Guggenheim turned into video art canvas

(Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2010)

The facades of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Bilbao, Berlin and Venise were transformed into a giant screen late Thursday showing the winners of a global competition organized with YouTube.

The jury of "YouTube Play, a Biennial of Creative Video" selected the 25 videos deemed most creative, innovative and groundbreaking among some 23,000 submitted entries. They can also be seen on YouTube's website at youtube.com/play.

The finalists, ranging from South African rap to Brazilian animation, were the work of students, film directors, musicians and even a chess champion.

They were judged by a jury of prominent artists, including musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson, musical artists Animal Collective, visual artists Douglas Gordon, Ryan McGinley, Marilyn Minter and Takashi Murakami, artists and filmmakers Darren Aronofsky, Shirin Neshat and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, in addition to graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister.

The Guggenheim's chief curator Nancy Spector served as jury chairperson.

The contest followed another artistic experiment launched by YouTube, which modified its logo Thursday, inscribing it in a golden rectangle accompanied by the New York Guggenheim building's famous helical spiral by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

In March, it created the world's first online orchestra, choosing more than 90 professional and amateur musicians from over 30 countries through auditions on the Google-owned video sharing website. The winners performed at prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York in April.

http://www.youtube.com/play