Videonale-Donetsk - an exhibition of contemporary video art

On 13th October IZOLYATSIA opens an exhibition of contemporary video art organized in partnership with Videonale, the oldest European biennale of video art. 

Videonale, started as a student initiative of video screenings, was founded in Bonn (Germany) in 1984. Throughout its 28-year old history the festival has transformed into a recognizable art event whose juried evaluation of video works defines the currents of contemporary video art scene. Every two years Videonale invites viewers to the Kunstmuseum Bonn. Then the festival travels around the world. This year IZOLYATSIA has joined a number of well-known art centers that have hosted the festival to open its first collaborative exhibition Videonale-Donetsk.

The exhibition at IZOLYATSIA consists of the works from the festival\'s 13^th edition whose program was selected from 1776 applications received from 76 countries. Videonale-Donetsk features 11 videos by the following artists: Ran Huang (China/Great Britain), Katarzyna Kozyra (Poland), Chi-Yu Liao (Taiwan), Almagul Menlibayeva (Kazakhstan), Helena Oehman McCardle (Sweden), Anahita Razmi (Germany), Johanna Reich (Germany), Reynold Reynolds (USA/Germany), Casilda Sanchez (Spain/USA), Maria Tobola (Poland), Rachel Perry Welty (USA). The festival attempts to formulate a comprehensive picture of contemporary video art thus it opts out of posing any thematic or formal restriction for its selection process. Artistic merit of each work becomes the most decisive criterion established by an international jury.

Videonale has also been known for its special exhibition design for video art which for a while has been treated as a type of cinematography and viewed as a movie rather than exhibited as an art object. Videonale has become one of the first art institutions that started creating special installations for exhibiting videos instead of staging simple video screenings. IZOLYATSIA\'s video project follows a similar exhibition strategy creating a special environment which allows viewers to approach videos as art objects.

Curator of Videonale-Donetsk: Olena Chervonik

Image: frame of the video by Almagul Menlibayeva "Milk for Lambs", 2010

Courtesy of the artist and the Priska C. Juschka Fine Art gallery, New York, USA