Axel Wirths

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Axel Wirths (* 1960 in Dortmund ) is a curator for media art. He is considered a pioneer in the mediation, distribution and distribution of video and media art in Germany. Together with Ulrich Leistner, he founded the media art agency 235 Media in Cologne in 1982.

Life

Axel Wirths has been creating new sales structures for video art beyond the established art business since the early 1980s . As an expert in electronic media and media art , he also organized numerous exhibitions, festivals and conferences, gave international lectures and published in exhibition catalogs, magazines and edited volumes. With 235 Media, he published the first comprehensive video art edition on VHS cassettes and thus made an important contribution to the communication of video art. In the 1990s he held visiting lectureships at the International School of Design in Cologne and at the Konrad Wolf University of Film and Television in Potsdam.

In 1992 he directed the 5th Videonale at the Bonner Kunstverein and in this context organized the retrospective “Video Art of the 80s” and the congress “Perspectives in Media Art - Media Universities Between Utopia and Practice”. From 1994 to 1999 he was a curator for media art in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.

Axel Wirths is the founder and board member of the imai (inter media art institute) foundation in Düsseldorf, which is dedicated to the distribution, preservation and communication of video and media art. The extensive video art archive and the international communication structures that he has built up since the early 1980s were transferred to the non-profit foundation in 2006, and large parts of the archive can be viewed in its online catalog.

Today, with 235 media, he develops media rooms, exhibitions and multimedia applications, individual design and presentation concepts, interactive installations and interface solutions for museums, trade fairs, companies and artists (e.g. Bill Viola , Brian Eno , Ulrike Rosenbach , Nan Hoover and Gary Hill ).

Projects

In the 1980s, Axel Wirths was a member of the video magazine “Video Congress”, which goes back to the initiative of several artistically experimental video groups. By 1986 ten editions of the audiovisual magazine had been published, presented at festivals and in alternative galleries and distributed by 235 media. Other participants in the Video Congress were: A + A Video (Axel Brand, Anette Maschmann), Art Now (Fritz Stier), Bildön Video / Broadcasting (Rudi Frings, Rosi Jahnke, Gigi Knäpper), Fun & Art (Gerhard Schedel, Alexander Ehrlich , Andy Hinz), Iron Curtain (George Hampton) and Propaganda Video (Norbert Meissner).

In cooperation with the groups Minus Delta t and FRIGO, Wirths was represented at documenta 8 in 1987 with the Ponton Medien Bus project . The bus was equipped with computers, broadcasting stations and mixing consoles and was used as a mobile media laboratory for pirate radio and television stations (Ponton Radio and Van Gogh TV ).

In 1989, together with Volker Anding , Peter Nadermann and Joachim Ortmanns, he started the TV series “Donner's Tag bei Kanal 4 ” (first broadcast: May 17, 1990).

In cooperation with the artist group Pentagon, Wirths co-founded the first mobile electronic café, which was built in 1992 and 1993 at the documenta IX , the Biennale di Venezia as well as in the Media Park Cologne and with numerous network (work) art projects based on ISDN , performances , Concerts, sound installations etc. was recorded. A forerunner of the project was the Electronic Cafe International by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz in Los Angeles in 1984.

Curated exhibitions and video programs

  • 1985 “Instant Media”, exhibition at the Goethe-Institut Paris
  • 1986 Selection of video programs for the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), London
  • 1987 curator of the German video selection for the program “Point 87”, Paris
  • 1987–1988 compilation of the international tour program “Audiovisual Language in Video-Art”, Museum Ludwig , Cologne; Art Museum Bonn ; Municipal Museum Mülheim
  • 1988 curator of the German video selection for the “4e Manifestation Internationale de Video et TV. Ethique & Television “, Montbéliard, France
  • 1988 curator of the German video selection for the "Copenhagen Film + Video Festival 88"
  • 1989 head of the congress "Art - Video - Society - Questions about Mediation and New Media", Cologne
  • 1989 curator of the 235 Video Gallery for " ART - Frankfurt " and the exhibition "Video Sculpture retrospective and current" at the Kölnischer Kunstverein
  • 1989 curator of the video section of ORNAMENTA 1, Pforzheim; there with Ulrich Leistner realization of the interactive installation "The Electronic Jewel"
  • 1991 German video program for ARCO Madrid, in cooperation with the Goethe Institute there (Instituto Aleman)
  • 1992 curator of Videonale 5, Bonn
  • 1993 “Retrospective Cologne-Düsseldorf Videoart” in the Anthology Film Archives, New York
  • 1994–1999 numerous exhibitions in the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn as a curator for media art there (including: Woody Vasulka : “Theater of Hybrid Automata” and “Table No. 5”; Jill Scott : “Machinedreams”; Marcel Odenbach : “Tobacco College or it burns under my nails ”; Nan Hoover :“ Movement from either Direction ”; Klaus vom Bruch :“ Artaud speaks in front of the soldiers ”,“ Europe is far away ”, selection programs for Eastern European video art)
  • 1996 "Retrospective of German Video Art", Reina Sofia Madrid
  • 2000 Video art program for the exhibition “I am something different”, Kunstsammlung NRW , Düsseldorf
  • 2000 "vision.ruhr", Dortmund
  • 2004 curator for the retrospective selection program of the art section within the exhibition "VIDEO - 25 Years of Video Aesthetics", NRW-Forum Düsseldorf

Awards

  • 1991 Silver Adolf Grimme Prize for the TV series “Donner's Tag bei Kanal 4” on SAT.1
  • 1998 iF Interaction Design Award
  • 2005 Art Directors Club Award

Publications (selection)

  • Media Art Market II, Interview. In: Monika Fleischmann, Ulrike Reinhard (Hrsg.): Digital Transformations. Media art as an interface between art, science, business and society. whois Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-934013-38-4 , pp. 184-191.
  • vision ruhr - art media interaction . Exhibition catalog Westfälisches Industriemuseum Zeche Zollern II / IV; Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund. Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2000, ISBN 3-7757-9027-6 .
  • Place and space. In: Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany (Ed.): The electronic space. 15 positions on media art . Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 1998, pp. 9-21, ISBN 3-89322-414-9 .
  • Media art between reproducibility and process-based interactivity. In: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (ed.): How durable is video art? Contributions to the conservation and restoration of audiovisual works of art. Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg 1997, ISBN 3-9804827-6-6 , pp. 61–72.
  • with Sabine Voggenreiter (Ed.): Erlkönigs Erben - Perspektiven der Medienkunst . 235 MEDIA, Cologne 1993.
  • Distribution of artistic and cultural video productions. Review and trends. In: Hamburger Filmbüro e. V. (Ed.): Video distribution. A collection of material on the distribution situation of culturally produced video films in the Federal Republic. edition black box, Hamburg 1988, pp. 79-81.

further reading

  • Renate Buschmann / Jessica Nitsche (Eds.): Video Visions. The media art agency 235 Media as an alternative in the art market , Bielefeld, Transcript 2020.
  • Ilaria Bombelli (Ed.): I Have a Friend Who Knows Someone Who Bought a Video, Once. On Collecting Video Art. A project by LOOP Barcelona . Mousse Publishing, Milan 2016.
  • Dieter Daniels, Rudolf Frieling (Ed.): Media, Art, Interaction. The 80s and 90s in Germany . Springer, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-211-83422-2 .
  • Edith Decker, Wulf Herzogenrath (ed.): Video sculpture. Retrospective and current, 1963–1989 . DuMont, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-7701-2313-1 .
  • Rudolf Frieling, Wulf Herzogenrath (Hrsg.): 40jahrevideokunst.de, part 1. Digital heritage: video art in Germany from 1963 to today, exhibition catalog + essays . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 3-7757-1717-X .
  • Ursula Frohne (ed.): Multimedia installations of the 90s . DuMont, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-7701-5214-X .
  • Media Art Production e. V. (Ed.): 'Art Video Society. For conveying and presenting new media. 235 Media, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-926845-41-4 .
  • Secretariat for joint cultural work NRW (publisher): Video art in NRW. A manual . 235 Media, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-926845-18-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Frieling, Wulf Herzogenrath: Introduction . In: Rudolf Frieling, Wulf Herzogenrath (Hrsg.): 40jahrevideokunst.de Digital Heritage: Video art in Germany from 1963 until today . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7757-1717-5 , p. 13 .
  2. ↑ Axel Wirths - biography. In: netzspannung.org. Retrieved November 4, 2017 .
  3. ↑ online archive. Videonale.5, accessed November 2, 2017 .
  4. ↑ stiftung-imai.de. Retrieved November 2, 2017 .
  5. ↑ stiftung-imai.de. Retrieved November 2, 2017 .
  6. ↑ stefan barth, Alex Franke: 235 MEDIA technology service, media technology. 235 MEDIA, barthdesign, accessed on November 4, 2017 (German).
  7. ↑ EMAF 96 - Archive: 1988: PONTO N. Accessed November 2, 2017 .
  8. ^ Jörg Adolph: Thursday. A channel 4 TV magazine . unpublished, in the archive of the imai Foundation, Marburg 1993.
  9. ^ Axel Wirths: Artistic Electronic Networking. Experiences with the first Mobile Electronic Café International, Casino Container . In: Minna Tarkka (Ed.): ISEA. The 5th International Symposium on Electronic Art . Helsinki 1994, p. 172 .
  10. ↑ Historic Overview: The telecollaborative Art of Kit Galloway & Sherrie Rabinowitz. Retrieved November 2, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Jean-Paul Curnier, Christine Tamblyn, Violaine De Villers, Eric De Moffarts, Dasha Ross: Ethique & Télévision: 4th Manifestation internationale de vidéo et TV, Montbéliard / Rencontres internationales de télévisions locales, Montbenoît. 1988, accessed November 4, 2017 (French).
  12. ↑ Dieter Daniels, Axel Wirths, Lori Zippay u. a .: Art Video Society. For conveying and presenting new media . Ed .: Media Art Produktion e. V. Cologne. Cologne 1989.
  13. ↑ Video Artists invited to participate in the 235 Video Gallery. (PDF) Retrieved November 4, 2017 .
  14. ↑ stefan barth, Alex Franke: 235 MEDIA technology service, media technology. 235 MEDIA, barthdesign, accessed on November 2, 2017 (German).
  15. ↑ Axel Wirths. In: videonale.15. Accessed November 6, 2017 (German).
  16. ^ Anthology Film Archives. Retrieved November 2, 2017 .
  17. ^ Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany GmbH: Exhibition Review 1994 - Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany - Bonn. Retrieved November 4, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Armin Second, Doris Krystof, Reinhard Spieler: I am something different. Art at the end of the 20th century. In: exhibition catalog . DuMont, Cologne 2000, ISBN 978-3-7701-5041-0 .
  19. ↑ stefan barth, Alex Franke: 235 MEDIA technology service, media technology. 235 MEDIA, barthdesign, accessed on November 3, 2017 (German).
  20. ↑ Twenty-Five Years of Video Aesthetics. In: springerin - booklets for contemporary art. Retrieved November 4, 2017 .
  21. ↑ GrimmePreisArchiv.de. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  22. ^ 235 Media. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 7, 2017 ; accessed on November 6, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ifworlddesignguide.com
  23. ↑ ADC winner gallery. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Wirths, Axel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund