Amsterdam

René Coelho, director of MonteVideo/TBA has mounted an exhibition of seventeen time-based sculptures by twelve young multimedia artists, which will travel around the world in the next three years. It began this spring at the Stedelijk and moves to Mexico City’s Museo Universitaro del Choppo (until 15 May) and then to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan (August-September).

Seven years ago Mr Coelho, at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Culture compiled the first such exhibition entitled “Imago: fin-de-siècle in Dutch contemporary art.”

In a recent interview, Mr Coelho states: “For twenty years, Montevideo/TBA has been promoting an art form that nobody was asking for. In the Netherlands it has attracted a large audience, due to the lack of scientific and theoretical foundation. Multimedia art is an inadequate part of art history. However, since the last Documenta in Kassel, it has become much more accepted.”

Encouraged by its success, this sequel show illustrates the development of artists who express themselves with technology, and the evolution of their research into “time-based electronics.”

A central installation is Peter Boger’s “Heaven,” one of two works acquired by the Stedelijk Museum. On seventeen small black-and-white monitors, fragments of movement are displayed, each lasting exactly one second, the unchanging unit of time being the sole static element, measuring the unceasing, fleeting impressions: a door moves in the wind; a hand caresses a body; a woman’s hair ripples in the breeze. Other images are more worrying: signs on the wall; a throbbing temple and a TV image of furniture sliding across a studio floor during the Kobe earthquake.

The participating artists are Kees Aafjes, Pieter Baan Müller, Peter Bogers, Boris Gerrets, Jaap de Jonge, A.P. Komen, Bert Schutter, Bill Spinhoven, Fiona Tan, Steina Vasulka, Bea de Visser and Christiaan Zwanikken.

René Coelho, Timothy Druckrey and Rudi Fuchs have contributed to the English-language catalogue, which includes a CD-ROM. The exhibition can be viewed in three dimensions on the Internet at http://www.montevideo.nl.

Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Time For Art'