Video art has often left me bored. It can be too schlocky, too stupid. Not that I don’t appreciate simple, silly work. The first piece of video art that made an impression on me was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. It was  William Wegman’s  Heads With Tails, featuring the ultra-patient Man Ray. This simple video was an excellent introduction to conceptual for a 10-year-old. (I could not have been more than 10 or 12 to tolerate going to a museum with my mother…by 13 and 14 I was going on the bus by myself.)

Flipping a coin and turning a dog around, while hilarious, is not necessarily what everyone thinks of as art; for others, Nam June Paik is a more valid artist.

Album page, New York City. Bernice Abbott, 1929-30. MMA 1982.1180.106–.116

I give you James Nares, and his Street project at the Met (which closed 5/27/2013, sorry). There’s a short clip (2:17 out of 60 minutes) if you scroll down the page. This isn’t the section I stumbled upon, but it captures much of the essence of the piece. I think it was the best thing I saw all day, and even better, the video is bracketed by galleries of photos and objects selected by Nares from the Met’s permanent collection.

These are can be found online, though they are not divided or arranged the way they appear in the galleries. Still, you can see connections between the pieces.

For other interesting and rather less famous street still photographers, check out Vivian Maier, orJoe Sterling (who lived around the corner from us when I was growing up).

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