Margia Kramer

Last updated
Margia Kramer
Born1939
Brooklyn, New York City, NY
NationalityAmerican
Known forDocumentary art, video installations, multi-media, videos, artist's books focused on the Freedom of Information Act and declassified government documents
Notable work
  • Essential Documents, The FBI File on Jean Seberg, Part I, Part II (1979)
  • Secret I (1980) floor installation with pamphlet, Artists Space Gallery, New York
  • Secret III, Secret IV (1980) window installations with pamphlets, Printed Matter and Franklin Furnace, New York
  • Secret VI (1980) video installation, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
  • Freedom of Information Tapes 1-3, (1980-1985)
  • American Film Institute First and Fifth Annual Video Festivals (1981, 1985)
  • Jean Seberg/The FBI/The Media (1981) video installation, book, Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Progress/Memory II (1984) video installation, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
  • Jean Seberg in Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists (1980) Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
  • Progress/Memory in Making Their Mark: Women Artists Move Into the Mainstream 1970 to 1985 (1988-1990) United States (multiple showings)
  • Rehnquist to Hear Black Panther Case in Committed to Print (1988-1990) Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Andy Warhol et al. The FBI File on Andy Warhol (1988) book
  • Looking at Militarism (1989) film and video installation, List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • I a WO/MAN (1989) video and film installation, San Francisco Artspace
  • Jean Seberg in Postcards from Alphaville: Jean Luc Godard in Contemporary Art 1963-1992 (1992-1993), P.S.1, Institute for Contemporary Art, New York
  • CIA Screen in Democracy and Politics (1993), group material at Dia Art Foundation, New York

Margia Kramer (born 1939) is an American documentary visual artist, writer and activist living in New York. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kramer recontextualized primary texts in a series of pioneering, interdisciplinary multi-media installations, videotapes, self-published books, and writings that focused on feminist, civil rights, civil liberties, censorship, and surveillance issues.

Contents

Overview

Margia Kramer is an American documentary visual artist, writer and activist living in New York. [1] In the 1970s and 1980s, Kramer recontextualized primary texts in a series of pioneering, interdisciplinary multi-media installations, videotapes, self-published books, and writings that focused on feminist, civil rights, civil liberties, censorship, and surveillance issues. [2] Her works have been widely exhibited, including over 15 one-person shows, and over 40 group exhibitions at [3] (1979); the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (1980); [4] the Museum of Modern Art (1981); [5] the Whitney Museum of American Art (1984); [6] Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE, 1987); [7] the Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (1988); the List Visual Arts Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1989); [8] [9] San Francisco Artspace (1989); P.S. 1 (1992); The Institute for Contemporary Art (1993); the Dia Art Foundation (1993); [10] the American Film Institute Video Festivals; and at museums, galleries, and alternative spaces in the U.S. and abroad. Kramer's videos and installation works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, New York Public Library, and in the private collection of Albert and Vera List, among other private and public collections.

In the 1970s and 1980s, using the United States' Freedom of Information Act (1967), Kramer sourced and requested, from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), specific documents and dossiers. [11] Kramer presented these original FBI and CIA documents to the public in her art works, exactly as they were released to her, including redactions, and unchanged in text and format. To underscore the inherent repressiveness of the official government documents' deletions and redactions, Kramer's creative process included enlarging or reducing their scale, shifting their positive/negative ratios (documents were made into negatives and enlarged), and changing the materials upon which they were printed from paper to transparent film. [12] Kramer transformed the hieratic, primary materials into installations of giant negative photostats on transparent film that were suspended on threads from ceilings to cast shadows on surrounding walls. The large scale, hanging black rectangles and trenchant white to black positive/negative forms where redactions and texts became transparent, combined to create a chilling but compelling atmosphere that was simultaneously oppressive and informative.

By making art that highlighted the specific contents of the documents she received, Kramer was able to demonstrate their undercover strategies, as well as their negative emotional and material impact on the lives of United States citizens protected by the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights. [13] These works centered on issues around feminism, censorship, civil liberties, and civil rights, all in the context of government surveillance. [14] In particular, Kramer made a series of videos, documentary books, and installations on subjects of state counterintelligence programs ("cointelpro") including the actress Jean Seberg, [15] [16] and the artist, filmmaker, and impresario/provocateur Andy Warhol. [17] [18]

Photographs of major works

Window installation (exterior/interior), "Secret III," 1980, Printed Matter Bookstore, Lispenard Street, NYC. Pages from Jean Seberg's FBI File received by the artist from the FBI using the Freedom of Information Act. Enlarged pages from the file printed on transparent film, plus a self-published pamphlet with an introduction by the artist and including more facsimile pages from the File. Photograph by Margia Kramer.

Video installation with multi-media. Enlarged negative photostats on transparent film of facsimiles of 4 pages from the FBI File on Jean Seberg and a New York Times article, "Rehnquist To Hear Black Panther Case," 20 minute videotape "Freedom of Information Tape 1, Jean Seberg" (1980) by Margia Kramer. "Jean Seberg/The FBI/The Media," a pamphlet by Margia Kramer. Approximately 12" x 12." In the exhibition, "Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists,"Institute of Contemporary Art, London. [19] Photograph by Margia Kramer.

Facsimiles of pages from the FBI File on Jean Seberg included copies of pages from relevant magazine and newspaper articles, an original 20 minute videotape "Freedom of Information Tape 1, Jean Seberg" by Margia Kramer, an original handbook, "Jean Seberg/The FBI/The Media" by Margia Kramer, enlarged negative photostats on transparent film of file pages, and positive photostats on paper of relevant magazine and newspaper articles. Approx. 25' x 25' The exhibition encompassed a Jean Seberg Film Festival held at the Donnell Library and Carnegie Hall Cinema, a special screening of Seberg as "St. Joan" at MOMA, and a panel discussion "Freedom of Information and the Arts," moderated by Margia Kramer, at the Donnell Library. Photograph by the Margia Kramer.

"Address Book Triptych" (1987-1988). Multi-media triptych. Enlarged negative photostats on transparent film of facsimiles of declassified, redacted pages of opponents of the Vietnam War. From the FBI files requested by the artist using the Freedom of Act. Teak frames with Plexiglas, 22" x 51" (3 panels). [20] Photograph by Margia Kramer.

"CIA Screen" (1987-1988). Multi-media four-panel folding screen. Enlarged negative photostats on transparent film of facsimile of a 4-page recruitment brochure published by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for its Clandestine Service. Teak frames with Plexiglas, 72" x 80" (4 panels). In the exhibition "Democracy and Politics," (1988) curated by Group Material at the Dia Art Foundation, New York. [21] [22] Photograph by the Margia Kramer.

"Looking At Militarism" (1989). Multi-media installation with film and video. Enlarged negative photostats on transparent film, with teak frames, of facsimiles of documents from MIT archives, government defense programs, war and peace initiatives, budget priorities, newspaper articles, and other relevant documents. Archival film footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki showing the effects of nuclear war. Original video interviews by the artist on the subject of peace activism with MIT Professors Vera Kistiakowsky and Noam Chomsky. Approximately 40' x 50'. List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [23] [24] Photograph by Margia Kramer.

"I a WO/MAN: The FBI File on Andy Warhol" (1989). Mixed media installation. Enlarged negative photostats on transparent film, with redwood frames, of facsimiles of redacted pages from Andy Warhol's FBI File — using the Freedom of Information Act, the artist requested that the file be declassified following Warhol's death. The large photostats were hung from the ceiling over 30' long, horizontal platform that concealed all but the screens of video monitors pointed towards the ceiling, continuously playing three, commercially released Warhol/Morrisey films: Flesh, Trash, and Heat. Pamphlet by Margia Kramer, "Andy Warhol et al. The FBI File on Andy Warhol" (New York, 1988). Approximately 25' x 40'. San Francisco Artspace. [25] Includes "The Warhol File," by Margia Kramer from The Village Voice, May 1988. [26] Photograph by Bonnie Burt.

Affiliations

Kramer was among the founding members (along with Lucy Lippard) of Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), [27] [28] and was a member of the editorial board of its magazine, Upfront, to which she contributed two articles. [29] [30] PAD/D's archive is now housed in the library of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. [31]

Videography

Writings

Publications by Margia Kramer

Other original writings

Selected works

Selected exhibitions

One-person exhibitions:

Group exhibitions:

Awards

Education

Notes

  1. ↑ Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy (1997). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. p. 315. ISBN   9781315051680.
  2. ↑ Kramer, Margia. "Notes on Art as Intervention", Women Artists News, May 1980 (New York), p. 14f
  3. ↑ "Artists Space". Margia Kramer January 5–19, 1980. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  4. ↑ Lippard, Lucy R."Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, (1980)
  5. ↑ Kramer, Margia. "Notes on Expression/Repression," Wedge: An Aesthetic Inquiry, Number 1, Summer 1982 (New York), p.30f
  6. ↑ Linker, Kate. "Margia Kramer, Progress (Memory)," in "Reviews, New York," Artforum, Vol.XXII, No.10, Summer 1984 (New York), p.89
  7. ↑ Miller, Branda and Deborah Irmas et al. "Surveillance," LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), Los Angeles, 1987
  8. ↑ Bright Deborah. "Military Madness," Afterimage, Vol. 17 No. 1, Summer 1989, (Rochester), p.18f
  9. ↑ "MIT List Center". Margia Kramer: Looking at Militarism (Artist-In-Residence). Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  10. ↑ Brian Wallis (ed) - "Democracy, A Project of Group Material," Dia Art Foundation, Discussions in Contemporary Culture, Number 5 (Seattle, 1990)
  11. ↑ Kramer, Margia; Shafrensky, Renee (April 1983). "Character assassination—Jean Seberg and information control". Jump Cut (28): 68–71. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
  12. ↑ Lippard, Lucy R. "A Different War, Vietnam in Art," (Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Seattle, 1990), p.111,114
  13. ↑ Lippard, Lucy R. "Get the Message? A Decade of Art for Social Change (New York 1984), p.l40f
  14. ↑ "Smithsonian Archives". Margia Kramer's documentary installation War and Peace at the Rotunda Gallery. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  15. ↑ "Printed Matter". Margia Kramer "Essential Documents II". Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  16. ↑ "Unreliable Narrators" . Retrieved 28 May 2017.
  17. ↑ Kramer, Margia. "The Warhol File," The Village Voice (New York), 5/17/88
  18. ↑ O'Pray, Michael (ed.) "Andy Warhol: Film Factory," London (British Film Institute) 1989
  19. ↑ Lucy R. Lippard, "Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists," Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, 1980)
  20. ↑ Lucy R. Lippard, "A Different War: Vietnam in Art" (Seattle 1990), pp. 111,114
  21. ↑ "Democracy and Politics," Group Material, Dia Art Foundation (New York, 1988)
  22. ↑ Brian Wallis (ed.) "DEMOCRACY A Project of Group Material," Dia Art Foundation, Discussions in Contemporary Culture, Number 5 (Seattle, 1990)
  23. ↑ Marie Cieri et al. (with artist contributors). "19 Projects, Artists-in-Residence at the MIT List Visual Arts Center," Cambridge, Mass, 1996, p.133-144.
  24. ↑ Deborah Bright, "Military Madness," in Afterimage, Vol. 17 No. 1 (Rochester, Summer 1989), p.18f.
  25. ↑ O'Pray, Michael (ed.) "Andy Warhol: Film Factory," London (British Film Institute, 1989) p.9, 178f.
  26. ↑ Kramer, Margia. "The Warhol File," The Village Voice (New York), 5/17/88
  27. ↑ Ault, Julie (2002). Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985: A Cultural Politics Book for the Social Text Collective. U of Minnesota Press. p. 339. ISBN   0816637946.
  28. ↑ Morgan, Tiernan (17 April 2014). "Art in the 1980s: The Forgotten History of PAD/D". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  29. ↑ Kramer, Margia and Vanalyn Green. "Against Inner Exile," Upfront 2, Winter 1981/82 (New York), p.30f
  30. ↑ Kramer, Margia. "Cracking the Concrete: Interventionist Posters," Upfront, Winter 1986/87 (New York),p.iiif
  31. ↑ "MoMA". Margia Kramer American, born 1936. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  32. ↑ Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy (1997). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. p. 315. ISBN   9781315051680.

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