Critical Writing Index

Lost Art: A Cargo Cult Romance

by Vera Frenkel

Video Guide, 1986, v. 8, no. 37/2, pp. 12-13

In an excerpt from the exhibition catalogue published to coincide with "Luminous Sites," a large exhibition of Canadian video art in Vancouver, Vera Frenkel comments on her installation "Lost Art: A Cargo Cult Romance," her piece in "Luminous Sites." In her installation, Frenkel constructs a shrine for the cargo cult she invents around a drawing given to the Banff Permanent Collection a decade prior, which was lost. Presenting the drawing through video footage in her shrine, Frenkel plays on the conventions that create, perpetuate, or dissolve--to various levels of accuracy--the meaning of ideas within and outside of the art world.

Please refer to item 1986.109 ("As A Wife Has a Cow," exhibition review by Sara Diamond) for printed publication details.

ITEM 1986.044 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Lost Art: A Cargo Cult RomanceVera Frenkel