VideoArt Festival Locarno: a Prospective
Aggiornamento: 10 ago
A festival, an exhibition, a publication: VideoArt Festival Locarno: A Prospective revisits a visionary chapter in Swiss contemporary art history, exploring the origins of video art, digital culture, and avant-garde experimentation through one of Switzerland’s most forward-looking platforms for artistic innovation.
Held at the Centro culturale e museo Elisarion from 8 August to 20 October 2019, the exhibition brought renewed attention to the history of the VideoArt Festival Locarno, one of the earliest European platforms dedicated to video and electronic media.
Rather than presenting a historical reconstruction alone, the exhibition proposed a dialogue between the festival’s pioneering works from the 1980s and the broader cultural legacy of Monte Verità — a place long associated with artistic experimentation, alternative thinking, and utopian visions. In this context, early video artworks and installations entered into conversation with The Clear World of the Blissful, the homoerotic circular painting by Elisà r von Kupffer rediscovered by curator Harald Szeemann and now preserved in a dedicated building on Monte Verità in Ascona.
The exhibition revealed a fascinating continuity: from the spiritual and artistic experiments of the early 20th century to the technological explorations of the digital age, both movements shared a desire to challenge established forms of knowledge, perception, and representation.
VideoArt Festival Locarno: A Prospective did not simply look back at the past; it reopened a space for reflection on the future of images.
The exhibition brought together works and installations by internationally recognised artists including Laurie Anderson, Nam June Paik, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Robert Wilson, as well as René Mauermeister, Lorenzo Bianda, Robert Chen, Geneviève Calame, Ed Emshwiller, Jacques Guyonnet, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Sanja Ivekovic, Francesco Mariotti, Dalibor Martinis, Gérald Minkoff, Muriel Lesen, Jean Otth, and Gianni Toni.
Laurie Anderson’s presence in Locarno that summer created a particularly meaningful connection between the exhibition’s exploration of video art and the wider cultural landscape of the festival. Honoured with the Vision Award Ticinomoda at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022, Anderson represents a rare artistic trajectory that has continuously moved between music, performance, cinema, and visual experimentation.
Since the 1970s, Anderson has challenged the boundaries between artistic disciplines, using technology, sound, language, and moving images to create immersive forms of storytelling. Her pioneering multimedia practice reflects the same spirit of experimentation that shaped early video art: a desire to explore new ways of seeing, listening, and communicating. From her influential performances and electronic compositions to films such as Home of the Brave (1986) and Heart of a Dog (2015), Anderson’s work reveals an ongoing dialogue between image, sound, and narrative.
Extending the exhibition’s reflection beyond the gallery space, the accompanying bilingual publication brought together critical perspectives and archival research on the legacy of the VideoArt Festival Locarno. Edited and translated by Swiss Hypertext, it features contributions by Lorenzo Bianda (Real Time) and curators François Bovier and Adeena Mey, whose research explores the transition from early analogue video practices to contemporary digital cultures.
The exhibition and publication formed part of the research project From Video Art to New Media: the Case of the VideoArt Festival Locarno (1980–2001) at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL), supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Through both exhibition and publication, the project reopens a crucial chapter in the history of media art, tracing how experimental approaches to image, technology, and perception continue to resonate today.
VideoArt Festival Locarno: A Prospective
2019
Curated by ECAL / François Bovier, Adeena Mey, Maud Pollien
Edited and translated by Martina Knecht / Swiss Hypertext
50 pages, bilingual edition (English/Italian)
Published by ECAL / Centro culturale e museo Elisarion
Martina Knecht
Text © Martina Knecht
Images (top to bottom) © ECAL, © Centro culturale e museo Elisarion, © Martina Knecht, © ECAL
Further reading
The Clear World of the Blissful comes to light again
Art historian Carlo Franza traces the history of Elisà r von Kupffer’s monumental circular painting, from its restoration to the reopening of the Elisarion Pavilion on Monte Verità .
→ Article in Italian: Il chiaro mondo dei beati di Elisà r von Kupffer torna alla luce in Canton Ticino. Scene da paradiso terrestre – Carlo Franza (2021)
Harald Szeemann presents The Clear World of the BlissfulÂ
A historical video in which Harald Szeemann introduces Elisà r von Kupffer’s monumental circular painting and discusses its significance in the context of Monte Verità .
→ Watch the video (German with Italian subtitles)
Monte VeritĂ . Le mammelle della veritĂ
Conceived by Harald Szeemann, the permanent exhibition at Casa Anatta provides the historical and cultural context for Die lichte Welt der Seligen, now on view in the Elisarion Pavilion.
VideoArt Festival Locarno: A Prospective
The bilingual exhibition catalogue documents the research and exhibition project devoted to the VideoArt Festival Locarno, revisiting one of the most significant chapters in the history of video and media art in Switzerland and Europe. Published by ECAL and the Centro culturale e museo Elisarion, it brings together critical essays, archival material and documentation of the works presented in the exhibition.
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