey paces around her apartment
reciting a prewritten, cut-and-paste-style essay comprised of
autobiographical observations, quotes, and reflections on sight and
color.

Why It’s Worth Your Time: Davey’s moving film recalls another short work
devoted to the color blue: Maggie Nelson’s 2009 lyric essay,
“Bluets.” Both weave historical marginalia and personal stories
into a hypnotic autofiction that touches on themes much greater
than the subject that ostensibly inspired it. For Nelson, it’s love
and loss, loneliness and trauma; for Davey, it’s illness,
interiority, time, and the nature of film.

—Taylor
Dafoe

Amalia Ulman, “White Flag Emoji”
series (2015)

Length: Six videos of two
to five seconds each

Where to Watch: daata
(and Kiasma Online
without watermarks)

What It Is: This series
of blistering rapid-fire videos shows a heavily armed SWAT officer
slamming into private homes in a series of surprise attacks on
women (played by Ulman). The videos were filmed in Airbnb
apartments using the cloud-based streaming service Dropcam (a
precursor to Google’s Nest cam), and are scored by a soundtrack of
whoops and cheers. A white emoji flag flies in the corner of the
screen.

Why It’s Worth Your Time: The pixelated style of the footage evokes the
kind captured on surveillance cameras, and mixed with a jubilant
soundtrack that jars with the violence on screen, it evokes a
critique of reality television.

—Naomi Rea

Clemens von Wedemeyer,
Transformation Scenario (2018)

Length: 20:00

Where to Watch: Vimeo
and on the gallery KOW’s
website. 

What It Is: This video
work speculates on the impact of group behavior in society. Several
of Clemens von Wedemeyer’s works are now on view at KOW’s website
as part of the gallery’s new digital series “ISSUES.”

Why It’s Worth Your Time: I am a fan of the German artist’s dense and
intriguing videos. I first encountered Transformation Scenario at the Riga Biennale in 2018—in the
“before-times,” when questions around public space and urban
surveillance were urgent but not quite as widespread in our social
psyche as they are now. This video, which is part of a series that
examines human crowds, feels especially prescient considering that
the ideal of gathering in masses feels particularly out of the
frame in our current everyday life, not to mention the
anti-lockdown protests we are seeing in both Germany and the
US. Transformation
Scenario looks at
digitally simulated crowds, and the data-driven tools that are used
in movies to depict large groups (it is much cheaper than hiring
actors), but which have ominous implications for public life, as it
shows just how predictable, replicable, and traceable human
movement is.

— Kate Brown

Mark Leckey, Fiorucci
Made Me Hardcore (1999)

Length: 14:45

Where to Watch:
YouTube 

What It Is: Part
nostalgia trip, part cultural anthropology, Mark Leckey’s
now-legendary video work deconstructs disparate bits of found
footage to create a meta-history of British dance music from the
1970s to the doorstep of the 21st century, including scenes like
Northern Soul, disco, and (of course) hardcore.

Why It’s Worth Your Time: Instead of making a glorified music-video
supercut to romanticize bygone scenes he gave himself over to as a
younger man, Leckey coolly intervenes in his source material via
techniques such as looping, montage, and slow motion to foreground
the deep weirdness, unique intimacy, and fleeting lifespan of
subcultures. Fiorucci
Made Me Hardcore ultimately expresses the uncomfortable but
valuable reality that the best moments of our lives are always in
transit… and they often look
very, very different from a remove than what we perceive them to be
while we’re living them.

—Tim Schneider

Jennifer May Reiland,
Hortense (2020)

Where to Watch: Vimeo

What It Is: Jennifer
Reiland’s delicate watercolors animate the life of Hortense Mancini
(1646–1699), the Duchesse de Mazarin. Married off to an abusive
husband at just 15, Hortense achieved infamy by leaving him—unheard
of in those days—and striking out on her own. Hortense pushed back
against those who slandered her name—she became mistress to not one
but two kings—by publishing her memoirs along with her sister
Marie, the first French women to do so. 

Why It’s Worth Your Time: Reiland, an artist in residence at the Queens
Museum, which recently showcased her in its Frieze Online Viewing
Room, specializes in illustrating the lives of historic women,
often from the courts of Europe. She lets Hortense speak in her own
words, defending her controversial decision to break her marriage
vows. But aside from the kings and cardinals who feature in the
story, Hortense’s ordeal could have taken place during any era, her
jealous husband attempting to control her every move. But this
isn’t just a depressing reminder of the ongoing oppression of
women. By sharing Hortense’s unlikely story, Reiland does the
important work of rewriting history to acknowledge the
contributions of women, and offers a celebration of their
resiliency and strength.

—Sarah Cascone

Ed Atkins, Ribbons
(2014)

Length: 2:24

Where to Watch: YouTube

What It Is: The artist’s
oft-used CGI character Dave is in typical form here, depicted
shirtless and staring vacantly into space as he drinks, smokes, and
spouts a mixture of melancholy tunes, declarations, and pleas that
somehow make him frightening and sympathetic at once

Why It’s Worth Your Time: Ever since first encountering Atkins’s distinct
video art at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (in the 2015 solo
show “Recent Ouija”) I have spotted it elsewhere numerous times and
have always been instantly drawn in. I love the fragmented speech,
music, sound, and visual imagery—and the lack of any real
narrative, even as the character expounds on love, death, and
relationships. Is he frightening or pitiable? Angry or just sad? Is
he mentally unhinged or just brutally honest? The films are always
intriguing and keep you guessing about his true nature.

—Eileen Kinsella

Guan Xiao,
David (2013)

Length: 5:08

Where to Watch: Youtube 

What It Is: A hokey
meditation on Michelangelo’s David, and how its widespread reproduction has made
it practically invisible.

Why It’s Worth Your Time: Here’s a hot take, kids: Michelangelo’s
David is kitsch. It probably wasn’t when it was
completed in 1504, but who’s to say? I wasn’t there and neither
were you. Either way, it’s definitely just a one-liner now,
something to put on a mug or a hat or an apron with David’s junk on
your junk. And even if you actually go see it, you don’t
really see
it, you just
go, would ya lookit
that, snap your photo,
then get back on your cruise and eat a fistful of shrimp. Which is
fine, do whatever you want. I’m just telling you what Guan Xiao has
distilled into a delightfully stupid video about our complete
inability to see what everyone says is one of the most beautiful
sculptures ever made. And is it really that good? Impossible to
say. Tell you what though (and here’s hot take number two): my wife
says Guan Xiao’s David is the greatest work of video art of all time.
Mic drop.

—Pac Pobric

Chantal Akerman, Saute
ma ville (1968) 

Length: 12:30

Where to Watch: YouTube

What It Is: Saute ma
ville, made by Belgian
experimental filmmaker Chantal Akerman when she was just 18 years
old, dives into the repetitive boredom of domestic rituals with a
winking, fun-house sense of absurdity. Akerman, the film’s solitary
character, acts with Chaplinesque physicality as she chaotically
enacts the everyday tasks of cleaning, cooking, and eating with
thrashing, punkish intensity.

Why It’s Worth Your Time: Though the film ending is more catastrophic
than happy (the film’s title means “Blow Up My Town”), the
rebellious mania with which Akerman’s character acts out daily
chores within a small kitchen is uncannily relatable and oddly
invigorating. 

—Katie White

 Marylin
Minter, My Cuntry Tis of Thee
(2018)

Length: 9:45

Where to Watch: daata 

What It Is: A series of
women write the word “cunt” in various contexts and permutations
into condensation on a glass pane.

Why It’s Worth Your Time: The women in this video by the feminist artist
reclaim the word “cunt,” which is so often used in a derogatory
sense by literally taking it into their hands. The power of the
video is somewhat dampened in the free version of the site,
however, as there is a watermark right in the middle of the
screen.

—Naomi Rea

Rachel Rose, Lake
Valley (2016)

Where to Watch: the Carnegie Museum of
Art 

What It Is: Rachel Rose,
one of the most sought-after video artists working today, made this
work by layering film, collage, found footage, and hand-drawn
animation to create what feels like a bedtime story come to life.
She spent hours sifting through 19th-century children’s books to find just the
right drawings of adorable animals and looming plant life to
animate this transporting video about loneliness, imagination, and
personal connection. 

Why It’s Worth Your Time: When this dreamy work first debuted at the 2017
Venice Biennale, it was so popular, it was hard to get a seat on
the floor in front of the screen. And while it may lose some of its
enveloping atmosphere through your computer window, at least you
don’t have to fight anyone for a comfortable seat. 

—Julia Halperin

Faith Holland, “The Most
Beautiful Dick Pics of All Time” (2020)

Length: Varies

Where to Watch: Pornhub, as part of the artist’s show “HARD/SOFT” at TRANSFER Gallery (June 4–July
30)

What It Is: Faith Holland
subverts the cliché of the dick pic with a series of animated GIFs
that turn tumescent penises into captivating geometric designs, or
that surround the phallus with fields of blooming flowers, colorful
crystals, shimmering bubbles, and other pretty, girly things. (One
even squirts out glittery blue cum.) You know the trend of
rainbow-colored “unicorn” foods? Holland has created the unicorn of
dick pics. 

Why It’s Worth Your Time: This was an unexpected delight at this year’s
SPRING/BREAK Art Fair in New York—and one of the very last pieces I
saw in person, before online viewing rooms became de rigueur. The
erect penis is a symbol of male strength and virility. Juxtaposing
it with feminine imagery is a clever rejection of gendered
stereotypes about hard and soft. Rare for the millennial woman,
I’ve thus far managed to avoid being the recipient of the
unsolicited dick pic, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the idea
of someone getting texted this shiny, sparkly alternative to those
posturing proclamations of male sexuality.

—Sarah Cascone

The post Tired of Netflix? Here Are 11 Outstanding Works of
Video Art That You Can Watch From Home appeared first on
artnet News.