WASHINGTON, DC.- The Phillips Collection presents peter campus: there somewhere, a focused exhibition of the work of acclaimed new media artist peter campus. The exhibition juxtaposes one of campus’s important early videos from the 1970s with a selection of recent landscape videos, collectively known as the phillips quartets. The suite’s four videos are being exhibited together for the first time, and include three works that have never been publicly shown. the phillips quartets reflects the museum’s enriched focus on exhibiting works by living artists while honoring the founding vision of Duncan and Marjorie Phillips. there somewhere is on view at The Phillips Collection from January 17 through May 3, 2026.
peter campus (b. 1937, New York, NY) is widely recognized as a foundational figure in the history of video and new media art. Among peers including Nam June Paik and Bill Viola, campus has been instrumental in redefining how technology and video intersect with contemporary artistic practice, elevating video as a fine art form. there somewhere presents key single-channel works: the psychologically charged Head of a Man with Death on His Mind (1978), and the phillips quartets, composed of lament (2023), there somewhere (2023), blessingway (2024), and no direction known (2024), all of which will be exhibited together for the first time. The title of the series references T.S. Eliot’s late work Four Quartets (1943), a poetic and spiritual meditation on time and place. Like Eliot, campus engages with how physical landscape evokes a poetics of timelessness.
“peter campus’s work invites us to slow down and experience the act of seeing,” says Jonathan P. Binstock, Vradenburg Director and CEO of The Phillips Collection. “His stunning, poetic investigations of landscape, selfhood, and space feel especially resonant in our current moment, and align well with museum founder Duncan Phillips’s vision of art as an experiential, emotional, and subjective experience.”
Guest curated by John G. Hanhardt, the exhibition pairs campus’s early work emphasizing the human figure with later landscapes filmed along the tranquil coastline near campus’s home in Brookhaven, Long Island. Together, these works trace his engagement with perception, ecology, time, and memory. “These are quiet, abstract, and poetic meditations on place,” says Hanhardt. “campus’s manipulation of image surface and tone invites deep contemplation, speaking to the mind, body, and spirit.”
Over the past two decades, campus has focused his lens on the natural beauty of Long Island’s South Shore, filming in high resolution at carefully chosen coastal locations. “the camera adds to my experience,” campus writes. “it expands my senses and adds something i could not have known any other way.” Through subtle shifts in light and motion, during filming and in post-production, he transforms the screen into a meditative canvas. Despite these gentle movements, the works are marked by a profound stillness and quietude.
“This presentation continues The Phillips Collection’s commitment to exploring innovative, experiential media-based art,” says Tie Jojima, Curator of Global Contemporary Art. “The exhibition highlights campus’s ongoing inquiry into technology and perception, inviting visitors to engage intently with video as a powerful expression of the human spirit.”
there somewhere unfolds across two adjoining galleries, creating a space for contemplation and dialogue. Like the Rothko Room and Laib Wax Room, the phillips quartets animates the museum as a space for intimate, emotionally affirming encounters with art.
peter campus (b. 1937, New York, NY) is an influential artist in the canons of new media and video art. After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Experimental Psychology from Ohio State University in 1960, he studied at The City College Film Institute and participated in the experimental workshops at WGBH-TV. campus received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975, and the National Endowment for the Art Fellowship in 1976. His work has been exhibited extensively with solo shows at the Jeu de Paume, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Culturgest, Whitney Museum of American Art, Kunsthalle Bremen, Centre Pompidou, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, The High Museum, and University of Michigan Museum of Art. campus is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Parrish Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou, Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Harvard Art Museums, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Walker Art Center, Weatherspoon Art Museum, and Tate Modern.
