Escape is a video art exhibition that plays off the idea of Long Island as a beachy getaway, exploring the subject of escape from multiple angles: as leisure, as consumer frenzy, as a force of gentrification, and as a source of transcendence and transformation. When we were invited to curate the exhibition, we were asked to focus on artists working with video, with ties to Long Island. It was exciting for us to take on this project, since we both often focus on video and new media in our work. During our research, we found that several seminal video artists had indeed lived on Long Island during the time they made groundbreaking works. It is interesting to see that Long Island has not only fostered major pieces of artworks in traditional medias such as painting and drawing, but also in the cutting edge media of video.
These are some pictures from “behind the scenes” of Escape – taken during installation. It has been an absolute pleasure for us to work with everyone at Guild Hall – and we’re very much looking forward to sharing the exhibition with the public!
Lauren Cornell and Hanne Mugaas, Co-Curators of ESCAPE: Video Art on view now through July 29
