V22 ASHWINSTREET

NEW VIDEO WORKS for the V22 Collection

Conor Kelly
Plainsong

David Blandy
Passage of the Soul - trilogy

Simon Faithfull
30km

Suky Best & Rory Hamilton
Wild West - series

The V22 Contemporary Art Collection is pleased to announce the launch of its video art collection with an exhibition of new works. To form this collection, V22 relies on its advisory panels, but most particularly on the expertise of Pryle Behrman who continues to source outstanding works in this medium from artists around the world.

Pryle is a critic and curator who lives and works in London. He regularly contributes to many of Britain’s leading art magazines on a wide range of topics, gaining particular recognition for his writings in Art Monthly about video art, art from non-Western centres and the proliferation of biennales around the world.

Since 2005 he has been the lead curator of the Art Projects section of the London Art Fair, which comprises around 20 exhibitions by cutting-edge artists produced specifically for the event, as well as curating London Art Fair's annual Video Booth, with past exhibitions including 'Recent Trends in Latin American Video Art' and 'Video Art & Drawing'. Other notable exhibitions curated by Pryle include ‘Nothing If Not Satirical: satire in video art’ at The Nunnery Gallery, East London in 2004, which secured record attendance figures for the gallery and was widely featured in the national press.

Pryle has been the lead advisor in video art acquisitions for the V22 Collection since March 2007.

This is a very exciting time for video, as, relative to other media, it is still in its infancy and the rules and structures for how it can be displayed, editioned and collected are still being formed. Many collectors have historically been rather wary of the medium, but this is now changing apace in the rapidly developing, increasingly globalised contemporary art market. The current position of video has been compared to that of photography 20 years ago, when gradual acceptance foreshadowed an era of unprecedented growth. Video seems to be at another key juncture in its short history and the V22 Collection looks forward to being part of the dialogue that surrounds its future direction.

"In the image of television, the most beautiful prototypical object of this new era, the surrounding universe and our bodies are becoming monitoring screens." - Jean Baudrillard from 'The Ecstasy of Communication'