Video History Project

People

Dieter Froese

Dieter Froese was one of the first video installation artists, though he also worked in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, performance and film. More than 30 years ago, he was a prominent member of the first generation of artists who lived and worked in the bare lofts of Lower Manhattan. His multimedia works, shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as across Europe and the United States, were drawn in part from his experience as a child of war.

Hans-Dietrich Froese was born on October 9, 1937, in the now-vanished state of East Prussia, the son of a prosperous cheesemaker, outside the town of Tilsit, which is now Sovetsk in western Russia. In the closing months of World War II, he fled with his mother through rubble and ruination, watched Berlin fall to the Red Army from a forest outside the city and finally found shelter with relatives outside Nuremberg. A Ford Foundation grant brought him to the United States in 1964; he became a permanent resident in 1969.

Within five years he was a leading early member of the artist-led independent gallery movement, with notable exhibitions including "Ideas at the Idea Warehouse" in 1975 and the first exhibition ever held at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in 1976. With Kay Hines, whom he married in 1979, Mr. Froese founded Dekart Video, which over the last quarter-century produced videos for public television, leading museums and institutions from the Smithsonian to the rock 'n' roll band R.E.M. A characteristic work "Imprecise Details -- Not a Model for Big Brother's Spy Cycle" was exhibited at International Center of Photography in New York in 1990 and in the Stadtisches Kunstmuseum in Bonn in 1988.

It created a theater of fear, playing on themes of video surveillance that reached back to the Cold War and forward to the 21st century. - excerpted from NY Times, July 4, 2006

Cite this record

"Dieter Froese." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/dieter-froese.

Download RIS citation
Summary

Dieter Froese (Hans-Dietrich Froese), born October 9, 1937 in East Prussia near Tilsit (now Sovetsk, Russia), was an early video installation artist who also worked in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, performance and film. He was a prominent member of the first-generation loft artists in Lower Manhattan and exhibited at major museums and venues in the United States and Europe. A Ford Foundation grant brought him to the United States in 1964 and he became a permanent resident in 1969. He co-founded Dekart Video to produce videos for public television and institutions; his Imprecise Details was shown at ICP New York and in Bonn.

Submit a change or correction

If unchecked, this will appear as a public note on the site immediately. Spam filters may delay publication, but all submissions are reviewed by staff.

Changes will be reviewed and integrated as time permits. For major changes, feel free to email [email protected].

Last modified 17 June 2011

Related records

  • Davidson Gigliotti People

    Davidson Gigliotti, an original member of the alternative video collectives Videofreex and Media Bus, served as Director of Video at the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York from 1975 to 1987 and is described as one of video’s pioneers. His single-channel tapes and multi-channel video installations study urban and rural environments to recreate the experience of place, and he produced anthologies of contemporary performance artists and musicians. Born in 1939, he attended the Rhode Island School of Design and New York University; he received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS) and held residencies at KTCA-TV Minneapolis, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochestor, and WXXI-TV Rochester; distribution noted as Electronic Arts Intermix Early Video Project (http://208.55.137.252/).

  • Christian Marclay People

    Christian Marclay is a New York based visual artist and composer born in California and raised in Geneva; he studied sculpture at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at Cooper Union in New York. As a performer and sound artist he has experimented, composed and performed with phonograph records and turntables since 1979 to create his theater of found sound; he is also described as a dadaist DJ and filmmaker. His installations and video/film collages have been included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Venice Biennale; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthaus Zurich; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; website: http://www.mcachicago.org

  • Collaborations in Art, Science and Technology: Descriptions (1976, 1998) Groups

    CAST was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts in 1970 to explore creative uses of video and exhibited at the Everson Museum in 1975; the Scalas were included in New Work in Abstract Video Imagery (1977) at the Everson. Community Video ran June 2–28, 1975 at the Everson Museum. Joseph Scala held a BS in Mathematics and a postgraduate degree from Cornell and taught at Syracuse University's Department of Experimental Studios, introducing computers into artistic practice; Patsy Scala, with a background in poetry, was artist in residence at the SI Newhouse School, accessed 2" recording technology and attended a Ken Knowlton workshop.

  • Interview with Peer Bode Interview

    Peer Bode discusses his long involvement with the Experimental Television Center (ETC; 1971–78 Binghamton, 1978–present Owego, NY), where he taught resident artists, developed and modified low-cost video tools and studio practices, and collaborated with figures such as Nam June Paik. He contrasts 1970s material- and process-focused electronic practices (portapaks, Paik-Abe synthesizer, SEG) with 1980s appropriation and corporate funding pressures, noting distribution via WNET and publications like Radical Software. Bode produced Video Locomotion (1978) and Music on Triggering Surfaces (1978) and directs the Video Arts Program at the N.Y.S.C.C. at Alfred University.

  • Alex Hahn People

    Alex Hahn, born 1954 in Rapperswil, Switzerland, is an artist who has lived in Rome, Berlin, Warsaw and New York; his practice includes video installations, computer animations, videotapes, writings, prints and a chamberdancevideoplay. He studied in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (1981–82), was a member of Istituto Svizzero in Roma (1990) and held fellowships in Berlin (1991–94) from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst and at Art+Com; he lived in Warsaw 1995–96. His work employs electronic and photonic media; solo exhibitions 1993–2002 include Musee Jenisch (Vevey), Kunsthalle Winterthur, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein and the International Center of Photography; a CV is available at the listed URL.

  • Creative Artists Public Service Program (CAPS). Annual Report 1979-80 Bibliography

    The Creative Artists Public Service Program was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts to support individual artists’ work in a variety of disciplines. 1979-80 Awards for Video Artists’ Bios: Mark J. Brady has self-produced two video documentaries (Preachin' the Blues, Son House and Giovan…