Loop: Consolidation of a Success Foretold

By Pablo G. Polite

As a consequence of the almost simultaneous opening of all the major European arts events in June (Documenta, Venice Biennale, Art Bassel, Skulptur Projecte Münster), Barcelona’s fifth Loop Videoart Fair-Festival will almost certainly be eclipsed in the international media, even though it has presented its most ambitious program in its five-year history. From May 23 to June 3, Loop was endorsed by the more than 4,000 visitors who attended the event and by some of the most important video curators and collectors from around the world, who could be found in the hallways, seated on the beds or leaning on washbasins of the exhibition rooms at the Catalonia Ramblas Hotel, the new headquarters for the fair. Among them were Vastiff Kortun, from the Garanti Platform Contemporary Art Centre in Turkey, Mathias Müller, a highly original video artist and the man behind the still unbeatable Found Footage Film Festival from 1996 to 1999, and Barbara London, a curator at the New York MOMA, which, together with London’s Tate Modern and the San Francisco MOMA, is part of the New York Art Trust project set up ten years ago by fellow-Loop visitors Richard and Pamela Kramlich to support the collection and preservation of video and new media.

All in all, rather than turning to outdated formulas or the rigid structure of contemporary art biennales, Loop has chosen to direct much of its energies during its first five years to setting up spaces where interaction and shared experiences can take place, producing an effect of social synergy. This explains the participation of more than 100 venues all over Barcelona, including museums, civic centres, galleries, foundations, art schools… This city-wide involvement means that Loop favours integration and participation, qualities that unfortunately tend to shine by their absence on the international scene. The message is clear: Loop needs to build its profile and levels of recognition outside of Spain, and this is as important in terms of promoting the video medium and, by extension, this singular event, as the continuing nurturing work by the local videomakers, producers and distributors, artists, production centres, schools, galleries and/or curators who make it possible. The key to Loop’s consolidation and ongoing relevance lies in encouraging interaction. And this participative focus is what made it possible to enjoy video art all over the city, with programs like Video London 2 at the Convent de San Agustí, the Cortocircuito festival at l’Antic Teatre, and Matthew Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle at the CCCB, together with the work of interesting local artists such as Blanca Casas, Rafael Castañer, Mateo Maté and César Pesquera, who had a double date this year, with Void Zelig and C3Bar showing his works Golden Shield, Rise and Passer/8.

Another aspect worth noting is Loop’s educational work, which manifests itself in the lectures and round tables programmed to discuss specific, up-to-the-minute issues like video production software, video art conservation, and the way video art is exhibited in public and private spaces. Participants included leading experts such as Pip Laurenson from the Tate Modern, Lori Zippay from Electronic Arts Intermix and Christine van Assche from the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In addition, as part of three days of non-stop activity, Loop helped to uncover and focus attention on new talent hiding in the world’s classrooms by screening work from 18 international universities, including the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, University of Texas, Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Escola Elisava, Mecad and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. Works that deserve a special mention included Sex Tourism by Kevin Murphy, Bombardero by Javier Tapia, Dummy by Kayoko Omi, The Valley of Shadows by Vladimir Tomic and Burial of a Tree by Paul Fägerskiöld. A splendid future awaits these five young video artists, who may soon quite well be rubbing shoulders with acclaimed artists like Lia, Emily Richardson, Ian Helliwell, Tomas Köner, Mika Taanila, Lotte Schreiber o Yvette Klein, to mention a few.

Jury honours fell upon MOMA curator Barbara London and her Documenta counterpart Mark Nash, as well as MACBA director Manuel Borja-Villel. The 2,000 euro Loop Prize ended up in the hands of Grand Siècle Gallery from Tapai, for Wang-Ya-Hui’s work Sunshine on Tranquility. Garlos Garaicoa also received an award for La Habitación de mi negatividad (II), and impeccably made work that will now form part of the MACBA’s permanent collection. And lastly, the prize for the most creative work went to the artist Kota Ezawa for Two Stolen Honeymoons are better than one (2006), which was presented by Gandy Gallery in Bratislava. If the people behind Loop really want the event to become, as they claim, an “essential reference, where visitors can come into contact with the latest trends, video art can be subjected to debate and new strategies for the future can be mapped out for all aspects relating to the discipline”, it’s clear that they are already taking the right steps: Loop isn’t just somewhere to buy, sell, meet and greet, but also an event that gives visitors and the industry the chance to discover and discuss.

Pablo G. Polite is a journalist based in Barcelona