Born: Montreal October 1945

Dropped out of McGill University after 2 1/2 years
Dropped out of Ecole des Beaux Arts after 2 1/2 years
Dropped out of Canada circa 1983

He speaks French fairly fluently, and Japanese with Japanese, but can't read or write. Functionally illiterate, as are most foreign artists in Japan.

One of the more elusive Canadian artists in Tokyo, Michael Goldberg works in ephemeral media, mostly video. By his own choice. Not as ephemeral as dance perhaps, which may be why dancers enjoy his videos of them. After. During, they usually think the camera gets in the way of communicating with the audience. Ballet dancers have strict rules, tripod at the back of the hall, a hair placed vertically across the lens, etc. They are the most ephemeral of all. Performance artists, on the other hand, are probably the most documented artists on earth.

Most of Mr. Goldberg's personal videos are documentary style. Feature documentaries got great reviews, but lost him a lot of money. A few installation pieces use video delay to place the visitors back in time. Chroma key also places them in a different space. He cannot afford to do many of these. Every time he takes on a major exhibition, either of his own, or producing for others, he loses the ability to take on paying work. Perhaps that's why he's so elusive.

Mr. Goldberg wrote this himself, so it's hard to say which parts you should believe and which to ignore.