LARRY LIEBERMAN

Larry at left, clockwise, Peggy Lieberman, John Hoffmann, Hans Bjelkhagen, Victor Heredia, 1980.

I first met Larry and Margaret aka Peggy (why is the nickname for Margaret Peggy?) Lieberman when they were first visitng and doing a feasibility study on working at Gallery 1134.  John ushered them into the classroom, and I got a quick look at them, and didn't see them again until I started working there.  I think that I was helping out with the Holo I class which followed mine, in preparation for eventually working at Gallery 1134.

The Liebermen were dissatisfied with their micro-managing business partners in Columbus, Ohio, and as Larry says in his book, "Dr Jeong introduced me to the idea of working at Gallery 1134. It was a pretty happening place with some funding through the CETA program (1978-79).

The CETA program, Comprehensive Education and Training Act, enacted by Richard Nixon, had the idealistic goal of training the underemployed in new fields.  Bob and Loren organized a massive scam of that program. John's and Victor's salaries came from that grant, but they used up all the original funds for the first grant, which stipulated that the CETA workers should reside in the City of Chicago. They renewed the grant, but this time it was available only for those who lived in Cook County but not in Cihicago. So John and Victor "moved", not physically, but virtually, using friends' addresses as their places of residences.

Peggy and Larry, being from Ohio, were not eligible for this grant, but they became so by using acquaintances' addresses for their domiciles, and had to resort to pretending that they were not married, as 2 members from the same family couldn't be on the grant at the same time. Nevertheless they lived together in an apartment in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, and had to pick up their checks at their friends' houses..

I have to confess to being part of the scam myself if I wanted to work there, and I disavowed my 3 years of teaching at a Catholic grade school and assumed the role of free lance photographer on the skids, living with my uncle in the suburb of Oak Lawn. Oh, how young and foolish we were, buying into Lorens' lunacy of doing anything for "the cause", even if it were illega! Plus another part of the scam was to bill the government for classes that the CETA workers did not actually take. And to take a manager's fee to be in charge of 16 workers.

So after a hard days work at 1134, us CETA Plants, Peggy, Larry, John, Victor, and myself would go over to the Lieberman's apartment, usually scoring some weed on the way at the Potomac Avenue Pot-O-Matic.  This was a curious phenomenon of street trafficking of drugs. One would pull their car over to the curb on a certain block of Potomac Street, and a grade schooler would come over and asked what you wanted and take your money, and then finger signal how many to the kid at the next stop. They sold only "nickel bags", $5 worth of not too good ditch weed, but at the time it was the only reliable source we knew. Usually for the 5 of us we would get a couple for the night.

After ordering, the next step would be to drive further up the street to another youngster, who was standing on the curb, with a brown paper bag at his feet, and he would dole out the order. The mamacitas would be looking out the windows making sure the operation was running smoothly.

With John and Victor there, we would talk positively about what was happening at 1134, but when they left, we would open up and talk about them and the Billings. Victor was OK with them, but they could see John was running around behind their backs. But the overarching problem was Bob and Loren wanted full ownership of all of Larry’s research and production, as it was done on their site.

So they went home to Columbus over the 4th or July holiday, and when they returned, they dropped the bomb on Bob and Loren that they were packing up and leaving town! Like that very day! So Larry and Peggy worked in the beautiful blue lab that Victor had built taking apart their printer, and when they went out to lunch, Loren snuck me into their lab to document their set up.

Talk about being between Scylla and Charybdis! Here I was betraying my friends, but if I didn't Loren would make my life miserable! My hands were shaking as I pointed my trusty Nikon F at Larry's handiwork. Luckily they had taken apart the configuration, so all that was left of the set up were random pieces of equipment on the table. Although the negatives came out usable, I told Loren that I screwed up the development, which displeased her since there was no documentation, but pleased her because then she could say I was a screw up. One could never win with her. But here is the contact sheet of the lab. I didn't tell Larry about this treachery until years later, and he just had to laugh!

Here are excerpts from the contact sheet, and what the space had devolved into by 2014.

And speaing of de-evolution, here is something worth a few chuckles, if you find rewriting of history laughable, from the Mosheum of Holography's Facebook page:

May 10th, 2016:

Ed's Comments:
“UPDATE: Had an opportunity to connect with Larry Lieberman, noted Holographer and Artist, and wanted to share some additional info about the picture of the recently demolished "Blue HoloLab".

While we were initially led to believe that Victor Heredia built this isolation table, it turns out that Larry actually constructed it himself.”

An absolute lie by Moshe, designed to denigrate Victor.  Both Victor and I got in touch via telephone with Larry, reliving the good old times of hanging out in their Humboldt Park apartment and running the Billingses through the wringer, and of course he said no such thing. Moshe tries to get away with this lie with impunity, as any other viewer of the Mosheum page would not necessarily have access to our friend and colleague, as we all had worked together at 1134, with Larry being the first of us to leave, check out the companion to this timeline, and look around fall of 1979 to summer of 1980.  Larry did not have a fun time there.

And as added proof of the deceitful nature of Moshe’s post, we have good old Tri-X B&W negatives taken by Al Ornelas, showing Victor and Larry building the lab, but first we need to scan or print them.  Sorry.  Sooner or later.

“We had always wondered why the "Blue HoloLab" (NW corner) had a much more finished and refined appearance compared to the "Black HoloLab" (NE corner). This explains it. Larry said he even laid all the intricate blue tiles himself.”

No matter how you slice it, “Baloney!”

"Larry confirmed that this was the HoloLab in which he set up his stereoscopic hologram printer.
He stated that he spent about a year working out of this MOH HoloLab, with the objective of producing Large Format Holograms. This may help explain some of the equipment we found in the Blue HoloLab.

Larry confirmed that during the time he spent working out of the MOH, he did in fact make holograms.”

And that was where the problems set in, the Billingses wanted full ownership of all of Larry’s production, which was one of the reasons the Liebermans decided to leave around the 4th of July of 1980, if you look at the above link. And his time spent there was certainly less than a year.

“As he explains it in the comments, "Dr Jeong introduced me to the idea of working at MOH. It was a pretty happening place with some funding through the CITA (sic) program (1978-79)".’

It’s CETA program, Comprehensive Education and Training Act, enacted by Richard Nixon.  Bob and Loren organized a massive scam of that program, billing the government for classes that the CETA workers did not take, amongst other abuses, like 2 of the CETA workers dying because of Loren’s actions or lack of them.  Another reason for Larry and Peggy to leave.

“By any definition, Larry was an "Artist in Residence" at the MOH.

These are all interesting facts that support the historical significance of Chicago's Museum of Holography.
Thank you, Larry!”

And since Moshe only met Loren once, he mis-identified her in one of the pictures that goes with this post. That's Peggy Lieberman with her hand on Larry's shoulder, not Loren Billings, who may have been the one who took the picture.

During the time we worked there, Loren had a pair of bright red pigtails not unlike Lousie Lasser in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman! The blonde bowl cut came in 1982 or 1983. And no holographer would have ever seen her in her bee hive that Moshe uses as his avatar on the Mosheum FB page. And it cracks me up to see that image and imagining hearing her voice in my head while reading, but in reality it's a big bearded hipster who is writing it. Is it my imagination or is this not unlike Norman Bates and his relationship to his mother in Hitchcock's Psycho?

Also the date is off, the Liebermans arrived in Fall of 1979 and left by the 4th of July of 1980, although this may have been the result of a brain fart on the part of Hans Bjelkhagen.

Larry's fortunes certainly turned out for the better after leaving 1134, getting to work with blue chip artists like Chuck Close, Roy Liechtenstein, Larry Rivers, James Turrell, Louise Bourgeois, etc. in his c Project, as evidenced in Larry's autobiographical magnum opus, The Holo-Dam Universe, in first edition format, written on a computer evidently without spell check. May he rest in peace!