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The Guggenheim Museum unveiled the winners of a contest between videos submitted via YouTube from artists around the globe. The top 25 videos selected in the competition called You Tube Play were shown for the first time on a large screen at New York City's Guggenheim, which created the contest with video-sharing web site YouTube. It was aimed at showcasing innovative online video artists. To showcase the artists, the videos were projected onto the exterior of the museum's iconic rotunda on 5th Avenue next to Central Park in Manhattan. Varying from animated line drawings to cartoons, the top 25 videos were created by 39 artists from 14 countries. Among those chosen was Lisa Byrne's piece on Northern Irish taxi drivers injured during 'the Troubles'. The quick cut piece, entitled Stand Up and Cry Like a Man captures men recounting their experiences in just over three minutes. It is, it's a fabulous feeling, I have to say -- the buildup beforehand and not really knowing what exactly is going to happen, but knowing your work is in such a place -- it feels really amazing, Byrne said, adding that she was happy not only for her work, but also for the recognition of her subjects' stories in her home country. Brothers Matthew and Erik Huber from Atlanta earned acclaim for their gravity-defying work The Huber Experiments in which everyday 'still life' undergoes improbable motion.Other winning videos included Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli of Sao Paulo, Brazil, featuring instrumental music and shots of birds perched on wires resembling a bar of music, and the brief Seaweed, showing a man stretching his arms, from London-based Remi Weekes and Luke White.The exhibition serves as a sign of older art institutions such as The Guggenheim giving a nod to the growing power of the internet and YouTube to distribute art globally, as well as the growing influence of video in all forms of entertainment, from the art world to theater and books.YouTube Marketing Manager Ed Sanders explained that the Google entity was constantly looking at ways to push forward the medium and the 'art competition' was a continuation from last year's 'YouTube Symphony Orchestra'.The chosen video artists included nine from the United States, two from Canada, two from England and two from South Africa. Winners were chosen from more than 23,000 submissions originating in 91 countries. Some of the artists admitted that they had no idea their creations would be held in such high regard and entered the competition on a whim or a dare. The videos can be seen at youtube.com/play and will be shown at The Guggenheim from Oct. 22 to 24, while similar events will be held at other Guggenheim locations.The jury for YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video included artist Laurie Anderson, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, U.S. musicians Animal Collective and Japanese visual artist Takashi Murakami. Originally only 20 videos were going to be picked but the number was increased to 25 due to the high quality of submissions, YouTube and The Guggenheim said in a statement. The jury will reconvene in two years time to evaluate another crop of artistic videos for exhibition.
