News & Events

EZTV Archives go to ONE at USC and UCLA

February 19, 2014

EZTV VIDEO TRANSFER OPENS AT USC ONE ARCHIVES
EZTV VIDEO TRANSFER OPENS AT USC ONE ARCHIVES

Still from James Williams’ Clear Canvas, 1984. Analog Betamax, edited on 3/4″ video, 5 minutes. EZTV Video Collection. ONE Archives at the USC Libraries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: EZTV ARCHIVES TO GO TO ONE AT USC, AND UCLA

 

Major media art projects from EZTV’s collection of over 1,000 videotapes, and related ephemera, and press coverage are being acquired by several specialized archives, and presented as graduate research, in genres ranging from Queer Art, Multimedia Dance, Computer Art, Independent Documentary, Feature Film, and Performance.

Representative video, poster art, paintings and photographic works and accompanying essays will also be available to all, through the new EZTV Online Museum (www.eztvmuseum.com ) which launches on June 25, 2013.

As a direct result of EZTV’s inclusion in 18th Street Art Center’s 2011 exhibition COLAB, part of the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time, major portions of the collection are being preserved and made available to scholars internationally.

ONE, the National Gay & Lesbian Archives, part of the USC Library system has digitized a number of EZTV’s works and will stage an art exhibition as well as several retrospective screenings, panel discussions and performative events around LA in early 2014. Many of the early EZTV archives, especially, but not exclusively Queer-identified will also become part of ONE’s permanent collection. ONE’s archives constitute the world’s largest collection of LGBTQ materials.

Also EZTV’s pioneering multimedia dance-theater collaborations with the late choreographer Zina Bethune, spanning over 20 years, will be going to the archives at UCLA.

A graduate thesis by Andrea Foenander at the U.K.’s Royal College of Art, based on archives of EZTV’s computer art events already preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, is near completion, and will also be presented next year in conjunction with ONE’s event series.

Plans by other organizations are also underway for events to coincide with ONE’s series.

Schedules of next year’s various events related to the EZTV archives will be announced this summer. Additionally, through the efforts of ONE Gallery, a selection of EZTV works will screen at the Film Anthology in New York.

 

According to ONE’s David Frantz:
“ONE is working with EZTV to preserve their vast trove of video, introduce it to a new generation, and contextualize the group’s early work within histories of queer art, computer art, performance and multimedia art, community building and alternative video and public practices.

I’m so pleased that ONE can with this project seek to broaden our collective understanding of video and art from Southern California through a long overdue examination of EZTV’s history and influence.

Expect more information on the project soon!”

– David Frantz, Curator at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives,
part of University of Southern California Library system

 

ABOUT EZTV:
With its roots dating back to 1979, EZTV created the nation’s first independent gallery dedicated to video, first on-going video theater and among the world’s first galleries and then website to focus on digital art.

It presented a diverse group of artists including David Hockney, R. Crumb, Yoko Ono, Keith Haring, Robert Williams, Jean-Luc Goddard, Pat Flanagan, Mike Kelly, Jim Shaw, Rebecca Allen, David Em, Survival Research Labs, R. Kern and many others.

EZTV also collaborated with many artists and thinkers ranging from poet Allen Ginsberg to philosopher Dr. Timothy Leary, and from filmmaker Robert Altman, as well as Emmy-award winning environmental activists/filmmakers Earth Alert!.

EZTV’s own collaborations have been presented at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York) the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Kitchen, the Cannes Film Festival, the American Film Institute, SIGGRAPH and seen on the BBC, PBS as well as numerous festivals and galleries internationally.

The EZTV Archives is an organization in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica.