by Carlos García Moreno-Torres

There’s no doubt that the most recognizable name worldwide when talking about online video is Youtube, and when talking about modern and contemporary art, Guggenheim is one of the top institutions and brands.

We also know, although slow changes have begun in the last few years, that museums are often closed, inaccessible fortresses, where new ideas, artists and practices find little space. It’s almost utopian for a young artist, in whatever discipline they work, to imagine they will get to exhibit in a big museum. And of course, this utopian idea turns into impossibility when we exchange the artist, for amateur creator.
The democratization of media and the expansion of technology have brought the possibility of creating all kinds of content (and ultimately, art) to a vast variety of disciplines and techniques, available to virtually everybody. This means that nowadays anyone can be a creator using new media. Anybody can make videos, be a photographer, or a “published” writer, however, most frequently this remains in the online world, while the products of this phenomenon are hardly ever reflected in traditional media, platforms and institutions.

In this climate, it makes sense that Guggenheim and Youtube have come together to create the Youtube-Play biennale of online video, with a call open to everyone to submit their videos. After a long selection process, the final winners will be announced next week, and presented in the Guggenheim museums in New York, Bilbao, Venice and Berlin, and then exhibited to the public for a number of days at the end of the month in Guggenheim’s New York museum.

According to artist, and Youtube-Play jury member, Takashi Murakami, it’s really interesting to see how museums are a space where the physical presence of the public is necessary for art viewing, while Youtube, as an online platform, doesn’t require the same physical proximity and offers wider accessibility. At the same time, art museums are a place where the work shown has already been deemed valuable, whereas with Youtube, the value and merit of content is often questionable. It then makes sense to see how these two giants have joined forces to merge the digital world of Youtube and the physical world of the museum, trying to open up a space in museums to amateur creation offering the public a condensed and filtered version of Youtube, with some of its best, and none of its worst.

Whether the results are artistically relevant or not, there are already some elements that point towards the project’s great success, from the submission of over 23 thousand clips, to the presence of significant figures in the jury such as the aforementioned Murakami, film director Darren Aronofsky or New York Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector. While the jury and the public will be the judge of the quality of the final 20 videos selected, and only time will tell whether Youtube and Guggenheim will make this a yearly event, Youtube-Play offers a sign that the institutionalized space of the museum is, through this gesture, trying to partially reconcile their differences with amateur/artist-made video creations and creators, and become involved with the expansive online world.

This, ultimately, can be seen as one of the many signs that typically inaccessible institutions and industries are finally recognizing, including and collaborating with online culture in various ways.

Visit the Youtube Play website here
And the project’s page in the Guggenheim foundation website here