Janet Biggs

Janet Biggs (born 1959) is an American video artist, photographer and performance artist living in New York City.

Biggs' video works often include images of individuals engaged in obsessive and extreme activities. She has worked with miners underground, champion wrestlers, speed-obsessed bikers, synchronized swimmers and arctic explorers. Her earlier video work dealt with issues of psychosis and psychotropic drugs.

In addition to videos, her recent work includes multi-discipline performances, often including multiple large-scale videos, live musicians, and athletes.

Biggs' video work has been recently presented at the Gibbes Museum of Art (Charlotte, NC), Conner Contemporary Art (Washington, DC), the McNay Museum (San Antonio, Texas), Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), Lumen Eclipse, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY), North Sea Film Festival for Underwater Movies (the Hague, Netherlands), Videonale 13 (Bonn, Germany), and the Houston Center of Photography.

Her work is in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, and The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut.

Janet Biggs was a recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts grant in 2009. She received a funding grants from Art Matters, the Arts and Science Council of Charlotte, and the Goodrich Foundation. In 2004 she received the Anonymous Was a Woman fellowship, and received a painting fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989.

In Spring 2011, Interviewfest.com interviewed Janet Biggs on May 16, 2011 for their May 2011 video edition.

In Fall 2011, The Tampa Art Museum will present "No Limit: Janet Biggs," a mid-career survey of her video works.

Biggs travelled to the far Arctic in 2009-2010, where she captured images of individuals' interaction with the extreme environment. Biggs used this footage to create three videos, "The Arctic Trilogy." These videos were premiered at Ed Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea (New York City) in February 2011. This show was reviewed in the New York Times.

In January 2009, Janet Biggs premiered the 10 minute video Vanishing Point in New York City. This video, inspired by the film Vanishing Point, combines images of Leslie Porterfield, the world's fastest woman on a motorcycle, with Harlem's Addicts Rehabilitation Center gospel choir. The video examines the struggle to maintain one's identity, the role of those who witness that identity vanishing, and a search for freedom that can end in destruction or transcendence.

On July 14, 2009, Biggs' piece Vanishing Point was screened at New York's River To River Festival. That same evening, Janet Biggs' videos accompanied an ambient performance by Anthony Gonzalez of the band M83. In April 2009 a photograph by Biggs was used as the FIM, the Official magazine of Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM).

Contemporary Magazine profiled Janet Biggs in their March 2007 issue, and one of her photographs was used as the cover of Spot magazine's Summer 2007 issue.

In 2006, Hermès commissioned Biggs to create a new work of art for their flagship New York store. Biggs installed 11 large monitors in the store's Madison Avenue windows, as well as photographs of equestrian-themed images.

Biggs lives and works in New York City, and is represented by Winkleman Gallery (New York City), Conner Contemporary Art (Washington, DC) and Solomon Projects (Atlanta).

Read more about Janet Biggs:  Selected Bibliography