Stories From The Front (And Back)

‘In her video installations (Signs of a Plot: A Text, True Story & Work of Art, Stories from the Front (and the Back): A True Blue Romance, Body Missing), Vera Frenkel creates doubles of herself – “as a artist” – which individuate her fictitious authorial voices. She questions by the use of these “authors” the criteria whereby we distinguish truth from falsehood, and the processes that underly belief. The author argues that this polyphonic, dialogic relationship with authorship polemicizes authorial responsibility and individuality. Frenkel’s use of heteronymous figures, such as Cornelia Lumsden (in The Secret Life), sets curators, viewers and critics in a triad of shared authorship.’ – Anne Bénichou