Series: New Television Workshop
Program: Magritte sur la Plage
Date: 1976-01-01
Duration: 00:00:39

Subject: Experimental films; Video art; Surrealism
People: Barron, Ros; Magritte, René
Copyright Holder: Ros Barron

Clip Description
This short excerpt from Ros Barron's dramatic movement work, featuring the reconstruction of various elements from paintings of the surrealist artist, René Magritte, shows a dancer reflected in a large mirror. Text is spoken in French.

Program Description
This episode of "Artist's Showcase" features "Magriitte sur la Plage" by Ros Barron.

Ros Barron's "Magriitte sur la Plage" is a dramatic movement work featuring the reconstruction of various elements from Magritte paintings and incorporating live bodies at a beach/ocean setting. Plastic letters are arranged and rearranged to spell the words "evil" and "a vie." Text is spoken in French and English, and unidentified music accompanies the work.

"Artist's Showcase" was a series designed to showcase video art and experimental work from WGBH. The program ran on Sunday evenings at 11 P.M., from the fall of 1976 through 1982. In the early 1970's, "Artist's Showcase" was the only consistent broadcast outlet for many of the Workshop productions. Most materials of broadcast quality created at WGBH in the mid-1970's were shown as part of this series. Additionally, earlier video art experiments and segments of related shows, such as "Mixed Bag" or "What's Happening Mr. Silver" were broadcast under these auspices. This series was also a broadcast outlet for a handful of works by video artists that were not created at WGBH but only acquired for this purpose. Some compilation reels showing highlights of Workshop activity were also broadcast.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Magritte296.HTML