Vera Frenkel
Body Missing
[In 2001], the Austrian media reported a discovery by the Bundesdenkmalamt (Federal Office of Historical Monuments) Vienna: an archive of photographs of 5 600 artworks confiscated during the Nazi period. As a result, Vera Frenkel’s Body Missing, a work, originally made in 1994 for the Offenes Kulturhaus in Linz in 1994 and now expanded, concerned with the Third Reich’s art theft policy, took on a new relevance […]. The six channel video installation Body Missing deal with the Sonderauftrag Linz, or Special Assignment Linz, the planned Führermuseum in Linz and the fate of artworks that could not be located after World War II or which surfaced elsewhere. Sonderauftrag Linz was Hitler’s systematic plan to confiscate artworks for the planned Führermuseum by any means necessary. Artworks were brought from all across Europe to the Altausssee salt mines, where they were stored under ideal conservation conditions until they were discovered by the Allies.
In a semi-fictional framing narrative, Frenkel creates characters that set us on the tracks of Sonderauftrag Linz. The artist as a barkeeper of the Transit Bar#1# overhears by chance conversations among some of her regulars, two women and a man, about art collecting fever, war loot, and the discovery of lists of artworks and depots. From letters, bits of conversation, and interviews, a pattern emerges from the puzzle. Another narrative is based on the encounter with the character of Polly, a famous restorer and copyist from Vienna, as well as with Hannelore, Simone, Robert, and Friedrich, who, after studying the main list of the lost artworks, create reconstructions or rather “embodiments” of cultural memory. […]
As well as her use of fictional narrative, Frenkel’s work explores these issues using archival material, sketches, and documents from the Linz City Archives, and with atmospheric images of art in storage, hidden corridors, and symbolically-charged sites like the Aula, lecture hall, of Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. The music, in part composed by the artist herself, underscores this investigative approach to assembling pieces of the puzzle. […]
Frenkel’s work consists of six video stations with subtitles, but the filmic sequences overlap in repetitions and displacements, and they achieve many points of entry into real and virtual space as ways of approaching both current and historical material.
From a palimpsest of memories, rumors, absences, and a “bearing witness in the absence of witness,” Frenkel creates categories of greater visibility, thus constructing a historiographical discourse. In contrast to academic research, which is committed to the concept of truth and reality, artistic creation is privileged in that it makes possible the freedom to engage in historiography beyond facticity, a historiography that is also artistic creation.
(1) Built orignally at documenta IX, Kassel, now fictively situated at the O.K., Linz
Hedwig Saxenhuber, "Vera Frenkel. Body Missing," in: Springerin, 4 (2001/2002), p. 70
Biography
born 1938 in Bratislava, lives and works in Toronto
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2014
Ways of Telling, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto
2010
Beyond the Archive (working title), SBC Gallery, Montréal
2008
Once Near Water: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive, video installation and related works, Akau Inc. Project Space, Toronto
2005
The Institute™, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa
The Institute™: Or, What We Do for Love, Art Gallery of Sudbury
2003
The Institute™: Or, What We Do for Love, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Hart House) - University of Toronto, Toronto
Body Missing, Sigmund Freud Museum, London
2002
Body Missing, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Body Missing, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris
Videoculture 2000, Wayne State University Video 2000 Festival, Detroit
2000
Body Missing, Goethe-Institut, Toronto
1999
Centre d’Art Contemporain, Hérouville-St. Clair
Messiahs, Migration and Loss, Museum of Modern Art, Department of Film and Video, New York
»…from the Transit Bar« and Body Missing, Göteborg Konstmuseum, Göteborg
1996
Body Missing, GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen
Body Missing, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz
1995
Body Missing, I.S.E.A. Inter-Society for Electronic Arts, Montréal
1993
Raincoats, Suitcases, Palms, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto
1990
Messiah Speaking, Piccadilly Circus Spectacolor Board animation, London
Metro-Centre Messiah, Squires Foyer, Newcastle Polytechnic, Newcastle
1989
Mad for Bliss, Multidisciplinary performance, Music Gallery, Toronto
1987
Trust Me, It’s Bliss, The Hugh Hefner/Richard Wagner Connection, Playboy Mansion [Hefner Hall], Chicago
1985
Les bandes vidéo/The Videotapes, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
1983
The Screening Room, Main Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis; Artculture Resource Centre, Toronto
1982
In Search of the True-Blue Romance, Exiles/Images of Woman, Artculture Resource Centre, Toronto
Likely Stories: Text/Image/Sound, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021
Domestic Drama, Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz
Bodies of Water, 13th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai
2020
PRESS RECORD: Prints from the Open Studio Archive, Contemporary Printmaking Studio, Toronto
2019
Dunkle Energie, xE Ausstellungsraum der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna
2018
Hearing a Video, Vtape, Toronto
2016
"Chéer à rebours vers l'exposition": The cas of Aurora Borealis, VOX, Montreal
2015
MemoryLab - Photography challenges history, Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
2014
MemoryLab: The Sentimental Turn, Gropius Bau, Berlin
2013
Continental Drift - Conceptual Art in Canada: The 1960s and 70s, Badischer Kunstverein, Kalsruhe
Continental Drift - Conceptual Art in Canada: The 1960s and 70s Part 1, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto
2012
Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980 - Part 1, Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Montreal
2011
Archival Dialogues, Ryerson University Gallery and Research Centre, Toronto
2010
Contributor to Screen 2010 Exhibition 12: Consumerism – I shop therefore I am? Cultural Olympiad Project, Vancouver
Analogue: Pioneering Artist´s Video from the U.K. Canada and Poland, (final three venues of tour of Canadian museums)
2009
Once Near Water: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive, Candian premiére of performance version of high-definition video with musicians from Continuum Contemporary Music, Isabel Bader Theatre, Toronto
2008
Recollecting: Raub und Restitution, MAK, Wien
Messiah Speaking, Two-channel video installation, Elevator 10, Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario
Shift: movement and meaning between The Netherlands and Canada, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam
City Poem/Poem City, Penex-Metropolis Video Wall, Yonge/Dundas Square, Toronto
Tiefenrausch, OK Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz
2006
Telling Stories, Secret Lives, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston
2005
Blow Out, Prefix Gallery, Toronto
Wer Visionen hat soll zum Arzt gehen, Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen
2004
Vera Frenkel/Ho Tam, Archive Gallery, Toronto
2002
MY GENERATION: Video art from the 70’s to the present day, Atlantis Gallery, London
2001
Head Start, Campo Santa Marina, 49th Venice Biennale, Venice
1999
Not On Any Map: Travel and Identities of Displacement, The Film Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Fragile Electrons, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Track Records, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg
LAB VII, Centre of Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
1998
Track Records, Alberta College of Art & Design, Calgary, Centre Culturel de Sherbrooke, Mackenzie Gallery, Regina
Second Skin: Looking at the Garden Again, The Gallery, Stratford, Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery, Ontario
1997
Lab VI, Centre of Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
Video Art Plastique, Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, Hérouville
Virtualität des Verschwindens, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK), Berlin
The Destabilized Landscape, Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
1996
In the Realm of Freedom, YYZ artists’ Outlet, Toronto
Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen, (contri-bution to Joerg Geismar’s project), Galerie Gabrielle Rivet, Cologne
1995
Beyond National Identities, Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, National Modern Art Museum, Kyoto, Hokaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo
1994
Body Missing, in Andere Körper, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz
4th International Film/Video Festival, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
1993
The Grief Journey, Toronto Cybercity Project, Toronto, Aperto, Venice Bienniale, Venice
Empowering the Word, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa
The Other Revolution, John Spotton Theatre, NFB National Film Board, Ottawa, Goethe-Institut, Toronto
1992
documenta IX, Kassel
1991
War, Media & The New World Order, Centre international d’art contemporain, Montréal
Video Positive Festival, Liverpool
1990
Issues in Contemporary Video, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon
Technologies et imaginaires, Vidéothèque de Paris, Paris
1988
The Fukui International Video Biennale, Fukui
Censored, or The Making of a Pornographer, A.I.R. Gallery, London
Aurora Borealis, The Showroom, London
1987
Toronto: A Play of History, The Power Plant, Toronto
The Lunatic of One Idea, Public Pixelboard project, Square One Mall, Mississauga
1986
Attention: Lost Canadians, Canada Pavilion, Expo ’86, Vancouver
Video as a Social Tool, Video Inn, Vancouver
1985
Visual Facts, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield
Aurora Borealis, Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal, Cité du Parc, Montréal
1984
Vestiges of Empire, Camden Arts Centre, London
1982
Projected Parts, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Lump in the throat or the Adam’s Apple: A True Story of Eve, Koffman Union, Minneapolis
1981
Women’s Film and Video Festival, Amsterdam
Inquiry
Please leave your message below.