Prime Time Video

Excerpt taken from Sheila Robinson, Star Phoenix Paper:  

Five, three-to-seven-minute tapers were created by the artists in Saskatoon and will premiere at the Mendel on Oct. 15. They will then be showcased on CBC Newsday, in 10-minute timeslots Oct. 18—22.  

“Most artists never have access to squeeze-ins and things you’d see on prime-time television,” Peter Lynch noted. “We’re excited about the potential, the access to prime time, and the kind of exposure,” he said. To Lynch, the appeal of video is that it is “Immediate, responsive, and intimate. The object is supreme, and there is unlimited potential for manipulating sound and images and ideas.”  

Television, an omnipresence with which many of us grew up, has become “entrapped in entertainment,” Lynch said. “Artists are making a new kind of television,” He added. “Video artists are using the medium to get across their ideas, with concern for the larger audience.”  

Artists: Peter Lynch, Renya Onasick, General Idea (a collective comprised of A.A. Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal), Noel Harding, Elizabeth Chitty, Stuart Sherman, and partnership Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanborn.  

Prime Time video was curated by Allan MacKay, and organized and circulated by the Mendel Art Gallery with support from the Canada Council for Fine Arts and CBC Saskatoon. This exhibition was generously assisted by Sony (Toronto) who loaned invaluable equipment including a high-end camera, deck, and discounted tapes for the duration of the progress.