Sidewalk, 1975, 13:04-minute video
“Like Walking SoHo, Sidewalk tracks along a section of a SoHo street. The camera follows the point where the sidewalk meets the buildings, panning in a strange, jilted movement. It is interrupted by pauses during which we can just barely see a figure reflected in a screen: Davidovich himself, editing in his studio, collapsing this private (professional) setting onto public space (the city outside). Sidewalk is closely related to the artist’s earlier video Road, 1972, as well as the contemporaneous Baseboard, 1975, both of which methodically trace preexisting lines across space (in Road, the double line dividing directions, and in Baseboard, the juncture between the wall and floor of his studio). While Sidewalk is certainly representative of Davidovich’s formalist approach to video art in the mid-1970s, it is also quite literally connected to the space and information in the city where it was filmed.” – Daniel Quiles
Airing daily Feb 1 – Mar 31, as part of Direct Object/Direct Action Shorts 1
Blue, Red, Yellow, 1974, 34-minute video
“In this conceptual performance, Davidovich “paints” on an electronic canvas in the three primary colors of the color wheel, by covering a snow-filled TV screen with adhesive tape: first blue, then red, then yellow. Davidovich first exhibited this work at Anthology Film Archives in 1974.” –EAI
Airing daily Feb 1 – Mar 31, as part of Direct Object/Direct Action Shorts 2
The Live! Show—QUBE Episode, 1980, 10:32-minute public-access television excerpt
“Enjoying another bottle of wine on Manhattan Cable Television, accompanied by co-host Carol Stevenson, Davidovich encourages real-time viewers to experiment with the Warner QUBE cable system. First broadcast on Channel J in 1979, The Live! Show was equal parts playful and utopian, brimming with optimism about an expanded, participatory audience for art on television. In this episode, one caller is made “director” and makes choices as to zooms and special effects, while the QUBE audience is polled for their preference of camera (a binary choic, Camera 1 or 2). This is a playful, tentative exploration of a brand-new technology, but one that recalls Marshall McLuhan’s insistence that television is a “cool,” participatory medium. With the viewers effectively in charge of the program, Stevenson inquires, a bit awkwardly, how Davidovich got his scar. No answer is provided.” – Daniel Quiles
Airing daily Feb 1 – Mar 31, as part of Direct Object/Direct Action Shorts 4
¡Saludos Amigos!, 1984, 21-minute public-access television excerpt
“In this, one of the final episodes of The Live! Show and a collaboration with Texas Tech University, Davidovich travels to Lubbock, Texas. His “people in the street” interviews touch on racism and Mexican-American relations in addition to the usual queries about video art and its possibilities for transmission on television. The title is taken from the 1942 Walt Disney film that emblematized the “good neighbor” years of U.S.-Latin America diplomacy, only in this case, Davidovich locates his “friends” within the borders of the United States.” – Daniel Quiles
Airing Thursdays and Fridays Mar 19 – 27th, 7 pm CST
