The imai Foundation was founded in 2006 as ''imai - inter media art institute''. It is an institution dedicated to the preservation, research and distribution of video art and media art and associated activities. The foundation organizes workshops, conferences, screenings, exhibitions, research projects and case studies concerning the current questions of conservation and restoration of media art. It aims to develop further the possibilities of (digital) preservation, presentation and distribution of media art.

History

The main purpose for the founding of the imai Foundation (initially called ''imai - inter media art institute'') was to preserve the large collection of video art tapes which the former video art distributor and media art agency ''235 MEDIA'' held in its archive in Cologne. IMAI was set up with the support of the provincial capital of Düsseldorf and the Cologne media art agency 235 MEDIA. The preservation of the video art archive was funded by the

Kunststiftung NRW Kunststiftung NRW (''Art Foundation NRW'') is a foundation created by the government of the Germany, German state North Rhine-Westphalia. It was established on September 12, 1989, and started operations in the spring of 1990. It is based in Düssel ...

(art foundation NRW – of the state of North Rhine Westphalia), the 'Kulturstiftung der Länder' (cultural foundation of the Federal states). The IMAI is located in the

NRW Forum The NRW Forum Wirtschaft und Kultur (Forum NRW), formerly the Museum für Industrie und Wirtschaft, is a museum in Düsseldorf, the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, dealing with the development and the economy of the state of North Rhine ...

at the Ehrenhof complex, built by

Wilhelm Kreis Wilhelm Kreis (17 March 1873 – 13 August 1955) was a prominent German architect and professor of architecture, active through four political systems in German history: the Wilhelmine era, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the found ...

in 1925-26, close to

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Blinky Palermo, Ma ...

and the museum kunst palast in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

, the state capital of North Rhine-Westfalia. The institute is directed by Dr. Renate Buschmann.

Archives and collections

Now the archive includes approximately 3,000 artistic and documentary works from the era of the 1960s to present. The particular focus is on

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...

and documentaries about artists, art performances and land art. The collection includes US-American, Asian and European artists now considered some of the pioneers of this relatively young artistic genre, with a focus on works from the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. Audiovisual works, particularly single-channel works, are at the archive. This archive is constantly enriched with new media artworks by contemporary artists. Some of the artists represented by imai include:

Steina and Woody Vasulka Steina Vasulka (born Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir in 1940)
Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Budapest and Woody Vasulka ...

, George Barber,

Dara Birnbaum Dara Nan Birnbaum (October 29, 1946 – May 2, 2025) was an American video and installation artist based in New York City. Birnbaum entered the nascent field of video art in the mid-to-late 1970s, challenging the gendered biases of the period ...

, Klaus vom Bruch, Douglas Davis,

Valie Export Valie Export (often stylized as 'VALIE EXPORT'; born 17 May 1940) is an avant-garde Austrian artist. She is best known for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work. Her artistic work also includes video installations, computer a ...

Ken Feingold Kenneth Feingold (born 1952 in USA) is a contemporary American artist based in New York City. He has been exhibiting his work in video, drawing, film, sculpture, photography, and installations since 1974. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship ( ...

, Paul Garrin, Ulrike Rosenbach, Kirsten Geisler,

Gary Hill Gary Hill (born April 4, 1951) is an American artist who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Often viewed as one of the foundational artists of new media art, based on the single-channel work and video- and sound-based installations of the 1 ...

, Nan Hoover,

Jürgen Klauke Jürgen Klauke (born 6 September 1943) is a German artist. Beginning in the 1960s, he used his own body as a subject of his photographs. He also experimented with minimalism and surrealism. The ZKM in Karlsruhe exhibits his work.

, Robert Cahen, and Marcel Odenbach.

Case studies

During its ongoing research project to restore media art installations (since 2006), the imai Foundation uses individual case studies to test restoration methods which secured the long-term preservation of technology-based art. imai collaborates with restorers, art historians, technicians and artists. The foundation has realized six case studies so far: The first case study was about ''Il Nuotatore (va troppo spesso ad Heidelberg)'' a work by Studio Azzurro from 1984. ''In Situ'' (1986) by

, ''Exchange Fields'' (2000) by Bill Seaman, ''Testcuts I'' by

Katharina Sieverding Katharina Sieverding (born 16 November 1941) is a German photographer known for her self-portraiture. Sieverding lives and works in Berlin and Düsseldorf. She is a professor emeritus at the University of the Arts, Berlin. Early life and educati ...

(2010), ''Light Composition: Documenta 8'' (1987) by Nan Hoover and ''Zweileinwandkino'' (1968/2014) by Lutz Mommartz. The results of the case studies were presented in publications and at several conferences.

Exhibitions

The imai Foundation participated in the

art festival Quadriennale 2010 with ''

. Testcuts. Projected Data Images'' and participated in Quadriennale 2014 with the exhibition ''The Invisible Force Behind. Materiality in Media Art''. Media artists Holger Mader and Heike Wiermann displayed a light-art projection in the Ehrenhof courtyard that played across the windows of the Belvedere and also at times the fountain area in the inner courtyard of the Museum Kunstpalast. The exhibition ''Images against Darkness (Bilder gegen die Dunkelheit)'' at KIT – Kunst im Tunnel presented a selection of video art works from the imai archive for the first time.

Permanent video lounge

In the imai Foundation's video lounge, established in 2019 in the NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, you can research the history of video art from the 1970s to the present day and explore it interactively on tablets, where you may watch up to 1500 video art pieces.

Members of the Board of Trustees

Members of the Board of Trustees are Dr. Andreas Broeckmann (Director ISEA2010_Ruhr and founding Director Dortmunder U), Dr. Söke Dinkla (Director

Lehmbruck Museum The Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Center for International Sculpture is a museum in Duisburg, Germany. Sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, after whom the museum is named, make up a large part of its collection. However, the museum has a sub ...

Duisburg), Prof. Rainer Jacobs (lawyer), Ulrich Leistner (235 MEDIA), Hans-Georg Lohe (Director of Cultural Affairs of the City of Düsseldorf), Prof. Marcel Odenbach (artist), Dr. Ingrid Stoppa-Sehlbach (Cultural Department of the State Chancellery NRW), Beat Wismer (General director of Stiftung

Museum Kunstpalast The Kunstpalast, formerly Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf is an art museum in Düsseldorf. History The roots of the museum go back around 300 years. In 1932, the collection of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Academy of Art) was housed in the Kunstmus ...

), Julia Stoschek (Julia Stoschek Collection), Doris Krystof (Kunstsammlung NRW).

Members of the Board

Members of the Board are Nicolas Maas (Foundation Schloß Benrath) and Axel Wirths (235 MEDIA).

Publications

The imai Foundation publishes exhibition catalogs and specialist works on the monographic and thematic exhibitions and case studies. A selection: * Renate Buschmann/Darija Šimunović (Eds.): ''The Invisible Force Behind: Materialität in der Medienkunst'', Kettler Verlag, Bönen 2014. * Renate Buschmann/Darija Šimunović (Eds.): ''Die Gegenwart des Ephemeren. Medienkunst im Spannungsfeld zwischen Konservierung und Interpretation'', Wiener Verlag für Sozialforschung, Vienna 2014. * Renate Buschmann/Tiziana Caianiello (Eds.): ''Media Art Installations. Preservation and Presentation. Materializing the Ephemeral'' imai Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2013. * imai - inter media art institute (Ed.): ''Katharina Sieverding. Testcuts. Projected Data Images'' DuMont, Cologne, 2010. * KIT – Kunst im Tunnel/imai - inter media art institute (Eds.): ''Images against Darkness. Video art from the archive of imai at KIT'' exhibition catalogue 2012

References

External links

imai Websiteimai video art database

article about imai at artsandsignature
{{DEFAULTSORT:imai Foundation - inter media art institute Research institutes in Germany Arts centres in Germany Art museums and galleries in Germany New media art Video art Computer art German video artists 2006 establishments in Germany