Points of Departure presents the work of four artists — Peter Campus, Beryl Korot, Bruce Nauman, and William Wegman — each of whom participated in video’s early history and produced work which set the stage for much that followed in that medium. But this exhibit is unusual: it includes not only videotapes and video installations, but paintings, drawings, and photographs as well. For these four artists have chosen to work in more than one art form, translating their ideas from medium to medium. The viewer will see not only the works themselves but the works as evidence of persistence of vision, or of change, and as evidence of the willingness of these four artists to take risks in their work.
Today we tend to move through museums or galleries as if window shopping, just looking, hoping that no one will bother us with a polite “can I help you?” No, just looking. We take it all in, fast. We scan and move on. Points of Departure, however, does not lend itself to quick perusal. We must slow down — sit down in some cases, or at least get comfortable — while we watch TV-screen images that demand five if not twenty-five or more minutes of our attention. And then we must give some considered thought to the relationship between the video work and works in other media by the same artist.
The works gathered here show us where early investigations in video led these artists, how certain themes, ideas, and modes of expression reappeared later in different media — how video remained important for some of the artists, and how others left it behind. This exhibition offers us a rare opportunity to see the point of departure and arrival in one viewing.
-Jacqueline Kain, excerpt from catalogue essay, 1990
