User:Paulafvaldes/New sandbox

MonteVideo[edit]
MonteVideo was a centre of expertise for media art presentation, production and preservation located in Amsterdam that was active between the years 1978 and 1993. In 1993, Montevideo merged with another video art platform, Time Based Arts, in what was known until 2012 as the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk), currently LIMA Platform for Media Art.

Foundation and establishment (1978-1983)
MonteVideo was funded in 1978 by René Coelho, a former TV worker of the Omroepvereniging VARA, a Dutch public broadcasting association that focused on labour and social issues, after a visit to his former teacher and pioneer video artist Livinius van de Bundt. After an inspiring encounter with Livinius´ work, Coelho resigned from VARA and invested his severance pay into the creation of MonteVideo, located in an empty room in the house that he shared with his wife Yolande on Singel 137 Amsterdam. In his own words:"I wanted to do something with my education, I had trained at the Free Academy. And I had been running around in television for twenty years. Then I coincidentally met my old teacher Livinus. He was the first to work with video in the Netherlands at the time. And I thought that was interesting. I wanted to do something with that too. Then the bottom floor of my house on the Singel became available and I couldn't rent it out that quickly. So then I started myself with my 'shop'. That's life, it all comes your way."Initially, MonteVideo was no more than a private studio with some equipment, documentation and a small space to showcase works. However, what started as a small gallery soon became a gathering space for artists working with video art, a medium not yet accepted by the museums, where they could not only show their work but also receive assistance for the technical production of it. Many international artists, such as Bill Viola, Gary Hill and Steina and Woody Vasulka visited MonteVideo these first years in order to produce and present their work.

Soon MonteVideo established itself as a foundation that promoted, presented and stimulated video art production, sometimes in collaboration with foreign institutions. In addition to assisting in the production of video works, MonteVideo started to grow its own collection, distributing works on behalf of the artists. In its first year of life, the collection included works by renowned artists such as Nam June Paik, Peter Foldes and Ed Emshwiller, and soon it contained around 250 videotapes that could be rented.

In 1980, Coelho decided to transform MonteVideo into a foundation to ensure its economic survival. The foundation included members from diverse backgrounds, including television, theatre and technical companies, that donated the latest pieces of equipment, making the MonteVideo facilities one of the most advanced in the art world at the time ; this equipment was used not only by artists but also by museums.

For these first years, MonteVideo had no government support; all the expenses were covered by Coelho. Nevertheless, with the growth of the organisation, it became necessary to move to a larger location; therefore, MonteVideo relocated in 1982. In this new space, in collaboration with the nightclub Mazzo, Coelho organised fortnightly screenings by Dutch and international artists. At one of these screenings, in 1983, MonteVideo presented the first international magazine on video, Infermental, set by the filmmaker Gábor Bódy. The magazine focused on all audiovisual forms, from experimental film to music videos and, of course, video art and was a mix between a gallery and a festival.

Other centres were active in the scene of video art in those first years, such as De Appel, funded in 1975 that focused on performance and performance documentation, and Time Based Arts, founded in 1983 as an initiative of the Dutch Association of Media Artists. The latter would soon establish itself as a direct competence for MonteVideo in the struggle for public funding. In Coelho's own words:"It's rather forgotten, I believe, but how it really happened is that Wies Smals of De Appel asked me to take over De Appel's collection of video. But I turned that down; I had no interest in those recordings of performances. I wanted video as autonomous art. The artists who came to De Appel were also of a completely different kind. They were more inspired by the American video artists, that had a very different perspective. In America, video art was born out of a sense of anti-television. The artists at MonteVideo used video from their fine art backgrounds. So I rejected that, and TBA was founded. That friction between MonteVideo and TBA started back then; that's because of me."

New Location and Public Funding (1984-1985)
During the last months of 1983, MonteVideo relocated again, this time to Amsterdam Noord. The new building, the former facilities of the Gemeente Vervoerbedrijf, the municipal transport company, was bigger and better suited MonteVideo´s needs and activities. Government grants were finally secured, and the organisation grew and was able to screen works on a regular basis, participate in festivals and be involved in national exhibitions; the organisation professionalised on the basis of a three-year grant.

To promote their distribution services, MonteVideo and Time Based Arts collaborated in 1984 with other museums and institutions in publishing a joint catalogue that included performance recordings, video art, video installations and films by visual artists and registered over 1,200 tapes.

End of Subsidies and the Need for Transformation (1986-1993)
In the mid-eighties, MonteVideo flourished thanks to governmental subsidies, but this soon took a turn. In 1986, the Netherlands Ministry of Welfare, Health and Culture, under the direction of Elco Brinkman, decided to cut all subsidies and give them henceforward to individual artists rather than to institutions or foundations. Contrary to MonteVideo, Time Based Arts remained funded by the government and established itself as the main centre for distribution, promotion and documentation of media art. (thesis, 39-40)

This sudden policy change was an issue for MonteVideo, which had developed a long-term plan and was forced to relocate back to its original site, in Coelho´s basement. In September 1987, the gallery of MonteVideo changed its name to the René Coelho Gallery, which opened with an exhibition of Nan Hoover´s works. In the following years, Coelho worked on several successful exhibitions, such as the international exhibition Imago, Fin de Siècle in Dutch Contemporary Art, that travelled to Europe and Asia. During this exhibition, some manuals were produced about how to install the works. This was the beginning of a new role for MonteVideo, which soon established itself as a centre of expertise for media art preservation and was one of the participants in the Dutch rescue operation for video art known as the Delta Plan for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, launched in 1990.

In the following years, MonteVideo would collaborate again with Time Based Arts on projects such as Kanaal Zero, a monthly art programme on Amsterdam cable tv. This collaboration continued until 1993, when both organisations, Time Based Arts and MonteVideo, merged into the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk). This new centre continued the task of exhibiting, disseminating and researching media art that Coelho had started in 1978, with a catalogue that included new artwork typologies such as software-based or internet art until 2012, when it transformed into LIMA Platform for Media Art.

External Links[edit]
Netherlands Media Art Institute

LIMA Platform for Media Art