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Show and Tell

Hermine Freed

1974 00:08:27 United StatesEnglishB&W4:3Video
Tags:
Media Analysis, Video History, Conceptual Art, City

Description

"There are three scenes in this work, all reflecting a changing sense of time. Each has a voiceover soundtrack with a similar structure, but with different information. Some of the comments presume that the viewer is privy to information which is never given..."

Freed's voiceover provides a stream of information about the images, their source, and the method of presentation she is employing. She compares her own apartment to that of her brother; the neighbourhood she used to live in (Greenwich Village) to where she lives now (Soho); and two movies and the role of the female actresses starring in them. What is disquieting is the fact that her analysis is resolutely similar in each case—a combination of exegesis and confession, with Freed providing information about the images along with her personal misgivings about the process of videotaping. In this way, Freed establishes a dichotomous voice on the tape, an insecure "authority" that reveals the artist's uncertain attitude toward creation.

About Hermine Freed

Hermine Freed studied painting at Cornell University and New York University. During the late '60s she taught at NYU, working as program editor for an NYU-sponsored series on art books for WNYC. Assisted by colleague Andy Mann, she began using video to produce a series of contemporary artist portraits, beginning with painter James Rosenquist. Although the program did not meet WNYC's broadcast standards, Freed continued to produce the series, showing the tapes to her students and at other venues. In 1972 she was invited to participate in the groundbreaking exhibition Circuit: A Video Invitational by Everson Museum curator David Ross, whose encouragement led her to explore other aspects of the medium and produce a new body of work. Freed continued to produce both documentaries and artworks exploring female perception and self-image. Art Herstory (1974) was made while she was an artist-in-residence at the Television Lab at WNET. Freed taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1972. She passed away in 1998.