Beryl Korot

This extended to a body of work on handwoven canvas in an original language based on the grid structure of woven cloth, and to a series of paintings on canvas based on this language. More recently she has created drawings which combine ink, pencil, and digitized threads, as well as large scale “tapestries” where threads are printed on paper and woven.

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is video art. Residence is recorded at New York City. Work by Beryl Korot is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship and Anonymous Was A Woman Award.

• Name — Beryl Korot • Born — 17 September 1945 • Known for — Video art

Beryl Korot has pioneered the field of video art since the early 1970s, multiple channel work in particular. She was co-editor of Radical Software (1970), the first publication to discuss the possibilities of the new video medium, and Video Art (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976) with Ira Schneider. By applying specific structures inherent to loom programming to the programming of multiple channels of video, she brought the ancient and modern worlds of technology into conversation. This extended to a body of work on handwoven canvas in an original language based on the grid structure of woven cloth and to a series of paintings on canvas based on this language. More recently, she has created drawings which combine ink, pencil, and digitized threads, as well as large scale tapestries where threads are printed on paper, cut, and woven.

Two video/music collaborations with Steve Reich (The Cave, 1993, and Three Tales, 2002) brought video installation art into a theatrical context and have been performed worldwide since 1993 to the present (2023). Apart from performances, the works have been installed at venues such as the Whitney Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, and ZKM. Korot and Reich both participated in a collaborative interview with writer Jonathan Cott. The article was titled "Modern Folk Tales and Ancient Stories: a Conversation with Beryl Korot and Steve Reich".

Since 2003, she has been creating a new body of video and print work which was seen at Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum for the first time, in Beryl Korot: Text/Weave/Line, Video 1977-2010, and subsequently at Dartmouth College in Fall 2011, and at bitforms gallery in Spring 2012, among others. Korot also authored a piece that explained the development of her many art and video installations and the thoughts behind them, entitled "Language as Still Life: From Video to Painting." For her latest show at bitforms gallery, Rethinking Threads, Korot constructed a very primitive loom which allows her to use different materials to weave. She work with a computer and several other tools to generate the imagery, which gives her the "flexibility as to where to work, whether in a rental apartment far from home or in the studio.... In a sense the new work continues the thinking of the earlier work, and its relative portability, as it continues to engage the dialog between machine and hand." Korot previously said that the drawings for Text and Commentary were begun in a hotel room in Venice, Italy: "I was thinking of the times we live in and people on the move." Korot's current practice continues her inquiry into the numerical basis of abstract patterns laid down on the grid by programmed threads. "The current works abandon fiber as thread and in a sense, the loom. Here my loom is linen adhesive tape stretched across a work table sticky side up. In order to weave one needs taut warp threads. My sliced warp threads on strong heavy paper are placed on that adhesive strip. Once you have that you can weave the weft with your hands which is what I have done here. The freedom in a sense comes from the infinite choices of sourced raw material via camera or digital online files imported into Photoshop and sent to a printer. That I’m printing on paper is one option."

Korot has been married to composer Steve Reich since 1976. They have one son, Ezra Reich, born in 1978.

• Invision, Lost Lascaux Bull, Dishes, Berlin Bees, 20 mins., 1973/4. • Dachau 1974, 4 channel video installation work, 23 mins., 1974/75. • Text and Commentary, 5 channel video installation work with 5 weavings, pictographic notations, 5 drawings, 33 mins., 1976/77. • The Cave, a video opera in 3 Acts, music by Steve Reich, 120 mins., (1993). • Sarai, Abram’s Wife, 3 video screen, 3 channel work, 1990. • Departure from Bikini, 2 minutes, silent, (1991) • Three Tales, a video opera, music by Steve Reich, 64 mins., 2002. • Hindenburg, music by Steve Reich, 4 mins., 1997. • Yellow Water Taxi, 2 mins., 2003. • Vermont Landscape, 4 mins., 2004. • Pond Life, 5 mins., 2005. • Babel: the 7 minute scroll, 7 minutes, 2006 • Florence, minutes, 2008. • Etty, 12 minutes, 2009/10. • Weaver's Notation - Variations 1 and 2, digital embroideries, 2012.