Between the Frames

1983-91, 259:57 min, color, sound
1986, 38:30 min, color, sound
 
1983-91, 18:21 min, color, sound
 
1986, 36:51 min, color, sound
 
1991, 55:01 min, color, sound
 
1983, 12:20 min, color, sound
 
1983-1991, 55:10 min, color, sound
 
1991, 48:25 min, color, sound
 
1983-91, 33:49 min, color, sound
 

Muntadas states: "Art, as part of our time, culture and society, shares and is affected by rules, structures and tics, like other economic, political and social systems in our society. Between the Frames is a series of eight chapters about people and institutions located between the artist and the audience."

The eight-part series Between the Frames, an ambitious analysis of how art is mediated through commerce and culture, takes the form of visual commentaries about the people and institutions located between art/artists and the audience. The series, which was produced over a period of eight years, features interviews with important figures in the international art world, including Holly Solomon, Panza di Bumo, Ileanna Sonnabend, David Ross, Rene Berger, Robert Atkins and Joseph Beuys.

For example, in Chapter 1: The Dealers and Chapter 3: The Galleries Muntadas analyzes the people and institutions who mediate between art and its audience, examine the systems and structures of marketing and promotion that govern the art world. The most influential international dealers of the 1980s — including Mary Boone, Leo Castelli, Ronald Feldman, and Ileanna Sonnabend — are interviewed on the artistic and commercial structures of the art market. Muntadas intercuts the interviews with images of moving trains, underscoring his concept of the art world as a highly structured organism dependent on cultural and economic systems.

Chapter 5: The Docents examines the lecturers and guides who work within a museum context to educate the public about art. Metaphorically articulating the conveyance of information to the public, Muntadas intercuts interviews with docents from the Long Beach Museum of Art in California with footage of Los Angeles freeways.

Executive Producer: Kathy Rae Huffman. Video Production/Post Production: Joseph Leonardi, Art Nomura.