Beryl Korot

Beryl Korot (born September 17, 1945) is an American video artist.

Biography

Beryl Korot has pioneered the field of video art since the early 1970s. She was co-editor of Radical Software (1970), the first publication to discuss the possibilities of the new video medium, and Video Art (1976) with Ira Schneider. Her first multiple channel works (Dachau 1974 and Text and Commentary) were seen at such diverse venues as The Kitchen (1975), Leo Castelli Gallery (1977), Dokumenta 6 (1977), and the Whitney Museum (1980 and 2002), Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2010) among others and explored the structural relationship between programming on the ancient technology of the loom and computer programming. Dachau 1974 is in the Kramlich Collection. Her painted text-based handwoven canvases in an original language were exhibited in 1986 at the John Weber Gallery and in 1990 at the Carnegie Museum (Points of Departure). Two video/music collaborations with Steve Reich (The Cave, 1993, and Three Tales, 2002) brought video installation art into a theatrical context. Both works continue to be performed and have been installed, apart from live performances, at such venues as the Whitney Museum, the Carnegie Museum, the Reina Sofia, the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle, and ZKM. Since 2003 she has been creating a new body of video and print work which was seen at Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum for the first time, Beryl Korot: Text/Weave/Line, Video 1977-2010, and subsequently at Dartmouth College Fall 2011 and bitforms gallery, Spring 2012, among others. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and has received numerous grants for her work from the NEA, NYSCA, and most recently from Anonymous Was a Woman (2008).

Works

• Invision, Lost Lascaux Bull, Dishes, Berlin Bees, 20 mins., 1973/4.
• Dachau 1974, 4 channel video installation work, 23 mins., 1974/75.
• Text and Commentary, 5 channel video installation work with 5 weavings, pictographic notations, 5 drawings, 33 mins., 1976/77.
• The Cave, a video opera in 3 Acts, music by Steve Reich, 120 mins., (1993).
• Sarai, Abram’s Wife, 3 video screen, 3 channel work, 1990.
• Departure from Bikini, 2 minutes, silent, (1991)
• Three Tales, a video opera, music by Steve Reich, 64 mins., 2002.
• Hindenburg, music by Steve Reich, 4 mins., 1997.
• Yellow Water Taxi 2 mins., 2003.
• Vermont Landscape 4 mins., 2004.
• Pond Life 5 mins., 2005.
• Babel: the 7 minute scroll, 7 minutes, 2006
• Florence, 10 1/2 minutes, 2008.
• Etty, 12 minutes, 2009/10.
• Weaver's Notation - Variations 1 and 2, digital embroideries, 2012.

References

Godfrey, Mark, Abstraction and the Holocaust, http://www.bitforms.com/selected-bibliography/406-beryl-korot.html O’Neill Butler, Lauren Art Forum, Summer 2012 http://www.bitforms.com/selected-bibliography/406-beryl-korot.html Baron, Joan Boykoff and Reuben, Art Critical, Palimpsests of Art and Mind http://www.artcritical.com/2012/05/02/beryl-korot/ Stermitz, Evelin, Rhizome interview http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/46468/ Art 21: Radical Software Art 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXlB1CHmOQ Text and Commentary Art 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlKyrFPljFg Dachau 1974 Art 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWMbLK1awLI Babel, the 7 Minute Scroll Art 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNJxChfZ-sA Spirituality Art 21 http://www.pbs.org/art21/films/spirituality Selection from Hindenburg, Three Tales, by Beryl Korot and Steve Reich selection from Florence http://vimeo.com/38109093 Aldrich Museum http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/korot.php Dachau 1974, pbs http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/dachau/

• Beryl Korot Jewish Women's Archive