Open is a London gallery dedicated to video painting: a new form of video art that began with a philosophy.

In 2001, Hilary Lawson published 'Closure'. It was the culmination of twenty years grappling with what he saw as the impending crisis of postmodernism. In the mid eighties, Hilary Lawson had argued that postmodernism was trapped in a vicious self-referential circle. In 'Closure' he put forward an alternative.

He proposed that the world is open, and we close that openness with thought and language. Thus, Lawson reinterpreted and defined art as the attempt to avoid closure and approach openness.

Aside from his philosophical writings, during the late eighties and nineties he had also worked extensively as a documentary film-maker. However, in the wake of 'Closure', he came to see these films as exercises in the completion of narrative and set out to create material that would avoid such closure and thereby approach openness.

At first not knowing how to begin, he set up his camera and sought a subjectless frame. He kept the camera static to avoid introducing meaning, and settled on a section of the sky which was abstract in character. On completing the shot he was surprised to realise that in the many years of making films he had not come across, or himself shot, material like this.

Over the following year he shot a great deal of material seeking to explore and understand the facets of this new format, which he called video painting. In particular he sought to identify what characteristics were required of video paintings for them to shift the gaze of the viewer from the identification of narrative and closure to the exploration of what he saw as the unlimited potential of visual space.

Having identified some ground rules, he then set out to find others who might share his enthusiasm for this new medium. Working with a close friend and artist, Sanchita Islam, a small initial group was formed which also included William Raban, Isabelle Inghillieri, Nina Danino and Tina Keane. The group met regularly and discussed and shared their work.

The video painting was defined. The camera is stationary. There can be no subsequent editing or manipulation of the image. There is no dialogue, no sound.

In 2003, working with a computer scientist, William Sowerbutts, technology was developed to enable the video paintings to be combined so that they could form collections of work that never repeated and yet had structure. This technology enabled artists to title each video painting and create collections consisting of a series of individual video paintings which in combination were capable of overcoming the traditional limitation of video art: the looped nature of the work.

In 2006, Open Gallery was formed as a platform for the expanding group of video artists. The first public installation took place in the UK later in the same year. Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (2006), Sketch Gallery (2007), the Hayward Gallery (2007), Crunch (2008), Shunt (2009), HowTheLightGetsIn (2009), The Miami Ice Palace (2009), the Square gallery (2010), the Hospital Club (2010) and the Nicholls and Clarke Building have followed.

Play in Three Acts
Hilary Lawson