Caroline Langill, Shifting Polarities

Interview with Vera Frenkel

Vera Frenkel, String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video (Montreal-Toronto, 1974).

Learning the eight string figures; rehearsal with rope in preparation for video transmission between Toronto and Montreal, George Street, Toronto, 1973.

Gift of the artist, 2006, as part of the Sonja and Michael Koerner residency. Collection of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (49-026). Courtesy of Vera Frenkel and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

Vera Frenkel, String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video (Montreal-Toronto, 1974).

Exhibition This Must Be the Place (2005), InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto (Ontario).

Gift of the artist, 2006, as part of the Sonja and Michael Koerner residency. Collection of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Courtesy of Vera Frenkel and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

Vera Frenkel inside the Bell Canada Teleconferencing Studios in Montreal during the video-performance, String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video (MontrealToronto, 1974).

From the exhibition catalogue Lies & Truths An Exhibition of Mixed Format Installations by Vera Frenkel, Vancouver Art Gallery, May 4 28, 1978. Vera Frenkel fonds, Queen's University Archives, Kingston (Ontario).

Interview with Vera Frenkel

Based in Toronto (Ontario), Vera Frenkel’s multi-disciplinary artworks include videotapes, drawings, audio-works, installations, photographs, writings, and new media projects. Her ongoing interrogation of the abuses of power and their consequences has led to work that has been shown at Documenta 1X, Kassel (Germany); the Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz (Austria); the Setagaya Museum, Tokyo (Japan); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (Ontario), among others.

Frenkel has received international recognition for her pioneering works including the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, 1995, the Bell Canada Award for Video Art, 2001, and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2006. She holds honorary doctorates from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1994) in Halifax (Nova Scotia) and the Emily Carr Institute (2004) in Vancouver (British Columbia).

The 2010 exhibition Vera Frenkel: Mapping a Practice curated by Sylvie Lacerte, brought together, for the very first time, three seminal new media works in conjunction with a selection of elements that include photos, designs, and sketches from the artist's personal collection and the Vera Frenkel fonds of the Queen's University Archives.