+Commissioned by Rhizome+
Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady: The Work of Lynn HershmanBy Lauren O'Neill-Butler
San Francisco-based artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman has a knack fordoing things three times. Here are some facts about her fiction-heavyartistic practice. From 1968 to 1972, as part of her graduate thesis,she wrote art criticism about her own work under three differentpseudonyms: Prudence Juris, Herbert Goode, and Gay Abandon. Then, inthe third year of her influential 'The Roberta Breitmore Project' (inwhich she took on a whole new identity, from 1974-1978), she enlistedthree additional incarnations of the "original" Roberta, performed byKristine Stiles, Michelle Larson, and Helen Dannenberg, with eachcarrying on Hershman's obsessive documentation of Roberta's social,professional, and "real" life. Also, from October to December 1974,she created three site-specific installations about three fictionalwomen in New York City hotel rooms, entitled 'Forming a SculptureDrama in Manhattan.' Jumping ahead several years, Hershman's secondfeature film, Teknolust (2002), showcased Tilda Swinton playing three"self replicating automatons" (SRAs) named Ruby, Olive, and Marinne,as well as their creator, the geneticist Rosetta Stone. And finally,though probably not the last instance of tripling, there are threeconcurrent exhibitions of Hershman's art this winter: 'Hershlandia,' aretrospective in Seattle at the Henry Art Gallery (11/5/05