Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum to present panel discussion on Window | Interface Aug. 31

Groundbreaking video artist Peter Campus will join curators Sabine Eckmann, Ph.D., director and chief curator for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum; and Lutz Koepnick, Ph.D., the museum’s curator for new media as well as professor of German and Film & Media Studies in Arts & Sciences, for a panel discussion at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 31.

The discussion is held in conjunction with the exhibition Window | Interface, which opens immediately after the talk. Co-curated by Eckmann and Koepnick and featuring works by Campus, the exhibition explores the ways in which electronic windows and interfaces — for example, video screens, computer monitors and cell phone displays — have come to structure the practice and experience of art today.

Campus is a pioneer in both video art and computer-enhanced digital photography. In the early 1970s, his experimentation with studio shooting and video technology — in works such as Prototype for Interface (1972), included in the exhibition — opened up a vast new set of tools for artistic practice while advancing the conceptual potential of video art.

Campus’ closed-circuit installations, videotapes and photography have been exhibited internationally, with one-person shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York, and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Major group exhibitions include the Venice Biennale and Documenta in Kassel, Germany. He is currently a clinical associate professor of art and art education as well as artist-in-residence at New York University.

The discussion will take place in Steinberg Auditorium, located in Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. A public reception for Window | Interface will follow, from 7 to 10 p.m., in the Kemper Art Museum, which is located immediately adjacent to Steinberg.

Both the talk and the reception are free and open to the public. Window | Interface will remain on view through Nov. 5. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.