Series: Artist's Showcase
Date: 1978-01-01
Subject: Portraits
People: Novak, Barbara; Ireland, Patrick
Copyright Holder: Patrick Ireland

Clip Description
"Barbara Two," by Patrick Ireland, features a close-up portrait of a woman's face, with light and shadow playing across it by the manipulation of the light source. The woman in the piece is Barbara Novak. No master material exists for this piece that is two minutes long.

Patrick Ireland was the pseudonym of Brian O'Doherty, a funder and critic of video art.

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/Barbara374.HTML