Steina and Woody Vasulka
Steina and Woody Vasulka were an Icelandic - Czech artist couple.
life and work
Steina Vasulka (nee Steinunn Briem Bjarnadóttir ) was born in Reykjavík , Iceland in 1940 . She studied languages, music theory and classical violin . She graduated from the Prague Conservatory in 1959 and was a member of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra .
Woody Vasulka (birth name: Bohuslav Vašulka) was born in Brno , Czechoslovakia in 1937 . He studied industrial engineering in Brno and graduated in 1956 before enrolling in the television and film course at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague .
Steina and Woody met in Prague in the early 1960s and married in 1964. They moved to New York City . Steina gave concerts as a violinist and Woody began shooting his own documentaries while working for Harvey Lloyd Productions . In 1967 Woody Vasulka participated in a video installation on a variety of monitors that the architects Woods and Ramirez developed for the American Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal.
From 1969 to 1971 the Vasulkas filmed with a portable Portapak video camera at concerts and performances, including in The Fillmore East . In 1970, he and his artist friend Alfons Schilling made video experiments together. Together with Andrea Manick, they opened The Kitchen in 1971 in the former kitchen of the Mercer Art Center in Greenwich Village . This alternative center for video art, music and performance featured : Joan Jonas , Nancy Holt , Vito Acconci , Mary Lucier , Dara Birnbaum , Bill Viola , Gary Hill , Hermann Nitsch , Charlie Morrow , Gordon Mumma and many others.
After the Vasulkas moved to Buffalo in 1973 , Woody Vasulka became professors in 1974 and Steina Vasulka in 1976 at the State University of New York Media Center . They taught there until 1979. Woody Vasulka died on December 19, 2019 in Santa Fe at the age of 82.
Awards (selection)
- 1974: Guggenheim grant (Steina Vasulka)
- 1976: Guggenheim Fellowship (Woody Vasulka)
- 1992: Maya Deren Award
- 1995: Siemens Media Art Prize, Center for Art and Media Technology , Karlsruhe
- 1998: Honorary Doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute
Web links
- Website Vasulka
- Article on discogs.com about Harald Bode , Carrier Band, Andrew Deutsch, James Fei , Aaron Miller, Scanner, Steina Vasulka, Stephen Vitiello
- Ubu Web Film Steina Vasulka b. 1940
Individual evidence
- ↑ documenta 8 catalog: Volume 1: Essays; Volume 2: Catalog page 326; Volume 3: artist book; Kassel 1987, ISBN 3-925272-13-5 .
- ↑ Monoskop Steina and Woody Vasulka accessed on February 26, 2016 (English)
- ↑ Notes toward a history of image-processed video Steina and Woody Vasulka , accessed on February 26, 2016.
- ↑ Steina and Woody Vasulka. Retrieved December 22, 2019 . (English), at eai.org
- ↑ Fondation Langlois Steina and Woody Vasulka fonds accessed on February 26, 2016 (English)
- ↑ Richard Sandomir: Woody Vasulka, Whose Video Art Extended Boundaries, Dies at 82nd In; The New York Times , January 1, 2020 (English). Accessed January 1, 2020.