Into the Light

the long version

"From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, projected installations helped to create a new language of art-making. By transforming traditionally static viewing spaces into active participatory fields, experiements with the moving image in those decades dramatically expanded the parameters of modern art, producing some of the most significant moving image installations in modern art history. Since that time, the projected image has become a prominent feature of contemporary art-making, and the incorporation of large-scale moving images by artists into installations now has a rich history. But due to the ephemeral nature of the original art works, many classic installations, while remembered, have not been widely seen.". ""Into the Light" accompanies the Whitney Museum of American Art's re-creation of nineteen landmark film, video, and slide installations from this prescient era. The exhibition is the largest of its kind to date, and the first to explore the history of projected installations. Many of these moving image installations have been restored especially for the exhibition, and are presented for the first time since their initial showings. Together, they reveal the ways in which traditional definitions of cinema, sculpture, and optical perception were overturned in the 1960s and early 1970s, as artists created hybrid environments that incorporated video, film, slides, performance, drawing, holography, and the participation of the viewer to explore new ideas of physical and psychological space."--BOOK JACKET.