In recent years, video has become an ever-more essencial resource for art to offer us a unique expression of the tension and disquiet permeating our current society. The ability of this medium to create and share images, voices and stories has made it a crucial tool for contemporary artists to analyse the socioeconomic impact of everyday events. Tension & Conflict. Video Art after 2008 focused precisely on an exceptional selection of artistic representations which, with unusual eloquence, have resorted to video as a means of registering the impact and consequences of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Occupying much of MAAT’s new building, the exhibition gathered the works by 22 artists from the United States to Latin America, to Europe and the Middle East, who have filmed their personal views on the effects of the great recession, the associated political turmoil and the less visible social consequences of those events. In a display which turned the museum into a variety of filmic spaces, the works by these artists make use of protests, demonstrations and daily news, as well as presenting poetic visions which make us read recent History – and the changes taking place in the present – in frequently unexpected ways.

Artists

Patrícia Almeida, Halil Altindere, Marilá Dardot, Bofa da Cara, Burak Delier, Melanie Gilligan, Lola Gonzàlez, Hiwa K, Silvia Kolbowski, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, Marc Larré, Jorge Macchi, Paulo Mendes, Mario Pfeifer, Francisco Queirós, Anatoly Shuravlev, Federico Solmi, Pilvi Takala, Maria Trabulo, Dragana Zarevac, Artur Zmijewski, Yorgos Zois