Passion for Video Art
Yves Netzhammer, 2006, Die ungenauen Körper (The Imprecise Bodies), Synchronized double projection on balloon, 13:40 min.
The gallery Anita Beckers was opened in Frankfurt in 1998, after initially being founded in Darmstadt. With the establishment of a video room at the new location, the gallery focused on the then still young medium of the moving image in permanent dialogue with the art market. This inevitably led to a constant search for cutting-edge positions that were juxtaposed with corresponding „classical“ positions already represented in the gallery. From this intense examination of video and media art, which were constantly shown on an equal footing with the other gallery exhibitions, the profile of the gallery developed over the years in synergy with the employees.
In 2005, Anita Beckers was awarded the Media Art Prize by the Saarländischen Rundfunks for her dedicated promotion of video art. In 2012, she initiated together with Julia Sökeland the video platform Blink Video (blinkvideo.de) that operates as a kind of “living” library for the moving image. Today, it boasts approximately 1,800 video works.
Since the premiere of the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image in 2013 in Frankfurt, Anita Beckers has supported the medium of video art and has curated diverse, central exhibitions to this theme. For the 2015 seasonal start of the Frankfurt galleries, Anita Beckers opened together with the design specialist Frank Landau an exhibition space in Frankfurt’s inner city. Anita Beckers and Frank Landau alternatively produced exhibitions until 2017, when Anita Beckers took charge of the space completely.
Consultation and the development of collections, as well as placing art in corporations, rounds out the gallery’s profile. In the over twenty years of operation and due to participation in many international fairs, the gallery was able to place or exhibit numerous works by represented artists in museums: (selection)Museum for Modern Art, Frankfurt; DZ Bank, Frankfurt; MOMA New York and San Francisco; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Denver Art Museum; Art Museum Stuttgart; Reina Sofia, Madrid; Kunsthalle Bremen; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg; Museum for Concrete Art, Ingolstadt; Art Museum Bern; Collection Goetz, Munich; MONA, Hobart/Australia, Collection von Kelterborn Frankfurt, among others.