Barbara Rosenthal
Encyclopedia
Barbara Rosenthal is an American
avant-garde
artist and writer. Her existential
themes have contributed to contemporary art and philosophy. Her pseudonyms include "Homo Futurus," taken from the title of one of her books, and "Cassandra-on-the-Hudson", which alludes to her studio and residence since 1998 on the Hudson River
in Greenwich Village
, NYC.
As an artist, Rosenthal works in media including photography, video, performance, projection, installation, interactive and New Media
(digital media), text, collage, prints, artists' books and objects. Almost all are produced in editions. Most combine camera, text and performative aspects. Elements of Rosenthal's body of work, "Surreal Photography" are often present. Rosenthal is known for often revisiting past works, recombining old elements with new, and often appears in her work in some way. These may include x-rays, brain scans and clothing. Sometimes she utilizes physical or textual elements from her journals. As a creative artist within the fields of surrealism
and existentialism
, Rosenthal brings existential content, via the subconscious, to conceptual art
, and is known for her intense introspection.
As a writer, Barbara Rosenthal has kept a lifelong journal since age eleven, and produces aphorisms, slogans, quips, poetry, stories, novels, text-based art, artist's books, pamphlets, art criticism, reviews and essays. Rosenthal is a regular contributor to NYArts Magazine and is known for her principled stand against art as advocacy, which she labels “retro-garde”. This sets her in opposition to the prevailing political, cultural and feminist trends in contemporary art.
Bulletin.
Rosenthal attended the Brooklyn Museum
Art School, studying figure drawing and painting taught by Isaac Soyer
, in 1962-64; the Art Students' League, for figure drawing
and painting, NYC, in 1964-66; New York University
, for Art History, NYC, in 1966. She attended Carnegie-Mellon University and while there was editor of the literary-art magazine, Patterns, as a sophomore and once again as a senior. She spent her junior year at Temple University
/Tyler School of Art
in Rome, Italy, studying art and art history, in 1968-69; and received her BFA in painting from Carnegie-Mellon in 1970. She attended The City University of New York/City College
, for education and psychology in 1970-71; Seattle Pacific College, for media and education of the gifted in 1972-73; and received her MFA in painting at The City University of New York/Queens College in 1975.
During her years as an art student and teacher, Rosenthal supplemented her earnings as an assembly-line-painting artist; as a photojournalist stringer for The Village Voice
, The East Village Eye, and The New York Post; and as a go-go dancer at clubs including the famed Metropole Cafe
and Club Mardi Gras in Times Square
, New York City. From 1972-4, she taught printmaking
and was director, set designer and lighting technician for several performances at the Lakeside School
, a private high school in Seattle, Washington
.
One important series that appears in several forms is “Homo Futurus,” which comprises two artist’s books of that title (one a blank book, eMediaLoft.org, 1984 and one with text and images, VSW Press, 1986), a wall work (shown at the Carlo Lamagna Gallery, 1987-88), and several print editions of various sizes. The purpose of this project has been described as lending insight into what makes us human, particularly in terms of ideals and values, and lending insight into the production of art, by citing information from the artist’s own experience and practice, as well as from various news sources. Imagery consists of reproduced news photos and articles, postcards, and personal archival and family photographs, juxtaposed with Rosenthal's "Surreal Photographs". Text is edited from Rosenthal’s Journals.
One line in the 1986 book is "All history, documentation, journalism, diplomacy, thought, art, culture, etc., serve only to influence behavior of single individuals at single moments." This particular line, designed as text-based art, has also appeared in Rosenthal's print suite "Provocation Cards," first issued as an anonymous Mail Art series in 1989, later as a portion of her video-performance "Lying Diary / Provocation Cards", 1990, and then handed out during live performances 2005-9 in New York, Berlin, and Prague, hung as wall art at the Lucas Carrieri Gallery (Berlin, 2009), and enlarged as a billboard (installed in Padua, Italy in 2010) for the Fourth Tina B. Prague Contemporary Art Festival. Each time, the text and the image of the text were increasingly refined.
In the Tina B. Prague Contemporary Art Festival, October 2009, she represented the United States in both Performance Art and Text-Based Art, for which a second billboard, also an insight from Homo Futurus, reads "The Flaw of the Ideal Is That It Does Not Encounter Time or Touch.".
Then, if a more profound significance becomes apparent to her, they are presented without adulteration or commentary, either with or without juxtaposition of related footage to reveal a personal vision that is often considered political.
It is this simple exposure of real, extant phenomenon, without "artistic" additions, that reveals her world view, which often seems bleak. Nevertheless, much of it contains wry humor. It is often honed and remade, with sections added and refined over the years.
One such video is "Dead Heat," which premièred at her mini-retrospective at The Directors Lounge in Berlin, June 25, 2009. It is a 3-minute piece consisting of 4 horizontal split-screen segments which were shot in different video gauges between 1987 and 2009. In each segment, a figure transverses the screen, apparently in real time, from left to right: a bird, a horse, herself, a ship. But because each takes its own time, Rosenthal repeats the transverse crossing, so they lap each other. But she has mathematically tweaked the timing, so that each figure enters the screen on frame one and leaves the screen on the final frame, simultaneously. The bird, being the fastest, repeats the traverse many times, and the ship (which was shot from her window on the Hudson), only once. The horse (ridden by one of her children across the cornfield of one of her friends) and herself (in a park in Berlin) cross at their own speed. The title, "Dead Heat", is an American pun that means a tied race, so, upon analysis, it can be understood to mean that our lives as individuals might be lived according to our own natures, but we all begin with the same first step, and we all end, together, in death.
about art-making at The Gallery Of Contemporary Art in Fairfield, Connecticut
, she enumerated many "dictums that guide [her] production: that pattern serve as color; that as few materials are used as possible; that as little space is used as possible; that there be no embellishment or superfluous element of design; that a work be visible and present new elements at every distance; that it engage a viewer differently from separate vantages; that it reach several centers of the psyche simultaneously; so a viewer is left room to freely associate; that mystery is always present; that it does not advocate; that it does not mimic past successes; that it can maintain its veracity in an imaginary room of great works; that it be available to everyone and that it be both produced and priced at lowest possible cost."
Rosenthal's group shows include venues such as Jewish Museum (New York)
, and the Stenersenmuseet Museum, Oslo, Norway.
, and the Tate
Britain Library, London, England. The largest American holdings of her work are in The Dadabase Collection of The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art
. Her archives, including over one hundred volumes of workbooks and Journals, and fifty drafts of her unpublished novel, "Wish For Amnesia", are currently housed at eMediaLoft.org, NYC, and bequeathed to the Special Collections of the Hunt Library at Carnegie-Mellon University, upon her death.
, Columbia, Missouri
, in 1976-77. In 1982, with video pioneer Bill Creston, she founded eMediaLoft.org and .com. Since 1990, Rosenthal has taught writing as an adjunct lecturer at the College of Staten Island
of The City University of New York (CUNY/CSI). Rosenthal has also taught photography
, video
, multi-media, painting, drawing, design, crafts and art history at other colleges, including, among those in New York, The School of Visual Arts (SVA) and Parsons School of Design, where she was editor and producer of The College Council Faculty Affairs Newsletter. She also taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Photography at SUNY/Nassau in 1994. She co-founded the Outrageous Consortium with filmmaker Margot Niederland in 2005; and founded The Museum of Modern Media in NYC, 2006.
Computer Video Imaging Residency Grant at Adaptors/Brooklyn, NY, in 1996; three Electronic Arts Grant Video Residency, Experimental TV Center, Owego, NY in 1989, 90 and 91; a Harvestworks Audio-Video Residency, NYC in 1988 and a Video Arts Residency at Real Art Ways
, Hartford, CT in 1988.
Monetary awards have included a Media Presentation Grant from Experimental TV Center, Owego, NY in 2000; Finishing Funds from Film Bureau in NYC 1991; a New York State Council on the Arts Video Facility Subsidy Grant at Margolis/Brown Adaptors, Brooklyn, NY in 1998; a Finishing Funds Grant from Media Bureau/The Kitchen
in NYC, in 1988; three Artists Space/Artists Grants in NYC 1986, 89 and 90; and a Creative Arts for Public Service C.A.P.S. Grant in Video, New York State, in 1984.
Rosenthal received a Medal of Honor from the Brussels Ministry of Culture, Brussels, Belgium, in 1990; Rosenthal received a Global Village
Documentary Festival Award in NYC, 1983; listing as a Fiction Writer, Poet, and Spoken Word Artist by Poets & Writers
, NYC, since 1986; and elected membership in Pi Delta Epsilon National Publications Honor Society, USA, in 1970.
In 1982 Rosenthal became an associate founding member of The Women's Institute For Freedom of the Press, Washington, DC and is still an active member.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
artist and writer. Her existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
themes have contributed to contemporary art and philosophy. Her pseudonyms include "Homo Futurus," taken from the title of one of her books, and "Cassandra-on-the-Hudson", which alludes to her studio and residence since 1998 on the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, NYC.
As an artist, Rosenthal works in media including photography, video, performance, projection, installation, interactive and New Media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
(digital media), text, collage, prints, artists' books and objects. Almost all are produced in editions. Most combine camera, text and performative aspects. Elements of Rosenthal's body of work, "Surreal Photography" are often present. Rosenthal is known for often revisiting past works, recombining old elements with new, and often appears in her work in some way. These may include x-rays, brain scans and clothing. Sometimes she utilizes physical or textual elements from her journals. As a creative artist within the fields of surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
, Rosenthal brings existential content, via the subconscious, to conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
, and is known for her intense introspection.
As a writer, Barbara Rosenthal has kept a lifelong journal since age eleven, and produces aphorisms, slogans, quips, poetry, stories, novels, text-based art, artist's books, pamphlets, art criticism, reviews and essays. Rosenthal is a regular contributor to NYArts Magazine and is known for her principled stand against art as advocacy, which she labels “retro-garde”. This sets her in opposition to the prevailing political, cultural and feminist trends in contemporary art.
Education and early career
At age eleven, Rosenthal was a weekly columnist for her town newspaper, The Franklin SquareFranklin Square, New York
Franklin Square is a hamlet in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 29,320 at the 2010 census...
Bulletin.
Rosenthal attended the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
Art School, studying figure drawing and painting taught by Isaac Soyer
Isaac Soyer
Isaac Soyer was a social realist painter and often portrayed working-class people of New York City in his paintings.-Biography:...
, in 1962-64; the Art Students' League, for figure drawing
Figure drawing
In art, a figure drawing is a study of the human form in its various shapes and body postures - sitting, standing or even sleeping. It is a study or stylized depiction of the human form, with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective, rather than the subject person. It is a...
and painting, NYC, in 1964-66; New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, for Art History, NYC, in 1966. She attended Carnegie-Mellon University and while there was editor of the literary-art magazine, Patterns, as a sophomore and once again as a senior. She spent her junior year at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
/Tyler School of Art
Tyler School of Art
The Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art, usually just referred to as Tyler School of Art is Temple University's school of art, which confers BFA and MFA degrees. The school was originally founded by sculptors Stella Elkins Tyler and Boris Blai on a separate 14-acre estate in Elkins Park...
in Rome, Italy, studying art and art history, in 1968-69; and received her BFA in painting from Carnegie-Mellon in 1970. She attended The City University of New York/City College
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
, for education and psychology in 1970-71; Seattle Pacific College, for media and education of the gifted in 1972-73; and received her MFA in painting at The City University of New York/Queens College in 1975.
During her years as an art student and teacher, Rosenthal supplemented her earnings as an assembly-line-painting artist; as a photojournalist stringer for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, The East Village Eye, and The New York Post; and as a go-go dancer at clubs including the famed Metropole Cafe
Metropole Cafe
The Metropole Cafe was a jazz club that operated in New York from the mid-1950s through 1965. Located at 7th Avenue and 48th Street, It was primarily noted, in the bebop and progressive jazz era, as being a venue for traditional musicians...
and Club Mardi Gras in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
, New York City. From 1972-4, she taught printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
and was director, set designer and lighting technician for several performances at the Lakeside School
Lakeside School
Lakeside School is a private/independent school located in the Haller Lake neighborhood at the north city limits of Seattle, Washington, USA, for grades 5–12....
, a private high school in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
.
Image /text art
Although, like many avant-garde artists, Barbara Rosenthal’s work is difficult to classify, it is usually described by categories of movement or media, even though many projects fuse elements from several: conceptual photography, surreal photography, artists' books and objects, installation, performance, video, film, cartoons, text-based art, mail art, and writings (in all forms of literature and exposition).One important series that appears in several forms is “Homo Futurus,” which comprises two artist’s books of that title (one a blank book, eMediaLoft.org, 1984 and one with text and images, VSW Press, 1986), a wall work (shown at the Carlo Lamagna Gallery, 1987-88), and several print editions of various sizes. The purpose of this project has been described as lending insight into what makes us human, particularly in terms of ideals and values, and lending insight into the production of art, by citing information from the artist’s own experience and practice, as well as from various news sources. Imagery consists of reproduced news photos and articles, postcards, and personal archival and family photographs, juxtaposed with Rosenthal's "Surreal Photographs". Text is edited from Rosenthal’s Journals.
One line in the 1986 book is "All history, documentation, journalism, diplomacy, thought, art, culture, etc., serve only to influence behavior of single individuals at single moments." This particular line, designed as text-based art, has also appeared in Rosenthal's print suite "Provocation Cards," first issued as an anonymous Mail Art series in 1989, later as a portion of her video-performance "Lying Diary / Provocation Cards", 1990, and then handed out during live performances 2005-9 in New York, Berlin, and Prague, hung as wall art at the Lucas Carrieri Gallery (Berlin, 2009), and enlarged as a billboard (installed in Padua, Italy in 2010) for the Fourth Tina B. Prague Contemporary Art Festival. Each time, the text and the image of the text were increasingly refined.
In the Tina B. Prague Contemporary Art Festival, October 2009, she represented the United States in both Performance Art and Text-Based Art, for which a second billboard, also an insight from Homo Futurus, reads "The Flaw of the Ideal Is That It Does Not Encounter Time or Touch.".
Video
Although all Rosenthal's work is presented in a straightforward manner, her video is the most deceptively simple. The videos are often very brief, and like her other works, consist of text (sometimes onscreen, and sometimes in a title pun) and/or performance and/or single-shot surreal photography, or straight-on cinematography. These images and texts come directly from observation of a real phenomenon often shot in the course of her real life.Then, if a more profound significance becomes apparent to her, they are presented without adulteration or commentary, either with or without juxtaposition of related footage to reveal a personal vision that is often considered political.
It is this simple exposure of real, extant phenomenon, without "artistic" additions, that reveals her world view, which often seems bleak. Nevertheless, much of it contains wry humor. It is often honed and remade, with sections added and refined over the years.
One such video is "Dead Heat," which premièred at her mini-retrospective at The Directors Lounge in Berlin, June 25, 2009. It is a 3-minute piece consisting of 4 horizontal split-screen segments which were shot in different video gauges between 1987 and 2009. In each segment, a figure transverses the screen, apparently in real time, from left to right: a bird, a horse, herself, a ship. But because each takes its own time, Rosenthal repeats the transverse crossing, so they lap each other. But she has mathematically tweaked the timing, so that each figure enters the screen on frame one and leaves the screen on the final frame, simultaneously. The bird, being the fastest, repeats the traverse many times, and the ship (which was shot from her window on the Hudson), only once. The horse (ridden by one of her children across the cornfield of one of her friends) and herself (in a park in Berlin) cross at their own speed. The title, "Dead Heat", is an American pun that means a tied race, so, upon analysis, it can be understood to mean that our lives as individuals might be lived according to our own natures, but we all begin with the same first step, and we all end, together, in death.
Art philosophy
In a videotaped 1992 panel discussion with critic Ellen HandyEllen Handy
Ellen Joan Handy is a critic and historian of art, printmaking, and photography. She is Chair of the Photography Department of City College of the City University of New York....
about art-making at The Gallery Of Contemporary Art in Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield is a town located in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is bordered by the towns of Bridgeport, Trumbull, Easton, Redding and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 59,404...
, she enumerated many "dictums that guide [her] production: that pattern serve as color; that as few materials are used as possible; that as little space is used as possible; that there be no embellishment or superfluous element of design; that a work be visible and present new elements at every distance; that it engage a viewer differently from separate vantages; that it reach several centers of the psyche simultaneously; so a viewer is left room to freely associate; that mystery is always present; that it does not advocate; that it does not mimic past successes; that it can maintain its veracity in an imaginary room of great works; that it be available to everyone and that it be both produced and priced at lowest possible cost."
Recent solo exhibitions
Recent solo exhibitions include the following:- "Barbara Rosenthal: Existential Wall Works,Photography, Drawing and Performance", Lucas Carrieri Gallery, Berlin, Germany, June 26, 2009.
- "Barbara Rosenthal - 33 Existential Videos”, Directors Lounge, Berlin, Germany, June 25, 2009.
- "Existential Interact", a series of street performances in front of KW Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary ArtKunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary ArtThe Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art is a contemporary art institution in Berlin’s Mitte District. It is located at - Auguststrasse 69 D-10117 Berlin....
during the Wooloo Berlin New Life Festival in Berlin, Germany, June, 2008. - "Existential Cartoons", an exhibition of digital prints, DVD projections and animated cartoons at the L-Gallery of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, June, 2007.
- “Barbara Rosenthal Contemplates Suicide,” a Bathroom Installation of printed and sewn objects, button pins, and video at the Pool Art Fair, Chelsea HotelHotel ChelseaThe Hotel Chelsea, also known as the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea, is a historic New York City hotel and landmark, known primarily for its history of notable residents...
, NYC, Oct., 2006. - "Devolution of Self", an exhibition of digital prints on mylar, roped to ceiling, floor and each other, at the Pickled Art Centre, Beijing, China, June, 2006.
Rosenthal's group shows include venues such as Jewish Museum (New York)
Jewish Museum (New York)
The Jewish Museum of New York, an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, is the leading Jewish museum in the United States. With over 26,000 objects, it contains the largest collection of art and Jewish culture outside of museums in Israel. The museum is housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in...
, and the Stenersenmuseet Museum, Oslo, Norway.
Major collections
The largest holdings of Rosenthal's works in Europe are at Artpool Art Research CenterArtpool Art Research Center
Artpool Art Research Center is a free, non-profit archives and exhibition space in Budapest, Hungary, dedicated to contemporary international avant-garde media arts, such as artist’s books, mail art, and video...
, and the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
Britain Library, London, England. The largest American holdings of her work are in The Dadabase Collection of The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
. Her archives, including over one hundred volumes of workbooks and Journals, and fifty drafts of her unpublished novel, "Wish For Amnesia", are currently housed at eMediaLoft.org, NYC, and bequeathed to the Special Collections of the Hunt Library at Carnegie-Mellon University, upon her death.
Teaching positions and other employment
Rosenthal's first college teaching position was as a sabbatical replacement instructor of painting at Stephens CollegeStephens College
Stephens College is a women's college located in Columbia, Missouri. It is the second oldest female educational establishment that is still a women's college in the United States. It was founded on August 24, 1833 as the Columbia Female Academy. In 1856, David H. Hickman turned it into a college,...
, Columbia, Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
Columbia is the fifth-largest city in Missouri, and the largest city in Mid-Missouri. With a population of 108,500 as of the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, a region of 164,283 residents. The city serves as the county seat of Boone County and as the...
, in 1976-77. In 1982, with video pioneer Bill Creston, she founded eMediaLoft.org and .com. Since 1990, Rosenthal has taught writing as an adjunct lecturer at the College of Staten Island
College of Staten Island
The College of Staten Island is a four-year, senior college of and is one of the 11 senior colleges in the City University of New York. Programs in the liberal arts and sciences and professional studies lead to bachelor's and associate's degrees. The master's degree is awarded in 13 professional...
of The City University of New York (CUNY/CSI). Rosenthal has also taught photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, multi-media, painting, drawing, design, crafts and art history at other colleges, including, among those in New York, The School of Visual Arts (SVA) and Parsons School of Design, where she was editor and producer of The College Council Faculty Affairs Newsletter. She also taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Photography at SUNY/Nassau in 1994. She co-founded the Outrageous Consortium with filmmaker Margot Niederland in 2005; and founded The Museum of Modern Media in NYC, 2006.
Grants, honors, awards
In 2006, Rosenthal received an Artist's Residency from Red Gate Gallery, Beijing This follows residencies in 2000 at Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY; an AmigaAmiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
Computer Video Imaging Residency Grant at Adaptors/Brooklyn, NY, in 1996; three Electronic Arts Grant Video Residency, Experimental TV Center, Owego, NY in 1989, 90 and 91; a Harvestworks Audio-Video Residency, NYC in 1988 and a Video Arts Residency at Real Art Ways
Real Art Ways
Real Art Ways is a non-profit art space established in 1975. Located at 56 Arbor Street in the Parkville neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut, Real Art Ways exhibits visual art, houses an independent cinema and presents live music, theater, and literary and community events.It has shown such...
, Hartford, CT in 1988.
Monetary awards have included a Media Presentation Grant from Experimental TV Center, Owego, NY in 2000; Finishing Funds from Film Bureau in NYC 1991; a New York State Council on the Arts Video Facility Subsidy Grant at Margolis/Brown Adaptors, Brooklyn, NY in 1998; a Finishing Funds Grant from Media Bureau/The Kitchen
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary art and performance space located at at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
in NYC, in 1988; three Artists Space/Artists Grants in NYC 1986, 89 and 90; and a Creative Arts for Public Service C.A.P.S. Grant in Video, New York State, in 1984.
Rosenthal received a Medal of Honor from the Brussels Ministry of Culture, Brussels, Belgium, in 1990; Rosenthal received a Global Village
Global Village
Global Village is an Australian television show broadcast by the Australian public broadcaster SBS. The program is hosted by Silvio Rivier, who also does many of the voice overs. In 2008 it combined with Thalassa, a French documentary series, to expand its coverage of coastal areas.Global Village...
Documentary Festival Award in NYC, 1983; listing as a Fiction Writer, Poet, and Spoken Word Artist by Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers, Inc. is one of the largest nonprofit literary organization in the United States serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers...
, NYC, since 1986; and elected membership in Pi Delta Epsilon National Publications Honor Society, USA, in 1970.
In 1982 Rosenthal became an associate founding member of The Women's Institute For Freedom of the Press, Washington, DC and is still an active member.
Publications about Barbara Rosenthal
- Boyle, Deirdre, "Video Playback: Less is More, and Other Video Verities" "Sightlines", Summer 1982
- Carswell, Clare, "New Life Berlin Festival : Barbara Rosenthal : 'I Think You Think. What Do You Think?'", Interface, Newcastle, UK, June 2008
- Carswell, Clare, "Existential Interaction" NYArts, New York, NY, Nov-Dec 2008
- Coleman, A.D.,"Revising Revisionism: Footnotes to the Current Fantasy", Center Quarterly, Woodstock, NY, Winter 1985-86
- Dargis, Manohla, "Countercurrents: Change of Direction", Village Voice, New York, NY, August 16, 1988
- Fletcher, Milton, "Taboo or Not Taboo: Barbara Rosenthal During Performa05", Art Fairs International, New York, NY, March–April 2006
- Handy, Ellen, "Messages: Carlo LaMagna Gallery", Arts, New York, NY, Feb 1988
- Handy, Ellen, "First Impressions, Last Resorts: Printmaking at the End of the Century," Center Quarterly, Woodstock, NY, Sept 1999
- Handy, Ellen, "Time and Memory: The Limits of Photography", Center Photography Quarterly, Woodstock, NY, 1994
- Handy, Ellen, "Time and Memory, Video Art and Identity", Catalogue, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, 1988
- Hoffberg, Judith A., "Three From Barbara Rosenthal", Umbrella, Santa Monica, CA, 2000
- Hoffberg, Judith A., "Reviews: One 4-Word Book/Four 1-Word Books", Umbrella, Santa Monica, CA, 1995
- Kostelanetz, Richard, editor, "Barbara Rosenthal", Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes , Schirmer Books, NYC, Paper: 2002, hardcover: 2001
- Lieberman, Laura C. , "Once Is Not Enough", Afterimage, Rochester, NY, Fall, 1990
- Morgan, Robert C., "Art: Structure, Repetition and 'The Body", Cover, New York, NY, April 1994
- Myers, George, Jr., "Cretan Bull Dancers: Carolee Schneemann, Terry Kennedy, Irene Siegel, Linda Montano & Barbara Rosenthal," Introduction to Modern Times, Lunchroom Press, East Lansing, MI, 1982
- Parker, Ara Rose, "Clues to Myself by Barbara Rosenthal", Photo-Communique, Toronto, Canada, Winter 1982
- Russell, John, "Views of Jewishness In Museum Video Show", New York Times, July 29, 1988
- Spector, Buzz, "Artists' Writings," Art Journal, New York, NY, Fall, 1990
- Yerkov, Sergei, "Existential Cartoons: Barbara Rosenthal in Moscow" NYArts, New York, NY, Nov-Dec 2007
Books
- Clues to Myself, Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY, 1981 ISBN 0-89822-015-7
- Homo Futurus, Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY, 1986 ISBN 0-89822-046-7
- Sensations, Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY, 1984 ISBN 0-89822-022-X
- Soul & Psyche, Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY, 1998 ISBN 0-89822-121-8
- Weeks, (collaboration with poet Hannah Weiner), Xexoxial Endarchy, Madison, WI, 1990
Pamphlets
- Catalogue Raisonné, The Museum of Modern Media, NYC, 2007
- Children's Shoes, eMediaLoft.org, NYC, 1992
- Introduction to the Trilogy, eMediaLoft.org, NYC, 1985
- Names/Lives, eMediaLoft.org, NYC, 2001
- Old Address Book, eMediaLoft.org, N.Y.C., 1984
- Structure And Meaning, eMediaLoft.org, NYC, 1981
Articles and reviews
- A Crack In The Sidewalk, Weekly Columns, The Franklin Square Bulletin, 1963–65
- "Allan McCollum is Not Locked In", NYArts Magazine, November/December 2004
- "All Great Art is Myth: John Baldessari at Marian Goodman", NYArts Magazine, May–June 2007
- "Co-Conspirators: Artist and Collector: Chelsea Museum, NY", NYArts Magazine, November/December 2005
- “Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Kara Walker", "Todd Hido, 'Roaming'”, "Street Art", "Patterson Beckwith, 'Home'”, "Liz-n-Val, 'After Art'”, "EIDIAEIDIA- Overview :Paul Lamarre , grew up oldest of seven children in a large Roman Catholic family. Early inspiration to be an American contemporary artist came as a child seeing the Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry Murals at the Detroit Institute of Art...
, 'We Apologize Book Launch'”, "Theresa Hackett, 'More Ground to Cover'”, "Jeanne Susplugas, 'Ordinary Landscapes'”, "Richard Deacon, Sculpture at Marian Goodman", AC (ArtCircles), NYC, Fall-Winter 2004 - "Lester Rapaport, Works on Canvas and Paper," "Focal Point Series presents Christian Marclay", "Yoko Ono, “Editions, Ephemera and Printed Works", "“Reflecting the Mirror,” curated by Karina Daskalov, Marian Goodman Gallery," AC (ArtCircles), NYC, Summer-Fall 2004
- "Martha Rosler Library Vis-a-Vis The Danish Cartoons", NYArts Magazine, Feb. 2006
- "Self-Devolution in Beijing", NYArts Magazine, Sept-October, 2005
- “Their Lives in Art: Robert Henry and Selina Trieff”, “65th Anniversary Exhibition, Part I: Galerie St. Etienne", "Sarah Moon: Circus” “From Fontana to Zauli”, "Romare Bearden at Bill Hodges Gallery", "'John Biggers 'My America'” “The French Connection at Mary Ryan Gallery", "Gustavo Lopez Armentia Retrospective", AC (ArtCircles), NYC, December–January 2004-2005.
- "The Way In and The Way Out: At the Nomadic Museum", NYArts Magazine, July/August 2005/July/August 2005)
- "Tim Hawkinson: Artist as the Center of the Universe", NYArts Magazine, May/June 2005
- "Well Dog My Katz!", NYArts Magazine, January/February 2005