Vera Frenkel

Vera Frenkel is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist.[1] Her installations, videotapes, performances and new media projects address the forces at work in human migration, the learning and unlearning of cultural memory, and the ever-increasing bureaucratization of experience.[2]

Vera Frenkel
Born (1938-11-10) November 10, 1938
Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
Education Fine Arts
Alma mater McGill University(1959),
Notable work String Games, ...from the Transit Bar, ONCE NEAR WATER: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive (2008), The Blue Train (2012-2014)
Awards Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts (2005)
Website www.verafrenkel.com

Vera Frenkel was born in Czechoslovakia, lived in England during her childhood then resided in Canada for her adult life. Frenkel graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from McGill University in 1959, then pursued further studies in Montreal under Arthur Lismer and Albert Dumouchel.

She has exhibited in solo and group shows in Canada and internationally since the early 1970s. Her work has been exhibited at Documenta IX, the Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz; the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Biennale di Venezia.[3]

Major Exhibitions

Frenkel's solo exhibitions include:

In recent years, Frenkel has exhibited her works at Centre culturel canadien (Paris, 2002) and the Freud Museum (London, UK, 2003).

Examples of Frenkel's group exhibitions:

One of Frenkel's major works, ...from the Transit Bar, is a seminal work of Canadian contemporary art. It was a collaboration between the National Gallery of Canada and The Power Plant. It was initially exhibited in 1992 at documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, toured Europe in the 1990s and has been most recently re-exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada in the spring and summer of 2014. ...from the Transit Bar was a multi-media installation with a functioning bar and video monitors playing individuals' testimonials recounting themes such as exile, translation and cultural migration.[4]

ONCE NEAR WATER: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive (2008) is a videotape about a city cut off from its lake and uses the scaffolding as a metaphor for both aspiration and loss. In the opening lines of its voice over narrative discuss the lake and set the stage for the piece:

This report is about a lake, and about longing.
Also about greed, and about ways of bearing witness.
I don't know the whole story, one never does.
[5]

Between November 15 - December 28, 2014 the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art presented Ways of Telling, an exhibition presenting Frenkel's work from the early 1970s to present, including her more recent works ONCE NEAR WATER: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive (2008) and The Blue Train (2012-2014). The exhibit was curated by the National Gallery of Canada's Jonathan Shaughnessy.[6]

Awards

Frenkel is recipient of the Canada Council Molson Prize, the Toronto Arts Foundation Visual Arts Award, the 1993 Gershon IskowitzPrize, the 1999 Bell Canada Award for Video Art and the 2007 iDMAa Pioneering Achievement Award.[7] In 2005 she was awarded the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts by the Canada Council for the Arts.[8]

Bibliography

References

  1. "Vera Frenkel". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
  2. verafrenkel.com
  3. Selected Exhibitions, Cartographie d'un pratique / Mapping a Practice, Daniel Langlois Foundation 2010
  4. http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/exhibitions/current/details/from-the-transit-bar-7569
  5. VeraFrenkel.com
  6. http://www.mocca.ca/exhibition/vera-frenkel/
  7. "International Digital Media and Arts Association - Award Winners". http://idmaa.org. International Digital Media and Arts Association. Retrieved 9 February 2014. External link in |work= (help)
  8. http://canadacouncil.ca/en/council/grants/past-recipients?recipient=Vera+Frenkel&sort1=discipline&sort2=program&sort3=recipient

External links

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