ANDY MANN VIDEO ARCHIVE

The Archive
Media artist Andy Mann (1949-2001) was a pioneer of video art who lived in Houston between the late-1970s and his death of pancreatic cancer on February 3, 2001. During the first years of Aurora Picture Show, Mann became friends with the organization’s founder Andrea Grover, created a video sculpture for the entrance of Aurora’s original church space, and presented a program of his work at Aurora in September of 1998. Mann left an extensive collection of his video art and documentation to Aurora Picture Show with the desire to have the work accessible for educational and artistic purposes. The Andy Mann Archive is comprised of over 1000 video tapes and reels dating from the late-1960’s through 2001, including countless works and footage unavailable elsewhere.
Some of Mann’s early tapes such as One-Eyed Bum (1974) are recognized as a seminal video works and have been requested for research, teaching, and exhibition purposes by media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema), the Museum of Modern Art, Renssellaer Polytechnic Institute Library, and others. Beyond a wealth of the artist’s own work, the archive also contains candid footage and interviews with New York, Los Angeles, and Houston-based artists between the 1970s and 90s, including folk musician Phil Oaks, performance artist Chris Burden, painter Mark Lombardi, and Houston artists Jesse Lott.
Aurora Picture Show is honored to be the repository for Andy Mann’s personal archive of 3/4”, BetaSP, S-VHS, and Video8 cassettes as well as 1/2” open reels. A portion of the collection has been digitized, and we are happy to facilitate access for artists, educators, and curators when possible. Aurora also has also produced a dvd collection of 13 shorts, Andy Mann: Street Tapes and Cable Access, which can be purchased for $19.99 plus shipping. If you are interested in the Andy Mann Archive and/or dvd purchase, contact Peter Lucas.


Biography
The late media artist Andy Mann (1949-2001) was a pioneer of video art who began his art career in New York City in 1969. Mann was a member of several historic video collectives such as the Videofreex, Perception, TVTV (Top Value Television), Global Village, and Raindance, as well as a regular contributor to the video art magazine Radical Software, founded in 1970. Mann also acted as video documentarian for performances by artists Hannah Wilke and Chris Burden. Recognized for his groundbreaking camera work, Mann was one of the earlier artists in the US to receive grant funds from the National Endowment for the Arts to produce video art (1975 and 1978). His videos were included in the 1973 and 1975 Whitney Biennials at The Whitney Museum of American Art; the 1973 Sao Paulo Bienal; the 1977 Documenta VI, Kassell, Germany; as well as exhibitions at the Walker Art Center; Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art; and Leo Castelli Gallery. Mann moved to Houston in the late-1970s, and began working in video installation and public sculpture. He was a producer for Access Houston cable since its inception in 1987, hosting a hybrid live video art program/talk show. Mann continued to produce videotapes until just weeks before his death in 2001.

“There is no question that Andy Mann was one of the seminal figures in the early video scene, in particular for his remarkable “street tapes” which continued and amplified a tradition in film history marked by such works as Helen Leavitt’s In the Street.”
–Gene Youngblood, author of Expanded Cinema

“Andy Mann’s videotapes are classic examples of the “street tape” genre– a video equivalent of “cinema verite,” drawn directly from life, with a minimum of staging, acting or editing. The direct, candid style of Mann’s tapes reflects the enthusiasm sparked by the new equipment amongst a whole generation of first-time video users; the possibility of capturing subjective experiences and details of the world in which one lived was tremendously exciting at that time.”
–Video Data Bank, Chicago


Andy Mann Statement
(Written by Andy Mann for his Aurora Picture Show program notes in September of 1998)

How sad it would be, gentle viewer, if you were locked up in a closet with no opportunity to display the magnificence of your personal energies. So much of your potential would be wasted, so much potential energy never going kinetic. How devastatingly sad it would be, especially for you.
The video tapes of Andy Mann suffer from this exact tragedy; they exist but not at the full level of their potential. To cease this grievous waste, Andy Mann Video Theatre presents a forum in which the potential video from Andy Mann's closet becomes kinetic video within 15 yards of your retinae the gateway to your central nervous system!
It is for this reason we have maneuvered you here, that we have tricked you into coming here tonight, not for your benefit, but rather for the benefit of these miserable video tapes which languish in a vile vacuum of immobility, the dust bin of history writ small.
You may never have another opportunity to see these video tapes, but even more frightening for them, is the near certainty that if you don't watch them, no one else will.  Therefore, on behalf of the Aurora Picture Show and Andy Mann Video Theatre, let this document serve as your receipt and as a souvenir of time served in the amelioration of the lonely condition of these long-buried almost-alive video relics.


Andy Mann: Street Tapes and Cable Access (DVD)
13 Films, color and b&w, 70 minutes
Aurora Video Label
Price: $19.99 (plus shipping)
This Aurora Video Label DVD was produced by Aurora Founder, Andrea Grover, who was a close friend of Andy's. The DVD includes his early Sony Portapak street tapes of Manhattan from the 1970s and his cable access tapes made in Houston from the 80s to the 90s. Includes Video Diary #1 (1972); Subway Tape (1970s); One-Eyed Bum (1974); There's Going To Be Another War (1970s); Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (1974); All Across Boston (1975); St. Anthony of Padua (1970s); Andy Gets a Haircut (1972); The Night Show (1989); Disclaimer and Last Hit (1989); The Anti-Tim and Lee Show (1990s); Beard Rap, 1980s.