Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Drive
L.A.,CA

Significant video works from the last four decades highlighting the unique artistic sensibility of California artists. 58 artists are represented in the exhibition, among them John Baldessari, Chris Burden, Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler, Jennifer Steinkamp, Bill Viola and William Wegman.



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Fifty-eight past and present Californians are included in the Getty's big survey of more than 50 single-channel videos and 15 installation works, all made in the four decades since Sony introduced the first portable video recording device in 1967. That was an epochal event in image-making history, giving individuals a powerful electronic image-making capacity formerly held only by corporations. Artists were instantly captivated. The event is smartly signaled at the show's entry, where a black-and-white John Baldessari video plays continuously on a vintage portable Sony TV. Baldessari shows his hand repeatedly writing "I will not make any more boring art" in pencil on lined paper, like a naughty boy kept after class. A categorical aesthetic prejudice against entertainment in New York critical circles collided with West Coast video art. Easterners often regard local art as righteously avant-garde, while discounting California (especially Los Angeles) art as kitsch. Made in the vicinity of Hollywood, entertaining video art actually set a radically new standard. The Getty show happily gets it (C.K.).