Ursula Blickle Video Archive

Since its inception, the Ursula Blickle Video Archive has seen itself as a model for the promotion and expression of contemporary video art. Aware of the extraordinary value of this collection, the Belvedere has undertaken to maintain and make accessible this societal memory space, as well as promote its scholarly research. The archive is constantly being expanded, made visible, and researched with the help of international collaborations. It is a lively, ever-growing collection of moving images, available to all, which seeks to link theory, practice, and research.

viele Videostils
© Belvedere, Vienna

About the Ursula Blickle Video Archive

 

The Ursula Blickle Video Archive was established in 2007. Today it is a major repository of video art with a particular focus on the 1990s and 2000s, a period in which the medium of video played a particularly important role due to technical developments. In cooperation with the Ursula Blickle Foundation and the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Belvedere has revised, expanded, and newly installed the Archive in the Research Center of the Belvedere.

The archive currently provides access to 2,500 videos by national and international artists, with a special focus on Austrian videographers. Anyone interested can view the works online at the new website of the Ursula Blickle Video Archive, or at viewing stations in the Research Center of the Belvedere or the library of the University of Applied Arts.

Thematic emphases span genre-crossing and interdisciplinary trends in video art to performance art and experimental film formats.

 

UBVA Online

 

Research Aims

 

Workstation

The workstation in the Research Center is open to students and researchers. Visitors are offered rapid access to the material, which is regularly supplemented and updated. The texts and information about the individual works and artists in the Research Center’s extensive art library and artist archive will be continuously developed, digitized, and made available to the public. This will make it possible to proceed directly from the video itself to its context.

 

Touring the Archive

On a regular basis, the UBVA offers expert-guided tours on specific topics such as The Interview as an Artistic Practice or Urban Landscapes and Urbanization. After a brief introduction to the subject by the “tour-guide”, participants will conduct assisted research. Finally, the artistic works found are analyzed and discussed together.

Film education

The archive also serves as a basis for the communication of art and films. As some 50 percent of art production involves moving images, we are keen to initiate film communication projects for children and juveniles. Most children are exposed to all kinds of moving images on a daily basis, and it thus appears only logical to offer alternatives to their audiovisual environment. Video art requires a certain amount of training to appreciate its particular qualities in comparison with television and cinema programs. Thanks to the openness, flexibility, and spontaneity of children and juveniles, it is easier for them to approach experimental film or video. The artists’ films from the Ursula Blickle Video Archive provide a basis for considering the world from unconventional or at least different point of views and for developing personal opinions.

 

 

Screenings at the Blickle Kino

In the last few years, multifaceted and diverse video productions have considerably changed the traditional understanding of and attitudes to visual arts, as reflected in particular in the programs offered by museums. As such, the archive content is also shown in the Blickle Kino at the Belvedere 21 to reach and discuss with a broader audience. In the Blickle Archive Series, for example, the works of young video and film makers are presented prior to their inclusion in the archive. These events serve as a launch pad and discussion forum for new talents.

 

 

Partner Archive

 

Diva Logo

The Ursula Blicke Video Archive is connected to international Video Archives: DIVA Station is a video archive in Ljubljana, focussing on exposing Slovenian artists. 

 

DIVA Sation