Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom is the first museum survey of the work of media art pioneer Stan VanDerBeek, exploring his investigation of the links between art, technology, and communication. Surveying the artist’s remarkable body of work in collage, experimental film, performance, participatory, and computer-generated art over three decades, Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom highlights his pivotal contribution to today’s media-based artistic practices. The exhibition features a selection of early paintings and collages, a selection of his pioneering films, recreations of immersive projection and film environments, documentation of site-specific and telecommunications projects, and material related to this influential writing on media.
Catalogue
A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom, providing a critical context for VanDerBeek’s role in the formation of new media art. Through scholarly research on several facets of his practice, including the concept of “expanded cinema” and his contributions to media theory, the catalogue highlights the fusing of technology, film, performance, and multimedia that define VanDerBeek’s place in the aesthetics of media art. Along with essays by the two exhibition curators, the catalogue will feature short interviews with many of VanDerBeek’s prominent collaborators, giving unique insight into the aims and methodologies employed throughout his artistic career.
Additional contributors include Jane Farver, Director, MIT List Visual Arts Center; Jacob Proctor, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art; Gloria Sutton, art historian and curator on the faculty of the Master’s program, Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere, Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California; and Michael Zyrd, Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the Department of Film and Graduate Program Director for MA and PhD programs in Cinema and Media Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario.
The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is made possible by a grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Sponsors
Stan VanDerBeek: The Culture Intercom has been organized by Bill Arning, Director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and João Ribas, Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center, with special thanks to the Estate of Stan VanDerBeek and London-based independent scholar Mark Bartlett. The exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of the ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE and The National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency, along with the Council for the Arts at MIT, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Union Pacific Foundation and Martin E. Zimmerman.
Exhibitions in the Brown Foundation Gallery at CAMH have been made possible by the patrons, benefactors and donors to the Museum’s Major Exhibition Fund: Major Patron – Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Fayez Sarofim, and Michael Zilkha. Patrons -Louise D. Jamail, Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Kempner III, Ms. Louisa Stude Sarofim, and Leigh and Reggie Smith. Benefactors – Baker Botts L.L.P. / Anne and David Kirkland, George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, Jackson Hicks / Jackson and Company, Marley Lott, Poppi Massey, Beverly and Howard Robinson, Andrew Schirrmeister, Susan Vaughan Foundation, Inc., and Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Wilson. Donors -A Fare Extraordinaire, Anonymous, Anonymous, Bergner and Johnson Design, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Jereann Chaney, Susie and Sanford Criner, Elizabeth Howard Crowell, Sara Dodd-Spickelmier and Keith Spickelmier, Ruth Dreessen and Thomas Van Laan, Marita and J.B. Fairbanks, Jo and Jim Furr, Barbara and Michael Gamson, Brenda and William Goldberg / Bernstein Global Wealth Management, King & Spalding L.L.P., KPMG, LLP, Judy and Scott Nyquist, David I. Saperstein, Scurlock Foundation, and Karen and Harry Susman.
General Support
Funding for the Museum’s operations through the Fund for the Future is made possible by generous grants from Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Anonymous, Elizabeth Howard Crowell, Brenda and William Goldberg, Mr. and Mrs. I.H. Kempner III, Leticia Loya and Fayez Sarofim.
CAMH’s operations and programs are made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s trustees, patrons, members, and donors. CAMH receives partial operating support from the Houston Endowment, the City of Houston through the Houston Museum District Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and The Wortham Foundation, Inc.
United is the official airline of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.