‘Spectacle: The Music Video Exhibition’ is an innovative and sensory study of music video as an art form of our time. The most comprehensive exhibition on music video presented to date, ‘Spectacle’ features over 300 works, transporting the visitor through a ‘labyrinth of sound, movement and vision’.
Outlining music video’s numerous phases and genres via a chronological series of nine thematic sections, ‘Spectacle’ gives its audience a comprehensive insight into the medium and its history. Beyonce’s Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) greets visitors at the door, its mesmerising, minimalist choreography instantly recognisable. Further into the space, lesser known acts are encountered, providing a broader context for understanding the significance of music video.
‘Spectacle’ is experienced through a dynamic mix of interactive installations, projections, videos and immersive environments, including recreated sets and original objects never before seen outside of the videos themselves. The first couple of gallery spaces take us on a sequential journey of music video history through the foundation of the form, visiting early jazz with the earliest sound films of musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Cab Calloway and continues from animated shorts to jukebox musicals and includes rock legends like the Rolling Stones.
The exhibition further travels through the groundbreaking effect of Countdown and later MTV and Rage on establishing this eccentric, promotional device as a form and genre of its own through to the latest online sensations of Youtube. There are screens, texts and artefacts devoted to David Bowie, early hip-hop, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Devo and several other pivotal acts and video collaborations.
Music videos are the playground of film directors and cinematographers, who use cutting-edge special effects and visual technologies to change the way that music is promoted and consumed. This exhibition is designed to highlight the central place of these landmark music videos in popular culture.
The exhibition features promotional videos for pioneers such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and David Bowie, innovators such as Devo, Björk, and the Beastie Boys, and icons such as Madonna, U2, and Nirvana. ‘Spectacle’ spotlights the MTV masters who expertly used the medium to define their public identities, through to artists like OK Go, Lady Gaga and Kanye West who follow in their footsteps today.
The music videos featured in the exhibition span the experimental and the extravagant, the political and the provocative, as well as epic productions which cross the boundary into short film, demonstrating that creative ingenuity is the key to creating a perfect marriage of sound and vision. Some videos contain moments of such beauty and flawless composition, combined with the province of art direction and gaphic design, they are works of art in themselves, each video moment can be captured and framed and be at home on the wall of an art gallery.
Some of the world’s most innovative cinematic figures, who developed their signature style through experimentation with music video, such as Michel Gondry (The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers), Spike Jonze (Bjork, Fatboy Slim) and Mark Romanek (Lenny Kravitz, Jay Z) feature throughout ‘Spectacle’.
ACMI Director Tony Sweeney said that ‘Spectacle’ is at home in Melbourne: “We are thrilled to be giving ACMI’s largest gallery over to this immersive display of music video. ‘Spectacle’ is perfectly set in Melbourne, among a thriving live music scene, and is the home of some of the nation’s most successful musical and filmmaking talents, many of which appear in this international exhibition.”
As one of the most important artistic expressions of our time, music video has continually captured the zeitgeist with musical artists, directors and cinematographers producing some of the most beguiling visual experiments in the history of the moving image. They have projected sound narratives into euphonic visual displays appreciated by thriving music generations of both past and present.
Australian Centre For The Moving Image (ACMI)
Until 23 February, 2014
Melbourne
Photography Mark Gambino
Image courtesy ACMI
Björk, Wanderlust, 2008, dir. Encyclopedia Pictura
