VHS: stylised blue videotape in 90s style, precisely reduced with grid textures; video-rental nostalgia. Hahnemühle Fine Art Print, mounted on Alu-Dibond, white frame with shadow gap. Online only.
VHS: stylised blue videotape in 90s style, precisely reduced with grid textures; video-rental nostalgia. Hahnemühle Fine Art Print, mounted on Alu-Dibond, white frame with shadow gap. Online only.

VHS

A styl­ized “VHS” cas­sette in crisp blue tones recalls the 1990s, a time when video rental stores were vibrant cul­tur­al hubs. Rec­tan­gu­lar pre­ci­sion, fine grid tex­tures, and reduced color fields give the object an iconic pres­ence. This work evokes the ritual of rent­ing movies, brows­ing through film covers, and the magic of bring­ing the atmos­phere of the cinema into one’s own living room, a nos­tal­gic look back at the analog era of moving images. “VHS” is part of the art series “Blue in a Square”, which includes 300+ artworks.

Adults only.

The era of video rental stores was short, but it changed the world as we knew it. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of watch­ing any film you wanted at home, when­ev­er you wanted, instead of in the cinema or at some point on tele­vi­sion, mobilised many people. The tele­vi­sion took on a com­plete­ly new sig­nif­i­cance and was now also upgrad­ed acousti­cal­ly. Video stores were spring­ing up every­where like mush­rooms. Before long, there were almost as many video rental shops as tan­ning stu­dios – which were also as common as sand on the beach back then.

Before this rev­o­lu­tion, how­ev­er, it was all about the system: Beta­max, Video 2000 or VHS? VHS quick­ly estab­lished itself as the stan­dard. With the video shops, the adult films behind the cur­tain in every store also took off. There were wait­ing lists for new block­buster releas­es. And anyone who didn’t return their video­tape rewound had to pay 1 Mark. The “video night” became stan­dard: “Let’s watch a movie tonight.”

So the VHS gen­er­a­tion is also my gen­er­a­tion, because from the 80s into the 90s, the next system change was already on the way – the DVD. It’s crazy how quick­ly one system change fol­lowed the next and made access to more and more enter­tain­ment pos­si­ble for more and more people, in more and more places.

The art­work “VHS” can be pur­chased indi­vid­u­al­ly or as part of an art series. Anyone who wants to sur­round them­selves in their spaces with pos­i­tive memory cul­ture from the Boomer gen­er­a­tion and the 1980s can do so fully with this art series. All art­works, includ­ing “VHS”, can be pur­chased via the Art Store. Simply choose a single art­work or your own series, request an offer – and they’ll be with you soon.

Canon Fine-Art inkjet print on pre­mi­um Hah­nemüh­le Photo Rag 308 gsm paper. Art­work size freely selec­table: from at least 20 × 20 cm up to 120 × 120 cm. Mount­ed on 2 mm alu­minum Dibond with a white wooden shadow-gap frame. Pricing/quote on request, depend­ing on size and quantity.

Please fill in your details to receive more infor­ma­tion about the art­works and pur­chase options direct­ly from the artist either by email or per­son­al­ly by phone.