[JEANSELLEM VIEWER] — TERRY BERKOWITZ I'M NOT REALLY AFRAID OF THE DARK 03.01 - 09.01.1976 — Categories: press, letters, visual — Keywords: Galerie S:t Petri, Jean Sellem, archive — Category: press — Galerie S:t PetriS:t Petri Kyrkogata 5Lund“I’m not really afraid of the dark” is the title TERRY BERKOWITZ from the USA has given to her exhibition at Galerie S:t Petri, Lund, which takes place from 3 to 9 January 1976. The gallery is darkened; inside, a lamp in the shape of a rabbit is lit, and speech can be heard from a tape recorder.Terry Berkowitz, who has not previously exhibited in Europe, began working with film, video and conceptual art in 1972. She later came to work with human behavior, sociology and the manipulation of reality.Speaking about the exhibition in Lund, Terry Berkowitz says: “Our fear is a manipulated and distorted expression of our reality. Sometimes this fear remains unconscious. The things we imagine allow us to sublimate the actual anxiety. In this exhibition, a personal experience that repeatedly occurred at night during my childhood is manifested. By presenting an image, my own particular distortions are communicated to someone else; a transference of realities takes place, and the viewer relives his or her own previous experiences. By repeating another person’s experience of anxiety, it is possible to discover previously unknown information, which may perhaps lead one to come to terms with one’s anxiety-filled past.”The exhibition is open weekdays from 3–8 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays from 12–5 p.m. — — — Category: press — galerie s:t petri s:t petri kyrkogata 5 fack 7 221 01 lund 1 sverige tel 046-14 78 00jean sellemFrancesc TorresTerry BerkowitzJune 26, 1975Dear Terry and Francesc,I must appologize for not having written to you sooner, but I have been so very busy preparing another two rooms for my archive of experimental and conceptual art. Please excuse me!I am very interested in showing the works of both of you. My thoughts were to let you have an exhibit of one week each, starting for one of you 3 - 9 January, and the other 10 - 16 January. You can decide yourself which one of you should start. Please inform me immediately if the dates suit you.Galerie S:t Petri is always loosing money. It is neither a commercial enterprise, nor an institution. Therefore I would appreciate if you could pay the printing costs and postage. The sum would be $ 50 (postage for both of you is included as well as the printing of the two posters).I would like each of you to send ten press-photos, black and white, of your work to inform the international and local press. Then I need texts telling me about this specific manifestation. The exhibition material, the photos and the texts should be in Lund before the 1st of November.Please keep me informed about your activities. I am interested in receiving material for my archive from you or friends of yours, who are working with some kind of experimentation.Sincerely,Jean Sellem — — — — — Category: letters — October 14, 1975Dear Jean –Enclosed please find one check made out to you in Swedish crowns. According to the Bank of Vizcaya in Barcelona this amount should correspond to $50 U.S.We hope there are no problems cashing it – it should be possible for your bank to take care of it.The package with our projects and supplementary objects was mailed airmail the same day as this letter from Barcelona. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for its safe arrival.Please let us know in N.Y. if everything arrived okay at:Terry BerkowitzP.O. Box 453Knickerbocker Sta.New York, N.Y. 10002U.S.A.Again, thank you.Regards,Terry & Francesc — — — Category: press — February 4, 1976Galerie S:t PetriFack 7Lund 22101SWEDENDear Jean and Marie,Since I haven't heard from you regarding how my show went, I thought I would write. Was there any feedback about the show from either newspapers or people? I hope that you didn't have any problems setting up the show. Please write to let me know if everything was okay.Terry was very pleased with the press releases that were printed there. She sends her thanks for the information you sent.We would like to suggest two people whose work you may be interested in showing, Angels Ribe and Billy Apple. We have taken the liberty of giving them your address and we expect that you will be hearing from them soon. We hope you will find their work interesting.Write and give me the information I requested as soon as possible.Again, thanks very much.Warm regards,Francesc Torres — — — Category: visual — Dear Marie and Jean,We have received the notification of the safe arrival of our work in Sweden. Our fantastic trip to Spain is over and it's back to the cold, gray, treelessness of New York City.We would each appreciate 25 posters of our shows, both for our own files and to send to people here and in Europe. Please send them as soon as possible so we can mail them out.Francesc will also be showing in Gallery Akumulatory 2 in Poznan, Poland in January, I will have a show there in either October or Nov. of 1976. Any future shows that we participate in shall have Galerie St: Petri on the mailing list for announcements.We are keeping our eyes open for interesting work to notify you of, and hopefully we will see you in New York some time in the near future (we are anticipating that you WILL make a visit sometime).Regards,Francesc TorresTerry Berkowitz — — — Category: letters — 119 Chrystie St.New York, N.Y. 10002April 19, 1976Dear Marie,How is everything? I'm writing again this time to you because I have a special favor to ask you. Since you are involved in psychology would it be possible for you to make a written analysis of the performance of my show from a psychologist's point of view? In other words, maybe an elaboration and extension of what Jean wrote me in his last letter which I was going to include in my portfolio of this exhibition. Needless to say that your help would be acknowledged as one of the elements of the final statement. I hope I am not imposing on you too much in asking for your help.Terry and I received the posters and the book about Contextual Art which, by the way, is very interesting. I'm planning eventually to write an open letter to discuss some points which seem to me to be a bit confused. Right now I'm working on my project for the Bienal of Venice. This year the Bienal would be particularly interesting with the effort by the official left to absorb the "avantgarde" art events (Bologna will be another example). In this year's Bienal the Italian Communist Party has a definite influence. Due to this, the project that I am presenting is based on the mythological substrata of Marxist philosophy as a counterpart to its assumed scientific nature. We'll see what happens.... I'll let you know the results.Let me know if it is possible and if you have the interest to do what I have asked you. I await your reply.Terry and I send warm regards to you and Jean. — — — Category: visual — galerie s:t petri s:t petri kyrkogata 5 fack 7 221 01 lund 1 sverige tel 046-14 78 00jean sellemMay 28, 1976Dear Francesc and Terry,I have unfortunately not been able to write to you before. Partly it is because I have been travelling, partly it depends on my hesitation of what to write.You see, the text that Jean sent to you in March actually was the result of serious discussions between the two of us, so it is as well my thoughts as his. But I must say that ever since the performance in January I have had a particular interest in the problems that must arise when you are not able to use your ears in a proper sense. Somehow you have to compensate this.Recently on a conference of psychological research I met with a psychologist from Stockholm who has been working with deaf persons for many years. His hypothesis is that the visual code is deepened in the non-hearing person. In different kinds of experimental research he tries to find out wether this is the case or not. However, I just have this information from a very informal meeting and I cannot go so much further.Of course, watching is vital for all of us - but it is even more important for the one who does not hear his environment. To be able to do this he has to strengthen the one sense that comes next, i.e. vision. The British author David Wright, who became deaf at the age of seven, writes in his book Deafness:"Suppose it is a calm day, absolutely still, not a twig or leaf stirring. To me it will seem quiet as a tomb though hedgerows are full of noisy but invisible birds. Then comes a breath of air, enough to unsettle a leaf; I will see and hear that movement like an exclamation. The illusory soundlessness has interrupted. I see, as if I heard, a visionary noise of wind in a disturbance of foliage. Wordsworth in a late poem exactly caught the phenomenon in a remarkable line: 'A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs....'"Regarding your particular action at the Galerie S:t Petri with an eight year old boy performing I do not think you can draw as drastic solutions as for the deaf, especially not with one sole example. But - it does make you very much more attentive to the world of both completely non-hearing individuals and of less hearing persons. We have much to learn from them.Francesc, I do hope these thoughts of mine have added something to the first statement. Please inform us about how your work goes.Did you receive the photos? Are they suitable? It would be nice to know.All the best to both of you form both of us.Marie Sellem — — — — — Category: press — [TOP LEFT]Darkened galleryTerry Berkowitz from the USA calls her exhibition at Galerie S:t Petri in Lund “I’m not really afraid of the dark”. The gallery is darkened. Inside, a lamp in the shape of a rabbit is glowing. Speech can be heard from a tape recorder.Terry Berkowitz has not previously exhibited in Europe. She began working with film, video and conceptual art in 1972. Later she became concerned with human behaviour, sociology and the manipulation of reality.— Our fear is a manipulated and distorted expression of our reality, she says, among other things, about the exhibition in Lund. Sometimes this fear remains unconscious.— By presenting an image, my particular sensations are communicated to someone else, a transfer of realities takes place, and the viewer relives his or her own earlier experiences.By repeating another person’s experience of anxiety, it is possible to discover previously unknown information. This can lead one to come to terms with an anxiety-filled past.The exhibition runs through 9 January. It is open on weekdays from 3 pm to 8 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 noon to 5 pm.[Caption]Only the “rabbit lamp” is glowing.[TOP RIGHT]APB 3.1.76US artist makes European debut with a little rabbit[Caption]This is what the exhibition looks like...LUND: Terry Berkowitz from the USA calls her exhibition at Galerie S:t Petri in Lund “I’m not really afraid of the dark”. The gallery is darkened. Inside, a lamp in the shape of a rabbit is glowing. Speech can be heard from a tape recorder. That is all there is.Terry Berkowitz, who has never previously exhibited in Europe, began working with film, video and conceptual art in 1972.— Later she became concerned with human behaviour, sociology and the manipulation of reality, says the gallery’s director Jean Sellem.About the exhibition in Lund, Terry Berkowitz says:— Our fear is a manipulated and distorted expression of our reality. Sometimes this fear remains unconscious. The things we imagine allow us to sublimate the underlying anxiety.In this exhibition, a personal experience is manifested which continually recurred at night during my childhood.— By presenting an image, my own particular distortions are communicated to someone else; a transfer of realities takes place and the viewer relives his or her own earlier experiences.REPEATED— By repeating another person’s experience of anxiety, it is possible to discover previously unknown information, which may lead one to come to terms with an anxiety-filled past.The exhibition is open on weekdays from 3 pm to 8 pm and on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 noon to 5 pm, and runs through 9 January.[BOTTOM]On fear at Galerie S:t Petri:American artist conveys a childhood dream“I’m not really afraid of the dark” is what Terry Berkowitz from the USA calls her exhibition at Galerie S:t Petri. The gallery is darkened — from outside, all one can see are windows completely covered with black plastic sheets. Inside, a lamp in the shape of a rabbit is glowing. Speech can be heard from a tape recorder.Berkowitz, who has not previously exhibited in Europe, began working with film, video and conceptual art in 1972. Later she became concerned with human behaviour, sociology and the manipulation of reality.TRANSFERAbout the exhibition in Lund she says: Our fear is a manipulated and distorted expression of our reality. Sometimes this fear remains unconscious. The things we imagine allow us to sublimate the underlying anxiety. In this exhibition, a personal experience is manifested which continually recurred at night during my childhood. By presenting an image, my own particular distortions are communicated to someone else, a transfer of realities takes place and the viewer relives his or her own earlier experiences. By repeating another person’s experience of anxiety, it is possible to discover previously unknown information, which may lead one to come to terms with an anxiety-filled past.The exhibition runs from 3–9 January and is open on weekdays from 3 pm to 8 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 noon to 5 pm.[Caption]Childhood dream. — — — Category: press — Darkened galleryTerry Berkowitz from the USA calls her exhibition at Galerie S:t Petri in Lund “I’m not really afraid of the dark”. The gallery is darkened. Inside, a lamp in the shape of a rabbit is glowing. Speech can be heard from a tape recorder.Terry Berkowitz has not previously exhibited in Europe. She began working with film, video and conceptual art in 1972. Later she became concerned with human behaviour, sociology and the manipulation of reality.— Our fear is a manipulated and distorted expression of our reality, she says, among other things, about the exhibition in Lund. Sometimes this fear remains unconscious.— By presenting an image, my particular sensations are communicated to someone else, a transfer of realities takes place, and the viewer relives his or her own earlier experiences.“By repeating another person’s experience of anxiety, it is possible to discover previously unknown information. This can lead one to come to terms with an anxiety-filled past.”The exhibition runs through 9 January. It is open on weekdays from 3 pm to 8 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 noon to 5 pm.[Caption]Only the “rabbit lamp” is glowing.