DARLINGHURST.- From 21 August to 11 October, the National Art School Gallery presents LANDSEASKY: revisiting spatiality in video art, showcasing twelve international contemporary video artists.

Curated by Kim Machan, Director of Multimedia Art Asia Pacific (MAAP), LANDSEASKY has been exhibited in Seoul, South Korea and Shanghai, China, traversing different contexts with a theme common to all – land, sea and sky.

Machan explained, “LANDSEASKY started with my fascination with the horizon and a desire to look critically at video with a different focus. Many exhibitions presenting video art these days are very much about narrative, storytelling and the language of mass screen culture. I wanted to pare that back and focus on artists’ use of video in a fine art context.”

“The exhibition is very visually engaging; there are works that are playful, contemplative and quite mindful, inviting the viewer to consider the imagery in a more analytical way. Many of the artists created new works in response to the curatorial brief.” Among the twelve respected video artists is Jan Dibbets, an internationally renowned Dutch artist and pioneer of conceptual photography.

Dibbets’ iconic 1971 ‘Horizon – Sea’ series, I, II & III, will be exhibited together for the first time on Australian shores. On loan from the The Stedelijk Musuem in Amsterdam, the seven-channel installation comprises three multi-screen views of the horizon.

“People are very shocked at the quality of video art being made more than forty years ago. It is truly ground breaking, history making work and it had a very big impact,” Machan said.

Sydney artist Lauren Brincat is exhibiting This Time Tomorrow, Tempelhof, 2011 (pictured), which explores the artists’ perception and memory of the horizon line at Tempelhof Airport, Berlin.

“Tempelhof’s history created a ghostly presence, one that inspired me to create one of my walking works. In a strange way, during this time, the airport runway was a constant and familiar environment in my life,” Brincat said.

“My works take the form of documented and sometimes repetitive actions. This work is one of four walking pieces, all performed in different environments and countries. I find walking meditative and this series of walking works documents a moment in time preceding the next stage of my practice.”

A selection of works from the Seoul and Shanghai chapters will be presented in Sydney. The artists are Paul Bai (AU), Lauren Brincat (AU), Barbara Campbell (AU), Jan Dibbets (NL), Shilpa Gupta (IN), Kimsooja (KP), Derek Kreckler (AU), Giovanni Ozzola (IT), João Vasco Paiva (PT/HK), Wang Gongxin (CN), Wang Peng (CN) and Zhu Jia (CN).

LANDSEASKY is presented in partnership with MAAP and Griffith University Art Gallery.