Barbara Rosenthal facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Barbara Rosenthal
Barbara Rosenthal standing in her top-floor loft at 727 Avenue of the Americas, NYC, in 1990
Born	Barbara Ann Rosenthal 1948 (age 76–77) The Bronx, New York
Nationality	American
Education	Brooklyn Museum Art School, Art Students League, Carnegie-Mellon University, Tyler School of Art in Rome, New York University Institute of Art History, City University of New York
Known for	Avant-garde art, writing, performance, photography, diaries, printmaking, artists books, video, new media, electronic media, installation, surrealism, existentialism, philosophy, conceptual art
Notable work	Journal: Volumes 1-71, Homo Futurus, Surreal Photography, Conceptual Photography, Provocation Cards, Existential Cartoons,

Barbara Ann Rosenthal (born in 1948) is an American avant-garde artist, writer, and performer. Her art often explores deep questions about what it means to be human. She uses different names, like "Homo Futurus" (from one of her books) and "Cassandra-on-the-Hudson." This second name hints at the challenging world she sees when making art in her New York City studio.

Rosenthal is a conceptual artist, which means her art is mostly about ideas. She often reuses parts of her older works, mixing them with new elements. She might use X-rays, brain scans, or pieces from her personal journals in her art. As an artist who explores surrealism and existentialism, she looks deeply into her own thoughts and feelings. By using herself "as a guinea pig," she tries to understand what it means to be a person.

She is known as an "Old Master of New Media" because she uses lots of modern art forms. These include photography, video, and digital art. Many of her works combine pictures, text, and live performances.

Early Life and Education

Barbara Rosenthal was born in The Bronx in 1948. When she was just 11 years old, she wrote a weekly column for her town newspaper.

She studied art at many places, including the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the Art Students' League. She also studied art history at New York University. Later, she earned her art degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1970. She continued her studies and received her master's degree in painting from Queens College in 1975.

While studying, Rosenthal worked as a photojournalist for newspapers like The Village Voice. She also taught printmaking and directed performances at a high school in Seattle.

Teaching and Other Work

Rosenthal began teaching painting at Stephens College in 1976. In 1982, she helped start eMediaLoft.org, a media organization. Since 1990, she has taught writing at the College of Staten Island. She has also taught photography, video, and art history at other colleges. In 2006, she founded The Museum of Modern Media in New York City.

Writing and Art with Text

Barbara Rosenthal writes many things, including poems, stories, and art reviews. She creates short, wise sayings called "Provocation Cards." She often hands these out for free during her performances or on the street. Her stories often show a serious view of the world, with people facing strange situations.

Rosenthal writes for NY Arts Magazine. She believes art should not be used to push a specific message or cause. She calls this "retrogarde" and it sets her apart from many other artists today.

Homo Futurus and Provocation Cards

One important series of her work is called Homo Futurus. This project includes books and wall art. It aims to help us understand what makes us human, especially our ideals and values. The art uses news photos, postcards, and her own family pictures. It also includes text from her personal journals.

Some of her famous sayings from this project include: "All history... serves only to influence behavior of single individuals at single moments." And, "The Flaw of the Ideal Is That It Does Not Encounter Time or Touch."

These sayings also appear in her Provocation Cards. She first shared these cards anonymously through mail art in 1989. Later, she used them in her video performances. She also hands them out during live events called Existential Interacts. These events often involve special masks and pins. She has performed these interactive projects in New York, Berlin, Prague, London, Brussels, and Paris.

Performance Art

Rosenthal's performances often mix images, text, and video. She didn't do many live performances until 2005. Her first performance, "Self-Portrait Room," was in 1968. In 2009 and 2010, she represented the United States in performance art at a festival in Prague.

In her performances, Rosenthal explores themes of being an individual and human identity. She often uses installations, projected photos, text, video, and music.

From 1976 to 1984, she made videos by simply recording real-life situations with a camera. Later, she started staging these actions. For example, in 1984, she made Colors and Auras with poet Hannah Weiner. Her famous 1988 video, How Much Does The Monkey Count, was shown again in New York in the 1990s.

In 2005, Rosenthal performed Existential Interact in New York. She wore shirts with images and text and handed out Provocation Cards. She performed this interactive project in many famous places around the world. In 2013, she started using video morphs in her performances, like in I’m Growing Up. In this piece, she stands still while photos of her changing image are projected onto her.

Photography

Photography is a key way Rosenthal expresses her thoughts and feelings about reality. In her Surreal Photography series, which started in 1976, she creates images that suggest a psychological story. These pictures can make viewers think of metaphors in their own minds.

She uses traditional 35mm film cameras. Until 2005, she only shot in black and white, developing the film herself. Since 2006, she also shoots color film. She scans her negatives to create digital prints.

Her photographs are often shown in art galleries. She has had solo photography shows in New York, Berlin, and Montreal. Her Surreal Photography includes categories like Free Birds, Trapped Figures, and Dangerous Forests. About 200 of her surreal photos have been published in her books. She also worked as a photojournalist for newspapers from 1978 to 1988.

Video Art

Since 1976, Barbara Rosenthal has made over 100 videos. She has used many different video technologies as they have changed over time.

Her videos often use techniques like repetition and changes in sound to create a certain feeling. Australian art historian Barb Bolt calls this Rosenthal's "choreography."

In 1982, she won an award for her video Helen Webster: Cancer and Self-Discovery. Her videos Leah Gluck: Victim of the Twins Experiments and Women in the Camps were shown at The Jewish Museum in New York in 1988.

Rosenthal's videos often seem simple, but they are very thoughtful. They are usually short and combine text, performance, or surreal photography. These images and texts come from her real-life observations. She presents them without extra comments to show her unique view of the world, which can sometimes seem serious. However, many of her videos also have a funny side.

One example is her video Dead Heat, which premiered in Berlin in 2009. It's a three-minute video with four parts shown on a split screen. In each part, something crosses the screen from left to right: a bird, a horse, Rosenthal herself, and a ship. She carefully timed them so they all start and end at the same moment. The title "Dead Heat" means a tied race. This suggests that while we live our lives at our own pace, we all begin and end together.

Even with serious themes, her videos often use humor to show how hard it can be for people to truly communicate. Her work encourages us to try and understand everyone in the human species.

Many of her older videos are gaining new attention. Ola Writes the Alphabet (1982), made with her daughter, was shown in New York in 2013. Her 1979 piece, Pregnancy Dreams / Priming a Wall, was also shown again in 2013.

Art Philosophy

In 1992, Barbara Rosenthal shared some of the rules that guide her art. She believes art should:

• Use as few materials and as little space as possible.
• Have no extra decoration.
• Look different and show new things from every distance.
• Make viewers think in different ways.
• Always have a sense of mystery.
• Not try to convince people of a specific idea.
• Be original and not copy past successes.
• Be available to everyone and be affordable.

In 2013, Rosenthal gave talks in Australia called "Authenticity in Art" and "The Medium is NOT the Message." She said that artists should value originality and not copy others' styles. She believes art shows an artist's unique view of the world. Artists should create work from their "own soul and psyche." She also thinks that the message or content of art is more important than the materials or form it takes.

Her process involves writing in her journal, which gives her ideas. She uses things and people from her real life in her art.

Recent Exhibitions

Barbara Rosenthal has had many solo art shows recently:

• "Barbara Rosenthal: Authenticity in Art", Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, Oct. 2013
• "Barbara Rosenthal: The Medium is NOT the Message", Art Forum/Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia, Sept. 2013
• "Barbara Rosenthal: Existential Interact with Provocation Cards" and "The Secret of Life and Other Shorts", Peanut Underground Art Projects, New York, NY, Aug. 2013
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Existential Interact, Paris", Esplenade du Trocadéro, Paris, France, Feb. 2013
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Existential Word Play", Studio Baustelle, Berlin, Germany, Feb. 2013
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Mini Video Retrospective: Existential Word Play", Millennium Film Workshop, New York, NY, Jan 2013
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Surreal Photography: Trapped Figures and Tiny Houses", Visual Voice Gallery, Montreal, Canada, Nov. 2012
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Existential Word Play", Montreal Art Centre, Montreal, Canada, Nov. 2012
• Decade Of Madness: Barbara Rosenthal – Photo Projections & Reading", Fourth Street Photo Gallery, New York, NY, 2012
• "Barbara Rosenthal With DJ RoBeat On Stage", Joe's Bar, Berlin, Germany, 2011
• "Barbara Rosenthal Filmabend", Galerie Glass, Berlin, Germany, Aug. 2012
• "Journal Into Art: Barbara Rosenthal – Reading With Projections", Central Booking Artspace, Brooklyn, NY, 2012
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Das Tagebuch gibt mir Ideen, Lettrétage: Das junge Literaturhaus, Berlin, Germany, 2011
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Flying Objects, Photographs & Videos, Morgenvogel Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2011
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Existential Interact, Grand'Place, Brussels, Belgium, 2010
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Summer Solstice Mask Performance, Stonehendge, UK, 2010
• "Barbara Rosenthal – Video Poetry, Lettrétage: Das junge Literaturhaus, Berlin, Germany, 2010
• "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 Art 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.
• "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.

Her art has also been shown in group exhibitions at places like the Jewish Museum (New York) and the Stenersenmuseet Museum in Oslo, Norway.

Major Collections

Barbara Rosenthal's art is held in important collections around the world. In Europe, her works are at the Artpool Art Research Center and the Tate Britain Library in London. In the United States, her art is in The Dadabase Collection of The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art.

Her personal archives, including over a hundred volumes of her journals and workbooks, are currently kept at eMediaLoft.org in New York City. They are planned to go to the Special Collections of the Hunt Library at Carnegie-Mellon University in the future.

Awards and Honors

In 2013, Barbara Rosenthal was part of the New Museum's XFR-STN project, which helps preserve media art.

She has received several artist residencies, which are special programs where artists can live and work. These include residencies at the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing (2006) and the Visual Studies Workshop Press (2000). She also received grants for electronic arts and video.

Rosenthal has also received money awards for her art. These include grants from the Experimental Television Center and Artists Space. In 1984, she received a grant from Creative Arts for Public Service for her video work.

In 1990, she received a Medal of Honor from the Brussels Ministry of Culture in Belgium. She also won an award at the Global Village Documentary Festival in New York in 1983.

Selected Works

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 and saddle-stitched books

• Existential Cartoons, L-Gallery of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, 2007
• 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

Images for kids

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  Barbara Rosenthal in her studio in 1990.