Skip Blumberg

Biography

Emmy Award-winning producer and video artist Skip Blumberg has been an influential figure in the evolution of the independent video documentary and experimental videos. From his seminal guerrilla television work beginning in the late 1960s and early explorations of the graphics of video (JGLNG, 1976) to his recent independent experimental documentary (Growing Up Bonobo: Photographer Marian Brickner, 2015), and performance videos (On Dream Street..., 2012), he brings a distinctive, personal approach to the documentary form that, in his words, "warms up the cool medium of television."

Blumberg's energetic works give voice to the individual and the community, as he discovers the idiosyncratic and extraordinary in America's regions and subcultures, foregrounding games, sports, music, dance and performance as celebrations of cultural expression. Works such as Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show (1981) and Flying Morning Glory (on fire) (1985) are recognized classics of the genre.

In 1969, Blumberg was a co-founder of one of the earliest video collectives, the countercultural Videofreex, which established Lanesville TV as an artists' low-power television station in New York State. He was also a central participant in the pioneering television groups TVTV, Ant Farm, Image Union and Paper Tiger TV where he developed his characteristic personal interview style and informal, video verite techniques. In 1984 Blumberg was selected for Esquire magazine's register of "The Best of the New Generation." Blumberg has also produced and directed several hundred shows and shorts for PBS and cable network television series and for websites.

Blumberg is a graduate of the State University of New York, Buffalo. He has been artist-in-residence at WNET/Thirteen, New York, WXXI (Rochester), WCNY (Syracuse) and the 1980 Winter Olympics. He produced and directed many programs for the Alive From Off Center series of KTCA TV, Minneapolis. He is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow and has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among others.

Blumberg's videos have been presented internationally, broadcast on public and network television, and have been exhibited widely at institutions and festivals including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; International Center of Photography, New York; American Film Institute National Video Festival, Los Angeles; WRO New Media Art Biennale, Wroclaw, Poland; Danish Video Festival, Copenhagen; Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Paley Media Center, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Broadcasting, Chicago; National Museum of the American Indian, New York; ILJU Art House Archive, Seoul, Korea; Museum of China in the Americas, New York; and retrospectives at the Rotterdam and Berlin Film festivals.

Blumberg has taught at the University of Hawaii Summer Film and Video Institute, Ohio Arts Council Summer Media Institute, and Hofstra University. He has lead hundreds of production workshops, events, performances and in-person screenings in media centers, theaters, galleries, museums, schools, universities, and libraries around the world. He lives in Tribeca, New York.