Paul Garrin

Paul Garrin, (b. 1957), is best known as a politically active video artist from the 1990s. His most famous work is Man with a Video Camera (Fuck Vertov), 1989, in which he videotapes a riot in Tompkins Square Park in New York City's Lower East Side. The video records police officers with covered badge numbers beating protesters, and Garrin himself being pulled off a van and assaulted for shooting video tape. In the video, Garrin proposes a new revolution is coming; a reverse Big Brother state in which citizens armed with camcorders are continually watching the government. Another well known work is Free Society, 1988, an intensely processed video using images representative of a police state.

Garrin was an artist living and working in the Lower East Side during its last days of creative production. His work straddled a gap between the highest technology available and hands-on street video, all for a common political cause. Later on, Garrin collaborated with video art superstar Nam June Paik, producing numerous works between 1982 and 1996.

Since the 1990s, Garrin has carried his politicized style of action artmaking onto the internet, founding companies and projects that work to free the internet from corporate and government control.

Videography

[http://pg.mediafilter.org/bp/bpny.html Border Patrol] , 1994-1996

[http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?BYANYMEANS By Any Means Necessary] , 1990

[http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?FREESOCIET Free Society] , 1988

[http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?HOMELESSIS Home(less) Is Where The Revolution Is] , 1990

[http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?MANWITHAVI Man with a Video Camera] , 1989

[http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?REVERSEBIG Reverse Big Brother] , 1990

[http://pg.mediafilter.org/bp/wd.html White Devil] , 1992-1993

[http://pg.mediafilter.org/bp/yg.html Yuppie Ghetto with Wedding] , 1989-1990

Garrin's works have been shown at the Lyon Biennial, 1995, the Kwangju Biennial, 1995, the Sao Paolo Biennial, 1994, and the Prix Ars Electronica, 1997. His work has been represented by Holly Solomon Gallery in New York City, and is represented in many museum collections.

Popular Culture

The RENT character Mark is possibly based on Paul Garrin.

External links

* [http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?GARRINP Paul Garrin] in the [http://www.vdb.org/ Video Data Bank]