A new art exhibition at the Baton Rouge Gallery on City Park Avenue invites people to experience videos as more than the latest releases at Blockbuster.
The Flatscape Video Series opens Jan. 29 for one night and will continue for one night in both February and March.
The series, part of a new program at the gallery, features screenings of unique, avant-garde videos.
Janet LU Rudawsky, special events coordinator for the Baton Rouge Gallery, said the point of the series is to expose people to contemporary, international art videos.
Rudawsky said video art is much more experimental and concerned with light and motion in video; less emphasis is put on a narrative, and they are often heavy with social implications.
Rudawsky said video art is usually only found in big cities and large galleries. She hopes this program will raise awareness of video as an art form and distinguish it from films.
“By getting and showing these videos, I’m trying to bring awareness [to Baton Rouge],” Rudawsky said. “The general public may not know about it, but it is established.”
Rudawsky said video art started in the early days of cinema, when artists were experimenting, before cinema became Hollywood.
“Around 1965, cameras became less expensive, so artists could start experimenting again,” Rudawsky said.
Rudawsky said several techniques used in the early days of video art have been adapted and are used in television and movies now.
Some of the long-term goals for the gallery would be to have a festival for video art, as well as encouraging people to create video art themselves, Rudawsky said.
“People used to make these videos and share them with each other,” Rudawsky said. “It was kind of underground.”
In the summer, the gallery hosts “Movies and Music on the Lawn,” an event in which old, silent, avant-garde films are shown outside at the gallery and accompanied by local musicians who improv to the films.
Rudawsky said between 50 and 100 people attended the films during the summer.
After taking a video art class at the University, Rudawsky realized the interest in the avant-garde films could offer an opportunity to introduce video art to Baton Rouge.
The videos will be shown through a projector on a large screen, and in between each video, an introduction will be made about the meaning of the videos and the artists.
Sara Henderson, an art history graduate student, will be introducing the videos at the exhibit.
Henderson said video art is a good way to bring up concepts they want to talk about.
The medium of video can be a good way for people to experience performance art, because it is one with which they are already comfortable, she said.
“People who are not familiar with