Roberta Breitmore

For sixty years, multi-disciplinary artist Lynn Hershman Leeson has created works of art that investigate issues such as humanity and technology, surveillance, construction of self-identity and the use of media. In many ways, Leeson’s work has anticipated some of the darker aspects of the technological and digital cultures of today. In addition to writing and directing numerous feature length documentaries and dramas, Leeson works in assemblage, photography, video, performance, and installation. This early work, Roberta Breitmore, is from a series in which the artist undertook a four-year performance as the eponymous fictional character. In 1973, the artist assumed a constructed identity, partly as a psychological investigation of stereotypes, victimization, and the cultural zeitgeist at large. Brietmore went about her daily life and opened a bank account, got a driver’s license, searched for a job, placed an ad for a roommate, and joined groups such as Weight Watchers and the personal transformation training, EST. She struggled with depression, contemplated suicide, and enrolled in Ph.D. psychology classes on how people create their identities, all in a transgressive exercise that blurred the line between art and life. Roberta’s life was well documented through a series of photographs and drawings. The series ended in 1978 with an exorcism of Breitmore in Ferrara, Italy.