Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974 – 1995 shines a spotlight on a body of work in the history of video art that has been largely overlooked since its inception. Exploring the connections between our current moment and t he point at which video art was transformed dramatically with the entry of large - scale, cinematic installation into the gallery space . It presents a tightly focused survey of monitor - based sculpture made since the mid - 1970s.

The exhibition catalogue focuses on the period after very early experimentation in video and before video art’s full institutional arrival — coinciding with the wide availability of video projection equipment — in the gallery and museum alongside painting and sculpture. Proposing to e xamine what aesthetic claims these works might make in their own right, the exhibition aims to resituate monitor sculpture more fully into the narrative between early video and projection as well as assert its relevance for the development of sculpture ove r the course of the 1980s in general.

Text by: Emily Watlington, Edith Decker-Phillips