Stiftung

MISSION

The Inter Media Art Institute is dedicated to exhibiting, archiving, and distributing time-based media art.

Archive

The archive includes around 3,000 works of artistic and documentary value that offer a broad overview of the evolution of video art from its pioneer era in the 1960s to the present. The holdings of the archive are accessible by appointment. Scholars, curators, lecturers, students, and other interested parties are invited to make use of the extensive holdings of art videos for research purposes.

Conservation

The conservation of media art  is a challenge for all institutions that collect this form of art. The Inter Media Art Institute participates with studies, workshops, conferences, and publications in the discussion and development of new approaches and solutions for media art conservation and restoration.

Distribution

The distribution program is one of the core tasks of the Inter Media Art Institute in order to promote video artists and their audiovisual works and to gain them a solid footing in public perception. Almost 1,500 audiovisual works by more than 120 international rtists can be borrowed and purchased through IMAI's distribution program.

The communication of media art occurs through regular lectures, screenings, and exhibitions of the Inter Media Art Institute.

Catalogue

The online catalogue comprises nearly 1,100 videos, which can be played back in full. It represents a solid instrument for information and research on the evolution of video art from the 1960s to the present and offers scholars, students, and other interested parties a considerable store of art historically important audiovisual works of art and documentations.

To the catalogue

History

The Inter Media Art Institute (IMAI) was founded in 2006, when the Düsseldorf municipality and the local art institutions NRW-Forum and Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast joined forces with Kulturstiftung des Bundes and Kunststiftung NRW to preserve the collections and continue the activities of the Cologne media art distributor 235 Media. Axel Wirths and Ulrich Leistner had founded 235 Media in 1982 as a tape label and distribution platform with a focus on underground and independent music, specifically punk, postpunk, new wave and industrial, before venturing into the distribution of music and artists’ videos a couple of years later. By the late nineteen-eighties, they had established an international video art distribution program that rented out videos by artists to exhibition venues, festivals, and TV stations all over Germany. 

Organs of the Foundation

  • Dr. Linnea Semmerling

  • Nele Kaczmarek

  • Rajiv Strauß
    Cultural Advisor in the mayor's office of the federal state capital Düsseldorf
     

  • Prof. Dr. Reiner Nachtwey
    Professor of Gestaltungslehre
    Peter Behrens School of Art, institut bild.medien, Düsseldorf

  • Miriam Koch
    Head of the Department of Culture and Integration of the Federal State Capital Düsseldorf

  • Alain Bieber
    Artistic Director
    NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast
     

  • Prof. Danica Dakić
    Professor for Film and Video
    Kunstakademie Düsseldorf  
     

  • Dr. Georg Jacobs 
    Lawyer
    Düsseldorf
     

  • Dr. Doris Krystof 
    Curator
    Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf
     

  • Tasja Langenbach
    Artistic Director
    Videonale Bonn
     

  • Ulrich Leistner
    CEO
    Media agency 235 MEDIA Cologne
     

  • Dr. Jochen Link
    Head of Visual Arts, Provenance
    Ministry of Culture and Science of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia
     

  • Dr. Marcel Schumacher
    Director
    Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster
     

  • Prof. Anja Vormann
    Professor of Audiovisual Media
    Peter Behrens School of Art Düsseldorf

Die Stiftung IMAI wird gefördert durch die Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf