Paul Garrin

Paul Garrin (born 1957) is an interdisciplinary artist and social entrepreneur whose work explores the social impact of technology and issues of media access, free speech, public/private space, and the digital divide.

Garrin began working with video while studying fine arts at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City (1977–82) where he enrolled after two years of classical art training in painting, drawing, sculpture, materials, and printmaking at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1977).

At Cooper Union, Garrin studied with many well-known artists including Hans Haacke, Vito Acconci, Robert Breer and Martha Rosler, all of whom had a major impact on Garrin's aesthetics and critical social content in his works.

Starting as his assistant in 1981, Garrin eventually emerged as one of the most important collaborators of video art superstar Nam June Paik, working closely together from 1982 to 1996.

Between the years 1984 to 1997, Garrin was among the pioneers in the field of fashion videography.

He worked with a number of popular fashion designers of the day.

Highly attuned to the arts, they hired Garrin because of his background in fine arts, his experimental video works and collaborations with video artist Nam June Paik.

Most notably were the designers Willi Smith, Carmelo Pomodoro and David Cameron.

Some of his fashion videos are in the collection of the Fashion Institute of Technology.

This influence is seen emerging in such works as "A Place to Hide", 1985, and a series of pieces in collaboration with musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and video artist Kit Fitzgerald sponsored by SONY Corporation, 1985–86, most notably "A Human Tube".

1985

1987

In 1988, Garrin created one of his most groundbreaking videos entitled "Free Society" featuring original music by downtown composer and musician Elliott Sharp.

Featuring uniquely layered digital effects and hand-cutout images edited in a staccato pace that reflects the violence and brutality of the subject matter, "Free Society" went on to win numerous awards, was featured in video and film festivals around the world, and is in the permanent collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.

It also contains footage from his 1988 video of the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot.

1988

Since 1989, Garrin has been working with interactive media, and developed three highly acclaimed works, "Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog", 1989–90, "White Devil", 1992-93 and "Border Patrol" 1995–97, all of which were produced with the technical collaboration of friend and artist David Rokeby,

creator of the "Very Nervous System", evolutions of which formed the basis of "Yuppie Ghetto", "White Devil", and "Border Patrol".

Garrin also enlisted Don Ritter, another friend and artist working in the same realm to create the live targets in the Border Patrol installation.

1989

Since the 1990s, Garrin has carried his politicized style of action art-making onto the Internet, founding companies and projects that work to free the Internet from corporate and government control.

His work spans between the highest technology available and hands-on street video, all for a common political cause.

The New York Times art critic Grace Glueck describes Paul Garrin as a politically active video artist.

1990

Garrin's works have been widely exhibited and broadcast internationally including the Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon, 1995–96, Kwangju Biennale, 1995, São Paulo Art Biennial, 1994, Holly Solomon Gallery in New York, Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, 1997, Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen, 1997, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, 1998, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, 1999, and has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum, and others.

Garrin's works have been documented in numerous publications worldwide including "History of 20th Century Art" by Taschen.

His major works "Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog", "White Devil" and "Border Patrol" are in the permanent collection of the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany.

The following is a list of exhibitions that showcased Garrin's art videos and interactive installations:

Founded in 1996, Garrin's social enterprise Name.Space is among the earliest Internet top-level domain registries offering affordable and expressive TLDs.

Manifested in the Name.Space.Charter, Name.Space champions freedom of speech, and free, self-supporting commerce as an important counterbalance to government's monopoly powers.

Presently, Name.Space is challenging the status-quo in an antitrust lawsuit with ICANN.

In 2001, Paul Garrin (A'82), was awarded the Cooper Union President Citation for outstanding attainments and contributions to his profession, and was inducted into the Cooper Union Alumni Hall of Fame.

Garrin belongs to the second generation of video artists whose works mix technological innovation with social criticism.

Along with Jenny Holzer, Julia Scher, Lowell Darling, Laurie Anderson, Garrin was among a promising group of autonomous artists creating far-ranging works of art within the Web, tapping into the potential of the Web as a creative medium, thereby transcending the basic nature of the medium at the time.

From the time he was a student at Cooper Union, Paul's video works focused on single and double channel pieces.

After graduation, Garrin's work was heavily influenced by the experimental works of Nam June Paik.

In 2003, Garrin launched WiFi-NY, an independent, cooperative community wireless broadband network that serves downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.

He continues to live and work in the Lower East Side since the borough's last decades of creative production.

Garrin grew up in Camden, New Jersey.

He took night classes at the Philadelphia College of Art, and worked at an offset printing shop in the day to support himself.