Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft

Sequence I: Orders of Imagery: Speech, Mirror, Memory
31.01.2026 – 27.02.2026

This three-part video and film program, curated by Elisa R. Linn and Lennart Wolff, brings together moving-image works produced in New York from the 1970s through the early 1990s. Taking its title from Julia Heyward’s collaborative video work “Circuit City,” with music by John Paul Jones and background animations by Ericka Beckman, the program reflects the artistic and political milieu that shaped Heyward’s practice, situating it within a broader landscape of experimental video and performance.

The works in “Sequence I” trace the intertwined emergence of performance and video art in New York during the 1970s. In a city marked by economic decline, fiscal crisis, and widespread urban disinvestment, artists frequently worked in lofts and other informal spaces that blurred boundaries between living, making, and performing. This new architectural typology of flexible environments supported communal and experimental modes of production, fostering socially-engaged, non-commercial practices across different media. Working outside the dominant aesthetic languages of Minimalism and Conceptual Art, artists reintroduced narrative, humor, and embodied gestures into their work, experimenting with superimposed projection, animation, mirrors, and direct address to the camera. Often combining documentation of live events with staged performance, these video works developed new visual and poetic languages through which artists explored questions of identity, gender, class, sexuality, and faith, linking personal experience and memory to the polarized social and political climate post – 1968.

1. Joan Jonas, “Left Side Right Side,” 1972, 8:49 min
2. Julia Heyward, “ Classic Conversations,” 1975, 23:28 min
3. Ericka Beckman, “Hit and Run,” 1977, 8:34 min
4. Vivienne Dick, “Guerrillere Talks“, 1978; 24:09 min