Study of three Birmingham schools, UK 1976

Darcy Lange (Urenui, New Zealand, 1946-2005)

Celebrated as one of the first artists to use the long take, Lange can be aligned with a range of conceptual artists and filmmakers who sought to explore the structural possibilities of still and moving images. He worked in the same lines as the French New Wave filmmakers of the 1960�s, Francois Truffaut and Jon Luc Goddard. In the same way they took cheap equipment out onto the streets and took a slice of everyday life, Lange managed to capture a non-fictualized and un-acted account of reality. Lange differed however from Goddard in the sense that he was not explicit about the political and social effects of what was captured. The theme of work in his video studies situates Lange in a long lineage of social documentary film and photography, ie Walker Evans in the 1930s. Structurally, however, it is closer in spirit to the work of conceptual artists such as Dan Graham and Michael Snow and critical documentary photographers like Allan Sekula.


Lange�s major subject was the worker. He captured every day activities like people at work in factories, mines, schools, and on farms, who were recorded in real time as they performed their regular tasks. He strove to capture the rhythm and movement of labor as a performance. These long inquisitive looks at activity create music in real time with their repetitive phrasing and processes analogous to the work of minimalist composers like Steve Reich. Lange was ever trying to break down social hierarchies, be it the viewer�s view of his subjects or the power the person behind the camera has over its subject. Lange himself is often present, the hand behind the camera not an invisible authority.

Lori Zippay is the Executive Director of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) in New York, a nonprofit organization that is a leading international resource for media art. She has been active in video art exhibition, distribution and preservation for over twenty years, and has curated, lectured, written and taught extensively. She is editor and co-author of the EAI Online Catalogue (1997-2008), A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online (2006), and Artists? Video: An International Guide (Cross River Press, 1992), among other publications. She has organized numerous exhibitions of media art at international venues, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Lausanne and Jeu de Paume, Paris, among many others. She has lectured widely, and has served on advisory panels, festival juries, and as a consultant on numerous media arts projects. In 2006 she was Visiting Critic at Yale University School of Art.

Dan Graham born in Urbana, Illinois in 1942, Dan Graham now lives and works in New York.
Dan?s cultural involvement began in the 1960s as a rock critic. An innovative first-generation conceptual artist, Graham has broken significant ground as a theoretician and writer by introducing rock music into the discourse of art, criticism, and cultural theory, culminating in the 1992 publication, Rock My Religion. One of his most recent projects is Don?t Trust Anyone Over Thirty, Entertainment by Dan Graham, Tony Oursler and Rodney Graham. Dan introduced me to the work of Darcy Lange, and he will introduce Darcy to you.


Mercedes Vicente
Currently Curator of Contemporary Art at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand. Mercedes Vicente was before an independent curator and art critic living in New York City and held curatorial positions in several art institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art. Vicente earned masters degrees in Film and the Arts at New York University and in Curatorial Studies at Bard College and was Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program. Since her arrival at the Govett-Brewster, Vicente has curated several exhibitions including From mini-FM to hacktivists: A guide to art and activism 2005; Gabriel Kuri and thanks in advance 2006 and Activating Korea: Tides of collective action 2007 (in partnership with INSA Art Space in Seoul). In 2006 she organized Darcy Lange: Study of artist at work 2006, a long overdue comprehensive survey aimed to heighten awareness of Lange's important role in the history of video art. This project entailed the archival preservation of Lange's entire oeuvre now deposited at the New Zealand Film Archive. Vicente is editor of and contributor to the forthcoming Darcy Lange monograph featuring an introduction by Benjamin D. H. Buchloh and essays by Guy Brett, Dan Graham, Lawrence McDonald, John Miller & Geraldene Peters and Allan Sekula.

Mercedes Vicente; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand; and Darcy Lange Estate.

Glenn Ligon, Mario Garcia Torres, Dave McKenzie, Minerva Cuevas, Tim Rollins + K.O.S.,Fabian Marcaccio, Pawel Althamer, Sejla Kameric, Karin Schneider, Allan Kaprow, Olivier Mosset, Francisco de Goya, Paul Ramirez-Jonas, Alexander Calder, Jose Iraola, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Beuys,Dan Graham, Darcy Lange, Claudio Perna, Elka Krajewska, Anthony McCall, Bunita Marcus, and Fresa Salvaje.

Please contact Sandra Antelo-Suarez or Stephanie Smith @ 212.255.2923